FOLLOWING the success of workshops in the summer term to the current Year 9s and 10s, Stewards Academy was delighted to welcome back OpenView Education to lead ‘Upstander Impact’ workshops with our Year 7 and Year 8 students.

Stewards encourages all students to act appropriately and treat each other with kindness and respect. The workshops, led by the engaging Emily, help to reinforce the work students undertake in Ethics and Values, assemblies and form time.

The workshops reminded students that bullying is the repetitive intentional hurting of one person or group, where the relationship involves an imbalance of power. It also reiterated how this can happen face to face or online. The students engaged in role play activities and considered how they would respond in certain situations.

One student in Year 7 said: “I understand now that if you are in a group and one person is being unkind regularly to someone else, that you are a bystander and will be seen as a bully if you don’t do anything about it. I have learnt to be an upstander.”

A student in Year 8 said: “I really enjoyed the workshop and particularly the role play part. I liked pretending to be the perpetrator and seeing how things would be dealt with.”

Amanda Atkinson, Designated Safeguarding Lead, said: “We would like to thank Emily for her powerful delivery to our young adults. It is important that they have opportunities to access these key messages throughout the year and through different voices. We want our young adults to be empowered to be upstanders and be confident in reporting any unkindness.”