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Adrienne Katz consultant Developed for Coventry Council Inclusion Team
Year 5 /6 activity with children who have SEN or disabilities.
Discussion in small groups with one facilitator.
AIMS:
To explore how people who are different are being treated now and what schools might be do
to improve this.
To give children a voice and agency in deciding on the strategies for inclusion.
NB. This activity must avoid in any way showing children with SEN or disabilities as victims or
weak. The bears are chosen because they are lovable, attractive and non-football playing. Do
not substitute other animals. This story has been tried with many groups of year 5 and 6.
The story:
Goldilocks is very friendly with little bear. But they go to different schools. He goes to
a school for bears and she goes to a children’s school. One day Goldilocks takes her
friend little bear to school with her and she helps him manage, even though he doesn’t
speak the language used in her school and his legs are too short to play football.
What do you think needs to happen to help bear manage at Goldilocks’ school?
Discussion.
The other children think he is cuddly and he gets helped. His Bear school was very
different. He struggles a bit but he likes it at Goldilocks’ school. He decides to stay
here. Then he tells lots of his friends about this different kind of Goldilocks school and
they leave Bear school and come to Goldilocks’ school. Now there are a lot of bears at
Goldilocks’ school. What kinds of things would the school need to do for them to make
them feel happy and safe to learn and play?
‘Goldilocks’ friends might try and help.’
‘Bears might need some friends to help them around. I’ve shown people around the school.’
‘Assistants – they might even need a disabled lift or a slope.’
‘When they’re hurt you need to give them some respect.’
‘Maybe they need their own game?’
Children have told us that it’s OK to be different and the world would be boring if
we were all the same, but they also tell us that people who are different get
picked on. Do you think this might happen to the bears?
‘If there’s children… and the teachers find out they’re being nasty to them, they could
separate them.’
‘They could split them up on the playground and one could go on each side.’
‘The playground is the main time, that’s when it happens.’
‘The bears would need help.’
‘If they can’t play football they’ll have problems’
What sort of problems?
Once more the dominance of football and the problems with play were raised. No amount of
services or assistants seems to be enough for people to feel good about their social lives if
the dominant social patterns of the playground exclude them. A number of bullying methods
usually emerge at this stage in the discussion.
This introductory story is used frequently to address difference both in language, culture and
physical ability.
Below is another discussion about play and inclusion where the children were from different
schools:
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Adrienne Katz consultant Developed for Coventry Council Inclusion Team
* ‘Some people won’t let other people play sometimes.’
‘I just play by myself because I don’t like football and everyone plays it.’
‘Sometimes with football it’s really bad as well because people choose teams, and all the
good players are all on one team and they always win and it gets really boring.’
Why does that happen?
‘Cos all the good players are popular and have loads of friends so they all choose to be on the
same team and then they always win.’
Does that happen at your school?
‘No ‘cos the referees choose them and they just give them numbers and pick odd, even.’
‘Our school has dinner ladies in the playground and they watch over us and help us keep
safe’.
‘In the playground teachers just say ‘keep away from them’ (bullies). We have peer
supporters and they are year 6 children who wear red and you go up to them and tell them
how you’ve been picked on and teased and they say tell us about it and if it happens again
we’ll sort it out and tell a teacher.’
*Do some children get left out of the games then?
‘Yeah some people, if they’re not good – they still can play but if they can’t pass the ball to
you then you don’t pass to them again.’
‘We have Owl people, they help sort out problems and that and help people join in. And
there’s a bench where people can sit and the Owl people talk to them.’
Do either of your schools have things like that?
‘Yeah we have peer mediators, they walk about lunchtimes and find people who are left out
and try and make friends with them.’
Does that work?
‘It does sometimes.’
‘Not all the time.’
‘Cos if they’re really hate each other they might have a fight.’
How about your school?
‘We have, but teachers don’t speak to us, people just forget about us.’
‘What scheme do you have there?’
‘In lower school, year 1 and 2 are allowed to go to another place and have mediators from big
school but we don’t have anything.’
‘In my old school we used to have a big wall, so where all the fights go was behind that wall
so the teachers don’t hear.’
‘Two days a week Harry comes to our school. He is in a special language unit. Some people
are his friends but some don’t like him to play. He tries very hard to fit in – but some kids try to
get him into a game and others just don’t. He doesn’t play football very well.’
‘My sister’s got problem… and she’s got speech problems. She gets stuck sometimes
…She’s OK but people don’t understand her properly. She can’t make friends and nobody
likes to play with her.’
‘No-one in her class (picks on her). Sometimes we go on school trips and sometimes people
from other schools take the mick but we always back her up. I’ve only been here for 7
months, I’m fairly new but my class have already taught me that you treat her as a normal
human being. Just ‘cos some people….’
‘They’re not used to it.’
How can we change the fact that some people are ‘not used to it’
‘We could have, at my old school we had a group they came to different schools and told
them about different things sometimes, safety on the roads and sometimes disability – it
would help.’
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Adrienne Katz consultant Developed for Coventry Council Inclusion Team
‘A teacher came last year to talk about deaf people.’
How could schools help people like your sister to make friends?
‘You could have a special make friends club and tell them what friendship means and make
them friends.’
‘You could have special things to help them get around. We have a lift to help people get
around and get around the playground better – they can feel more better ‘cos they’re treated
nearly the same.’
‘More apparatus – some toys on the grass.’
‘Having a lesson that helps you make friendships.’
‘It depends – maybe if it’s not just people who have difficulties – maybe it should be for
children with social needs, not just difficulties.’
‘When you do TV club, tell people who have problems to make friend. You could have a
different club – one for girls and one for boys and boys can learn how to make friends with
girls.’
‘No, I think that’s a bit sexist – it might not work. It’s easier if you’re both together. We should
treat boys and girls exactly the same, not say ones better than the other.’
‘We have peer mediation – if someone’s sitting on their own they have yellow vests and they
go and talk to them and see what’s wrong and if they’ve got no-one to play with or if you’ve
got a problem you can talk to them as well or if there’s no peer mediation usually a child goes
over and asks them to play.’
‘We’ve got owls, they do the same thing – they go over and help the problem.’
Does this work?
‘Yeah, if people remember, but they keep forgetting to go out and do it, they keep going ‘Oh
god, yeah I’m supposed to be helping out.’
Another speaker comes forward…
‘I know what it’s like being picked on it’s awful.’
Did the teachers help stop it?
‘Yes, well I don’t actually know (what they did) because I just get myself out of it by telling the
teacher.’
And that stops it?
‘Yeah, then I just go off and play something else.’
What might we have to change to make that not happen any more?
‘Could try and teach and learn how to help.’
How could we try and teach people that?
‘I know why bullies bully other people ‘cos they only do it ‘cos they’re afraid.’
How do you stop bullies feeling afraid?
‘I don’t think we can help them unless we find out what the bullies are afraid of.’
Can you think of any other things that might help them stop bullying?
‘They’re jealous of the person they’re bullying. If the person they’re bullying was smarter.’
Can you think of any ways you could help the bully?
‘Well, there is one way (they can see) what’s like to be the victim. A bully from one school
might be in the top class bullying some other person in another school, then they move up to
a higher school and suddenly they become the victim.’
‘Teach them like to have a special teacher and take them out and teach them special things
about respecting.’
‘Tell them about it – say the meaning about it, shout at them a little bit and tell them what
about if you are the person you’re doing it too.’
What happens when children are picked on? You’ve mentioned you tell the
teacher and it seems to stop.
‘The victims could go home and tell their parents and their parents could go to the bully’s
parents and then they can sort it out.’
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Adrienne Katz consultant Developed for Coventry Council Inclusion Team
‘I was bullied and told my parents and they spoke to the person’s mum.’
Did that stop it?
‘Yes, but sometimes the person being bullied is too scared to tell because they feel
threatened.’
‘If that happens, they normally retaliate and get in trouble themselves.’
‘They just tell the teachers.’
Here we understand that bullies may intimidate their victim so that they are too scared to tell.
In desperation they may eventually retaliate and get into trouble.
Who knows of some good ideas that work?
‘We have a Worry box and a Bully Box – it gets sorted out on Fridays, two people from the
school council, the chair and the secretary go round and do the agenda in year 5 and year 6.
They empty these boxes. But sometimes the chair people forget so it’d be good to have a day
or special time for it.’
Do all the children know who the school council children are?
‘Our photograph is on the wall and in the book we have. Before assembly we go to the
younger classes and help them come in. We change and go to different ones. Each Friday
before assembly we send two children to their class (that they are looking after) and walk
them in to assembly. Squaddies come and tell you to award a certificate that they think a
person has been a nice child.’
Any other ideas?
‘We have Golden Time near the end of the day on Fridays. You can go to youth club, and
play darts, you can learn that instrument what’s it called? There are board games, computers.
Each class has a Golden Time list and you choose what you’d like to do. If you’ve been
naughty you get to miss it. If you’ve been really really naughty the whole class could lose their
Golden Time.’
So how would you teach children about differences?
‘We had a conference with a little drama on racism and let them think about the ending. We
had a bag of oranges and showed them to the children. We said each take an orange and
look at it carefully. Can you see which is your orange? Like they have bumps on the skin.
Then we peeled the oranges and they all looked the same so we said we are all the same on
the inside.’
What a brilliant game. Any other ways you can use?
‘We do art and music. Songs that are part of stories.’
‘A message in a song.’
Thank you. So we’ve talked about how we are all different and we’ve been thinking
about how schools can help children to fit in. And you’ve told me about how you’d
stop children getting picked on. But something else children have told us about is that
when they get told off for bad behaviour, some other children might not get the same
telling off because they have some special needs. A few children felt that this was
unfair. So what needs to happen?
‘Tell the class, explain.’
So if you were teachers then, and the teachers were your class, what else would you
do?
‘We’d like to tell the teachers off! If we had a play about racism and they didn’t get on.’
The next activity is below.
If you were a teacher and you had your class in front of you,
what would you put in your lesson?
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Adrienne Katz consultant Developed for Coventry Council Inclusion Team
LESSON PLAN
‘We have Circle time where the whole class sits on the ground. They look at the person on
one side of them and have a little talk and try to learn something about them you didn’t know
before. I sat next to XX I did know her but I didn’t know much about her. I learned that she
wants to be in this football team!’
‘I’d do something about bullying. A drama group, they tell you what you think about it, how
you should do to stop it. We’ve just upgraded punishment for it one level, we have to stay in
at playtime and do lines.’
WHAT WOULD YOU TEACH?
‘Manners, so everybody will be nicer to each other.’
‘How to behave with each other.’
‘We could teach them how to look after children with disabilities and show them round.’
‘If they were really picking on each other, like some people pick on others that are different,
then they won’t understand why they can’t join in.’
‘To not bully other children so they don’t.’
‘How to treat them and how to help them.’
‘How they can play and skip.’
HOW WOULD YOU TEACH IT?
‘I’d tell them what it’s like for people who’ve been struggling and how to help you over come it.
There’s a boy in our class with behaviour difficulties and he was suspended from school for a
week. We could help children in class to know who he must be feeling or how we can help
him stop doing what he’s doing.’
‘About children who are on the road and run away with their families and how we can stop
doing that.’
‘Tell the class that people have problems writing and reading and to help them and don’t just
leave them and talk to them and try to help them ‘cos people on my table sometimes help with
my work. I’d like them to help me with showing me what to do and stuff and help me because
I always get stuck and don’t even know what it means. I wanna work it out though so I they
could give me a clue or something but not just tell me the answer.’
‘I’m not sure what I’d teach but an idea for the class would be to teach them about blind
people. Blindfold them and then take it in turns to see what it’s like.’
‘You could play Blindman’s bluff and have you’re eyes covered and try to catch someone.’
‘Take people out at different times and you’ve got less people there which will help people to
understand and ask questions.’
‘We could do a pairs game and shout out – like each person gets a pair card and whoever
else has got it, he or she’s your partner for the day and you have to say nice things about
each other.’
Does that happen in your school now?
‘Yes.’
‘Have 1 section for children with disabilities and other children could go there and ask
questions.’
Other suggestions:
Art therapy
Outings to centres outside of school
Write a statement of values
Reward good behaviour
Art, pictures, poems, games, writing stories.
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Adrienne Katz consultant Developed for Coventry Council Inclusion Team
Are there other things you would do to teach your class?
‘We could ask children to write a story about disability in English – or a poem’.
‘You could get the class to explain to other people about the disabled person in your class
and then ask them questions and see if they’ve listened or not’ .
‘We could play games and pretend we had a disability and then ask them about what they
would do and what it would feel like’.
‘You could do art and pictures about being different and they’d be able to see the stories in
pictures’.
‘I think if you were getting picked on for being different you could do something in the class
about being picked on and the causes of it’.
‘I’d make a big speech in the whole school assembly about bullying. I’d say it can happen to
you and don’t be so horrible. We are all still human and we all still have hearts and lungs and
stuff and the most important thing is our personality not how we are different’.
What things children with SEN might want others to know
‘Your life.’
‘Just because you’re different doesn’t make you weird – you’re still a normal person.’
‘You need to make friends and start to do that, start to realise it.’
‘If someone is different don’t laugh at them.’
‘It’s about having respect.’
‘You should have respect anyway.’
‘I’d make lots of posters and them all around the school and say ‘We may be different, but it’s
the personality that matters.’
Developing a statement of values
So let’s think about what you’ve said. You’ve explained the kinds of help children need,
and how you could teach them about difference and behaviour and how to help with
fear, which is really good. So could we think for a moment about how we want to be
treated?
Ask each child in turn. ‘’With respect’ or ‘nicely’ are the consensus.
If you are going to be treated with respect, what needs to happen? Do we need a
code or a set of sentences that say this?
‘We’ve got Golden Rules at school’ (prompted by teacher).
I’m not thinking so much about rules, but more about what do you want say about
children? Remember how you want to be treated.
The children’s Statement of Values below shows the statements they produced within
the last three minutes of the discussion.
Statement of values
EVERYBODY IS EQUAL,
EVERYBODY HAS THE SAME FEELINGS
EVERYBODY HURTS INSIDE
EVERYBODY NEEDS THE SAME THINGS
TREAT EACH OTHER WITH RESPECT
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SIT PROPERLY AND KEEP YOUR HANDS AND FEET TO YOURSELF.
That is really good ‘cos children have a right to education and a right to be safe.
One boy says
‘I don’t even know much about my rights.’ The group decides to add:
‘EVERY CHILD SHOULD HAVE THE SAME RIGHTS.’
‘Bullies don’t really think anybody has rights.’
‘Everyone has the right to live…Once you’re created what are you there for?’
‘Once you’re created your right is to live safely.’
This material may be used in school settings but is copyrighted for a book and
may not be reproduced or sold.
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