You can delete children or young people as appropriate.

To begin with, learners should be reminded of the importance of safe spaces and allowing everyone to participate. A safe space is created when everyone feels respected, that they can contribute, and opinions are listened to and acknowledged.

When establishing a safe space, it’s important to acknowledge that spaces such as classrooms and different groups can feel more unsafe for some learners, if they have experienced prejudice or discrimination.

As such, to help create a safe space to have these discussions it’s important that we are respectful of our classmates. What does respect look like?

Listen and respond carefully to ideas and comments.

Be aware and respectful of others’ backgrounds and experiences.

Be mindful of sharing personal experiences

Sharing sensitive, personal information in a group can mean that you lose control of that information and it ends up shared with people that you don’t want it to be shared with

Support

If anything discussed today makes you feel uncomfortable, you can pop outside the classroom and the teacher will come and check on you – if you need support you can speak to an adult you trust in school, or you can use one of the numbers provided at the end of the slides.

A reminder that in discussions we can hold different views but still respect one another.

Second level to senior phase

Turn to the person to your left. You have one minute to find out answer to the following question:

If there were 25 hours in a day, how would you spend your extra hour?

Explore with learners some human rights. What rights do they have? Ask the learners to share ideas.

You can explore some fundamental human rights such as the right to an education, the right to a religion, the right to a name and the right to freedom of expression and identity.

Enter your setting name.

Use this space to enter your vision, values and ethos.

Early to second level

Ask the learners to sit in pairs and talk about how they are similar to their partner. Then in the whole class talk about ways that people are different. This could include eye or hair colour, interests, favourite foods, etc.

Then explore how it might feel to not be included because of these differences? Is this fair?

Ask the learners what they think fairness means? You may need to prompt them. E.g. fairness means that people get the same chances to try new things, have the same rights, etc. Then ask them to draw a picture that shows unfairness. This may be a situation where someone is not included or treated differently.

Third level to senior phase

Ask learners to share their understanding of the word ‘fairness’

Then prompt thinking – does fairness mean giving everybody the same support and opportunities? Does each individual have the same needs or requirements?

Explore the concept of fairness being about allowing people to have the same access to opportunities. This may mean making adjustments for people who perhaps don’t have the same resources, or who face barriers to accessing these opportunities. For example, providing a sign language interpreter, translator, ensuring that there is wheelchair access, etc.

Fairness does not mean giving everybody the same treatment. Some people have more privilege than others, giving them an advantage in different situations. It’s important when thinking about what is ‘fair’ to consider advantages that people have or don’t have.

Slide 9

Explore the concept of bullying. What kind of behaviours are bullying behaviours? What is the impact of bullying?

Slide 10

Second level to senior phase.

Read out definition and invite reflections or questions

Early to first level.

Ask the children to think of examples of how they could show kindness to others, and how others might show kindness to them. This might include, sharing toys, saying thank you when someone helps you, helping others with a task they are struggling with, remembering someone’s favourite snack and bringing it to them.

Explain that not everybody has the same things as others, and some people don’t have as many toys, clothes or food. A kind action is to share what you have with others.

You can illustrate kindness through stories such as:

• ABCs of kindness
• Have you filled your bucket today
• Be Kind

Activities for teaching kindness to toddlers and children - Support for Parents from Action For Children

Slide 12: first and second level

Show the BBC bitesize video and invite reflections.

Slide 12: third level to senior phase

Show discrimination and the equality act video and invite reflections.

Slide 13: third level to senior phase

Provide definition of discrimination and explain that it relates specifically to equalities – that some people are treated differently based on their race, ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation, class or religion for example.

Introduce the Allports Scale on the slide. Explain that Gordon Allport, who was an American psychologist, created this image after the second world war to explain how the language we use and the stereotypes we hold can lead to avoidance, discrimination and then violence. ‘Antilocution’ is the word Gordon Allport used to define hate speech and propaganda, but it can refer to bias and stereotypes too.

What does discrimination look like? Ask learners to reflect on the video. It may be subtle (not inviting people to events), to overt (purposefully excluding people, not allowing access to service, not making events accessible for wheelchair users, not having an interpreter where needed, denying jobs or education).

Discrimination can lead to even more harmful behaviours. These harmful behaviours are not the same as bullying, as they are using existing inequalities as a way to cause further harm and to deny rights to people facing these inequalities

Allowing discrimination to occur means that we are accepting that these people should have less rights which contributes to societal inequality and violence.

Third level to senior phase

Ask learners to go into pairs and ask them to think of their definition of the word diversity and write it down. Invite pairs to share their definition with the class.

Explain that diversity is a concept that has lots of definitions. For example, it can mean the act of making sure people of different backgrounds, characteristics and identities are included and represented equally. Diversity can also be the range of human differences, backgrounds, experiences, cultural practices, religions, disabilities, ethnic origins, sexual orientations that people have that make up our own varied culture.

Show the image on the PowerPoint and invite questions about any of the identities listed. Explain that most people will have more than one of the characteristics above, and their experiences will be shaped by these overlapping identities. For example, a person can have a disability and practice a religion. This is called intersectionality.

Ask the learners why diversity is important? What would happen if we only spent time with people who had very similar experiences and backgrounds to us?

Third level to senior phase

Slide 15

The Equality Act provides a legal framework to protect the rights of individuals and advance equality of opportunity for all.

Slide 16

There are 9 protected characteristics listed in the Equality Act. This means that legally you should not be discriminated against on the basis of these characteristics.

Ask learners to discuss the questions from the video in pairs:

1. What do you think of this law?
2. Has anyone been left out from the protected characteristics?
3. Do you think the language could be more inclusive?
4. How would you feel if you were being treated unfairly?
5. What more could be done to prevent discrimination in the UK and wider?

The Equality Act was created in 2010, and some say that these protected characteristics should be updated to include the ones we saw on the diversity slide and to update the language.

For example, gender reassignment is not really a term used now – those who identify as transgender or non-binary will not necessarily undergo the process of physical gender reassignment (e.g. hormone treatment, surgery), although are still at increased risk of discrimination.

Additional task

Exploring privilege. Who is at more risk of discrimination or has less opportunities/equality? What is white privilege? from BBC Bitesize is a good introduction to the concept.

Outline the school or setting child protection procedures and confidentiality if a disclosure is made.

At this point you would ask learners to complete the survey or complete it together as a class.