Today (22/01/25), Sheryl from Spectrum visited Year 6 to talk about ‘Healthy Relationships’. Spectrum Community Health CIC provides quality healthcare for people in vulnerable circumstances. As part of the drive by the Welsh Government to tackle Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence, the Stori’s Spectrum Project is fully funded by the Welsh Government to deliver sessions on Healthy Relationships and VAWDASV topics in all secondary and primary schools in Wales working with pupils from reception to year 11.
All Spectrum sessions:
- Promote the importance of healthy relationships and raise the awareness of children, young people and adults about the issues of Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence
- Are delivered by qualified and experienced teachers, sessions can be delivered in Welsh or English and all resources are bilingual.
- Are cross curricular and are designed to promote peer discussion, using a range of techniques
- Use material that are thought provoking but are not designed to be so emotive as to cause distress.
- Are designed to promote discussion not disclosure.
- Conclude with information for young people on where they can access help and support both inside and outside the school.
Activities today included discussing the following:
- Who do we have relationships with? For pupils to recognise relationships are connections with other people.
- Needs and Wants - For pupils to be able to distinguish between desires and essential human rights (UNROC).
- Healthy or Unhealthy Relationships - For pupils to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy relationships.
- Identifying the difference between a ‘safe house’ and a ‘safe home’, looking at Charlie Bucket (Charlie and the chocolate factory) and Harry Potter as examples.
- Distinguishing between the 3 types of bullying that can happen in the home; adult to adult, adult to child and child to child. To be introduced to the term domestic abuse.
Further information can be found on the following website:
Year 6 took part in their second Spectrum session today (29/01/25).
The focus of the session was:
- To reinforce the characteristics of a healthy relationship.
- To understand the controlling nature of abusive relationships and how children who witness abuse have no choice over their circumstances.
- For pupils to be able to identify appropriate support sources of support, if affected by unhealthy relationships.
The pupils first took part in a 'Power and Control' activity, to decide whether or not to 'save' or 'squash' a spider. There was a discussion about what power and control look like in a relationship and that domestic abuse is caused by one adult having too much power and control over another.
The second activity looked at the similarities and differences between three newborn doll babies. The task demonstrated that children have little power and control and should not perceive abuse as their fault.
There are more similarities in newborn babies that differences, there are genetic differences but much more of what makes us different from each other is how we learn, are shaped and moulded by our families and societies
The final activity asked each pupils to make a 'Spectrum key ring'. The key ring contained beads to act as an aid memory to indicate discussion with parents and carers when they take them home.
Smiley face - we want our relationships to make us feel happy.
Heart - we want our relationships to make us feel loved and cared for.
Foam - we want our relationships to feel nice
Star - we want relationships to help us to shine and be the best we can be.
Rainbow - symbolises the Spectrum project, where we learn about healthy relationships.
Letter S - reminder that if we are worried about our relationship or think they are not healthy we should speak to a trusted adult.
The aims of Sheryl’s final session today (4/2/25)
- To know how to keep ourselves safe and to encourage us to speak out and to identify sources of support.
- To understand that children have the right to be safe.
Activity 1 - Safety Zone
The children were given two wooden ‘jenga’ blocks and they had to label one with a place they feel safe and the second with a list of feelings they have when in that safe place. The blocks were then collected together and we created a class safety zone.
The tower was then split into 3 levels
Level 1 - small worries
Level 2 - medium worries - may need a grown up to help with
Level 3 - bigger worries - life changing events we need adult support
We looked at examples of worries and then put them into one of the 3 levels. We discussed the support that we may need when faced with the worries and we observed what happens if we bottle up our worries and don’t talk to someone about it - the tower collapsed. We thought about what difficulties we might have if we’re not in our safety zone.
Activity 2 - What do healthy and unhealthy emotions in our bodies look like?
We started with an empty container of water
First we placed ping pong balls into the water. They represented healthy emotions, which the children listed. We thought about what our body looks like when we experience healthy emotions:
- Floating on the service
- Colourful and bright
- Light
We then placed stones into the water. They represented unhealthy emotions. We again thought about what our body looks like when we experience unhealthy emotions:
- Sink
- Dull
- Deep down
- Heavy
The children were told to tell a trusted adult when they are feeling unhealthy emotions so they can help them. We then considered who a ‘Key Adult’ could be in school and outside of school that we could share our worries with.
Finally we watched a view to remind us of what we’ve been talking about today -
https://spectrumproject.co.uk/
