PSHE Workshops for Ages 4 to 10+
Versions of the PSHE lesson support workshops outlined below are available for most special schools as well as for infant, primary and preparatory schools and PRUs.
To see these PSHE workshop descriptions in their subject contexts please access via the subject buttons across the top of this page.
Read about A Typical Session, or see video footage of our 4 to 10+ workshops.
Some say that the seeds of a bullying personality often begin to germinate in nursery school, let alone in infants or later. Generations of children have benefited from this workshop since the original version was launched in Slough in 1993.
The title – in particular the order of the two phrases – says it all, really. The workshop sessions are now delivered within an environment created by our portable scene-painted screens and with other resources designed to stimulate thought, imagination, and purposeful concentration.
Through role play and learning games, appropriate to age and ability, we look at aspects of self-esteem, and the range of behaviour associated with, or leading to, bullying, in the context of relationships with peers, younger and older children, teachers, parents, siblings, the extended family, neighbours and the wider community. Through the shared experience children get to see and feel the challenges and woes of the victim, perpetrator and witness to bullying. They learn how best to handle bullying and other stressful developments in their own life.
This workshop – modified appropriately for each Year – is often booked for delivery over a 'week' to a whole school, with special assemblies, and the wider school community including parents/carers and governors being invited to participate in after-school sessions. However, it is very effective even when delivered to a single Year, or for that matter, to selected classes. As with most of our workshops, we can deliver two/three workshop sessions per team/day, maximum approximately thirty in a class/group.
Many children struggle with fears of bullying when they have to deal with the move up to "big school", a "rite of passage" which can be highly traumatic for more youngsters than might often be apparent. This workshop helps allay some of those fears, confronting imagined horrors through role-play and dialogue. It guides participants on how best to handle bullying that may materialise.
The central message in this inter-active learning workshop is that 'YOU (young as you may be) are the person who is responsible for making YOUR life-affecting decisions'. This is true, whether the decision is to run across the road without looking, or is to misuse alcohol or drugs, or to bully or tolerate bullying, or to be violent, or to smoke, or whether to behave towards others as you would like them to behave towards you.
Myths and delusions relating to alcohol and drugs are identified, and verified facts communicated: the short- and longer-term consequences of the misuse of alcohol and of drug abuse are made clear in ways appropriate to the age and understanding of participants.
This active learning workshop is intended for young people on the threshold of puberty, eg in the last two years of primary school. Teachers and other observers are not only surprised at the level of sexual knowledge demonstrated by the young students in exchanges (hence our title), but also by the level of misunderstanding and the erroneous beliefs (or fears) often displayed. Content and methodology is carefully designed appropriate to the age and ability of the participants.
The introductory workshop, which usually follows the delivery of one or more of our PSHE workshops, shows what peer mentoring seeks to achieve, the strategic options, and the skills and techniques that can be deployed. On the basis if this experience, attendees decide whether they want to commit to becoming peer mentors. (In our view, self-selection, rather than students being selected by their teachers, is always preferable and more effective.) Follow-up workshops, for trainee peer-mentors, practice the techniques through role play and simulation, and share and review (anonymously) individual peer-mentoring experiences.
Developed from our long-running lesson support project "Five-a-Day", this workshop is designed particularly for Years 1 and 2, when the nutritional patterns for their whole life begin to be established. To distance issues, our facilitator discusses what's good and what's not so good with a life-size rag doll, who is very opinionated, but quickly learns to use the 'traffic light' system of 'what's good for you (green), what's not so good (amber) and what's not very good at all (red)'. In a game based on 'Snakes and Ladders', the children compile three healthy meals.
Extras
LTA after-school or evening workshop sessions are an ideal way of involving parents/carers.
Sessions are available (for delivery after school hours or in the evening) – giving parents/carers the opportunity to share in what their children are experiencing in the following LTA workshops:
You're OK - I'm OK!, It's Your Life!, 10 Going On 20, Rights Now! or One Step at a Time
In addition to sessions that introduce parents/carers to what children are experiencing in LTA workshops, on possibly contentious issues, this workshop is designed expressly for parents/carers and their families.
The LTA team of young 'gap-year' presenters, led by an experienced teacher/facilitator, share perspectives of teenage attitudes and concerns, some funny, some very serious, all very pertinent.
