We have the pleasure of working with schools across the West Midlands which are made up of students and staff from diverse cultural backgrounds making celebrating and understanding this diversity more important than ever. 

Anti-bullying Week will take place from the 14th to the 18th of November and we’ll be showing our support by taking part in Odd Socks Day and we’ll be doing our bit internally to promote kindness by running Kindness Bingo.

But we also want to do our bit to support our teachers and teaching assistants. We strongly believe that every child deserves to feel valued and comfortable in their classroom and one of the best ways to do this is to create a culture of kindness amongst your students. We’ve collated our tips from our school staff and shared them below. 

Lead by example

As a teacher, you are both an educator and role model so one of the best ways to get your students to be kind is by showing them how! Always make sure you use manners and be nice to everyone you interact with (especially in front of the students). Eventually, the class will learn from your actions and replicate them in their everyday lives!

Get them involved in a challenge 

To get the whole class involved! In the morning, before lessons begin, give your students a list full of examples of being kind, then assign one person to start the challenge by showing a fellow classmate an act of kindness, that classmate would then go on to show someone else kindness, this would continue until everyone in the class has displayed and received an act o kindness. At the end of the day have a meeting where your class discuss what they did to be kind and how they felt when someone else was kind to them. By discussing the positive outcomes of being nice to one another they can clearly see why it’s so important.

Put an emphasis on friendship

It’s important to make sure everyone feels included in your class so to do so you should put an emphasis on the whole class being friends. To do this you can refer to everyone in your class as friends for example when doing partner or group work tell your students to discuss with their friends sitting next to them. This type of wording will completely change the culture within your classroom, from fellow students/classmates to a group of friends, all in this together.

Have class discussions

To encourage empathy it’s a good idea to get each student to talk to everyone in the class and gain insight into different opinions and ideas that they may not be exposed to elsewhere in life. Start by introducing a topic, this could be about what their favourite foods are or you could even have different students share about their culture or religion!

These few tips should help you spread kindness in your classroom and help create an environment where your students can best learn. 

We also have a blog with ways you can prevent and tackle bullying so be sure to check that out and keep an eye out for any other anti-bullying-themed blogs we have coming out this month.

Don't forget! We are always recruiting for a variety of school staff roles so have a look at our latest roles.