In May 2023, The Diana Award team visited East Herrington Primary Academy to talk to their Anti-Bullying Ambassadors (ABAs) and staff lead about the impact of the Anti-bullying Ambassador Programme (ABAP).
In May 2023, The Diana Award team visited East Herrington Primary Academy to talk to their Anti-Bullying Ambassadors (ABAs) and staff lead about the impact of the Anti-bullying Ambassador Programme (ABAP).
East Herrington is a Primary School of approximately 500 pupils from Nursery to Year 6 in Sunderland, North-East England. Six young people started the Anti-Bullying Ambassador Programme by attending an initial training day in September 2022. An additional two pupils who were unable to attend the training day were internally trained by the new Ambassadors and added to the team.
Ambassadors are in Year 5 & 6 and were chosen to be Ambassadors due to being School Council the previous academic year, a role they were previously chosen for by their peers. Discussing plans for next year, the staff lead suggested the current Year 5 members may be involved in the recruitment of ABAs to replace the outgoing Year 6 members. The School staff member pointed out that choosing Ambassadors well is an important aspect for the success of the programme, ensuring there is a good mix of young people who are more confident and will naturally take leadership and those who are quieter but will develop given the opportunity.
Having chosen to focus their anti-bullying project on promoting positive wellbeing, Ambassadors organised an activity to mark National Smile Day at the start of the school year, where Nursery pupils delivered Smiley face stickers throughout the school and raised awareness of their role as Anti-Bullying Ambassadors. This brought the school together and undoubtedly helped break down the nerves of the new Nursery pupils in engaging with older pupils. Having participated in the Children’s Commissioner’s Big Summer Survey, Ambassadors were keen to look at food security in their community. Having collected food for the harvest festival, Ambassadors took an opportunity to visit a local Foodbank, as well as sharing their experience with their peers by delivering a whole-school assembly. The staff member shared with The Diana Award that this promoted positive wellbeing and reduced the likelihood of this form of bullying within the school:
Young people in the hall who were unable to share that their family were struggling, we have had a bit of that, the stigma and the potential for name calling. And I hope that the assembly coming from the children being very stripped back broke that down. – School Staff
Ambassadors also co-designed resources and events to mark both Anti-Bullying Week and Children’s Mental Health week in November. To recognise all their hard work, The Diana Award awarded Ambassadors the Wellbeing Badge in February 2023. This was a matter of pride for the Ambassadors.
We’d worked hard and got something for it, so our hard work paid off. – Ambassador
Ambassadors have since started working towards their Online Safety badge, having seen issues in being safe online, understanding online etiquette and cyberbullying affect younger pupils in recent years.
The Anti-bullying Ambassador Programme’s youth-led and peer-to-peer approach promotes pupil leadership by empowering Ambassadors to be agents of change in their school community. This is reflected in the initial Anti-Bullying Ambassador Programme training day, where content is delivered intentionally to put young people in the position of power and responsibility. This concept was greatly appreciated by the Ambassadors and motivated them to drive the programme forward:
When they attended the training in September they felt very grown up. Very much “this is for us and you [staff] are just along for the ride, to make sure everything is ok.” They felt very trusted, to be given that information and to do that day. And they came back very excited to then share that with everybody else and to drive the work we were going to do… They wanted to do action, to do stuff, and not just learn the information and that’s it... They really wanted to make some changes and be in charge of that. I think that was quite important. – School Staff
Providing Anti-Bullying Ambassadors the freedom and autonomy to lead the programme within the school has had an influence on them directly:
When you give children a little bit of responsibility, they then take a lot more responsibility – and become a lot more willing to accept that responsibility… Having that success and having their opinion heard – having the action they want to do happen. That is a massive thing for children, to see it all the way through the end product has really helped them grow and grow up a bit through the hard work they have done. – School Staff
This is also an element they see in themselves, with Ambassadors recognising the intrinsic value of the actions they are taking and displaying pride in their role:
I’m proud of them [other Ambassadors] because they went to the foodbank and then did the assembly about it to tell everyone. – Ambassador
I’m proud that we’ve helped people through their problems and not make them hide away and their problems get bigger. - Ambassador
When they got the [wellbeing] badges they were over the moon. You could see them grow a little bit almost, get ‘a little bit taller’ and walk around the school and tell people about it. “We did this” and “We’ve achieved this” and it’s going in the school newsletter. – School Staff
Involvement in the programme has also increased the interest in Ambassadors being involved in social action in future, with one Ambassador telling how their involvement with the foodbank has opened their eyes to the need:
[In future] I’d like to raise money for people who don’t have things or need food. – Ambassador
While the programme is relatively still new in the school, these is already a mindset to take a whole school approach to instigate cultural change. Embedding the programme this way means buy-in from pupils, staff, and parents/carers:
They think about the school and what can we do to make this community based – and what does that mean for after they have left and they want to leave that legacy. – School Staff
A lot of good feedback from parents too from Twitter and Facebook and the newsletter – a lot of parents came back and said how important it is. And I’m hoping our pupils have taken that message home as well. – School Staff
We can make a massive difference from each doing something little. – Ambassador
With Ambassadors reporting and staff observing online gaming and social media affecting the older pupils of the school, Ambassadors are planning to reach out to parents to run sessions on what they can do to help keep their children safe online as part of their upcoming action.
It is important to avoid Ambassadors becoming overloaded with responsibilities and overwhelmed by the role. At East Herrington, the programme is supplemented with a separate ‘Playground Buddies’ scheme, which enables duties to be shared between teams. This allows Ambassadors to work on their anti-bullying projects while knowing that there is wider support available. The staff lead was conscious to have a conversation with Ambassadors about where the limits are, where they can’t help out and when they need an adult to step in. Ensuring the school knew who Ambassadors are and that anything reported to them was passed on and enacted by school staff was important to allow Ambassadors to help on an individual basis with the support of their teachers.
