This year, Anti-Bullying Week (17th-21st November) is calling on the school community to take action to stop the bullying of all children and young people. With more and more children owning mobile devices and spending longer online and on social media, cyberbullying is becoming one of the most common forms of bullying and the source of increasing distress to children and concern to their parents and school leaders.
That’s why Internet Matters is helping to raise awareness of the important issues of online respect and cyberbullying by launching an exciting competition with the Anti-Bullying Alliance. The competition asks schools to create their own song, rap or poem on the subject of being respectful to others online to generate important discussions of this issue amongst students, teachers and parents, both inside and outside the classroom. The winners will be chosen by a panel of judges including singer and Internet Matters ambassador, Sophie Ellis-Bextor:
“I’m really excited to be part of a competition that raises awareness of such an important and growing issue for schoolchildren today. I’m looking forward to hearing about how children themselves feel about cyberbullying and their thoughts on tackling it together – I’m sure there will be some inspirational entries.”
There are separate competitions for Primary and Secondary schools. The winning Primary school will receive a visit and inspirational assembly from Olympic medallist Christine Ohuruogu MBE, and the winning Secondary school group will enjoy a special daytrip to Sky’s TV studios in West London where they’ll make their own film.
To support schools participation in the competition, there’s also a lesson plan for teachers on how to help children understand the issues and lead into the creation of their competition entry. This includes notes on how the activity supports the wider curriculum.
The competition is open until 28th November 2014 with the lesson plan and full details about how to enter on the Internet Matters website. Start getting creative!
