Review: Bullying( Prim Ed)

The Bullying photocopiable resource books are made up of three books-lower, middle and upper.

They focus in on the key skills of  identifying, coping with; and preventing bullying. The low.er end starts at 1st and 2nd class, the middle 3rd and 4th and the upper level is for 5th and 6th class. They all cover the SPHE curriculum, specifically the strand units of Myself and Myself and others.

The resource books define what bullying is, this is really useful for teachers, parents and children as often some can believe that a once off or different events constitute bullying. Bullying is defined as:

It is deliberately hurtful. It is repeated often and over time. It is difficult for the person being bullied to defend him/herself against it.

Like most of the Prim-Ed publications, the layout is made up of a Teacher’s notes or lesson plan with an accompanying worksheet. The teacher’s notes section focuses in on specific discussion points.

In each book, there are really nice resources like The incident proforma, where a teacher can record bullying incidents, this is a must with the new anti bullying guidelines coming from the DES. There are also Letter to parents and merit certificates. Making a challenging subject positive and connecting with parents.

It is a useful resource but will have to be supplemented as the SPHE curriculum endorses active learning as the key teaching methodology for SPHE. It puts its key focus on written activities and oral discussion activities  which are really well done but it lacks a diverse range of teaching and learning tools. You may want to use this resource to supplement or guide you in the content that needs to be taught when dealing with bullying and in that sense, it is highly useful. However, you will have to ensure that a more active focus is used too.

The Bullying books can be purchased from Prim-Ed and they cost €24.95 for each book.