Friends Project: T&W Behavioural Support Plan

FRIENDS’ – A PROJECT EXPLORING FRIENDSHIP AND BULLYING THROUGH DRAMA AND CREATIVE GAMES.

During the Summer and Autumn Terms 1998, this project was undertaken in two Telford Primary Schools with year 4 and 5 pupils, funded by Wrekin Community Safety Partnership. In each of the schools, Three Oaks and Stirchley Primary, the visiting drama specialist worked for six mornings with the same class, with the class teacher and other members of staff involved in planning and evaluation. The drama worker, Cathy Mackerras, experienced in drama in both community and educational settings, had the previous year worked in 8 Telford Primary Schools (Key stages 1 and 2) on projects aiming to foster co-operation, interaction, and creative development in children through drama (funded through the Arts Lottery programme).

There were two main strands to the ‘Friends’ project. One was the exploration of friendship and bullying through drama exercises, creative games, and improvisation. This centred on developing the children’s readiness to listen, watch, trust and work creatively together, drawing on their own experiences of friendships and looking at strategies for dealing with ‘unfriendly’ behaviour. The other was to extend the children’s experience of playing games with a view to fostering friendships and positive play, both within and across age/phase in classes and in the playground. Year 2 children were involved in some activities as part of this work, as were lunchtime and special needs assistants.

The children responded very positively to this project, which gave them opportunities to build on many ‘ground rules’ for working together, developed confidence, extended friendships and gave a context in which they could explore attitudes, feelings, experiences, actions and alternatives. There was a considerable amount of written follow-up work, evaluations in written and video form, and an assembly to the whole school plus parents. Both schools were supportive and enthusiastic about the project, and a second phase will take place early next year involving other schools.