Class Teacher & Headteacher on MAX
Class Teacher Comments
"Following our course .... covering familiar during and after school environment issues, the children discussed with Mark and his assistant all sorts of playground conflicts, bullying and personal safety concerns. This was centred around self defence and was carried out in the most appropriate manner and best suited pace. Children had actual situations demonstrated to them and the realistic role play only enhanced the feelings they may experience when facing these scenarios.
By far the most memorable and vivid part was when Mark, acting out a bully, wore padded protection to enable the children to practice the self defence they learnt. Upon return to school the children conveyed to their classmates the messages they learnt throughout the morning. This, to me, was the best evidence of the morning’s success.
Response after a request for specific clarification of the above:
You are very welcome - everything I wrote was true! To clarify, there was not any aggressive behaviour as a side effect to our session - the children still speak very positively about their morning and no negative energy was conveyed at all. On the contrary, there is a particular pupil whose self confidence has significantly increased to the point where her parents made the effort to tell me how much she enjoyed the morning".
Headteacher Comments
"It was a wonderful opportunity for our youngsters to engage in issues which are of concern to us all.
As a school, we do a great deal of work, helping children to recognise:
- what is bullying and what is not;
- what to do if you are being bullied - or if you are very unhappy with someone/something;
- what to do if you see someone else being bullied or having difficulties.
We stress that the whole school community must work together, if we are going to eradicate bullying. It was wonderful for our children to hear similar messages from people in other walks of life. They were very motivated by the course. I'm sure it will provide a talking point for quite some time.
Next term the governor and I will continue our termly visits to all classes - discussing the issue of anti-bullying procedures. We will particularly note the feedback from the children who visited. We will share this feedback with the rest of the school - on our classroom visits and in an Assembly. I will pass further feedback to you asap.
It's a bit like the Forth Bridge - ongoing, but the injection of such a motivating course has been invaluable”.