By Ms Emberson (Head of PSHE)

On Tuesday 12th March, two facilitators from The Diana Award came to school to train our new team of 15 Anti-Bullying Ambassadors who were recently selected from volunteers in Years 8 to Lower Sixth.

The Diana Award Anti-Bullying Programme raises awareness of bullying behaviour and supports schools and young people to tackle it across the UK and beyond. Their Anti-Bullying Ambassador Programme has a strong peer-to-peer focus, with their facilitators giving young people the skills and confidence to become Ambassadors to tackle bullying in their schools long after the training has finished.

We were thrilled to be able to host five other local schools, receiving the same training. This was an exciting and thought-provoking day, full of fun activities and more serious moments to reflect on the impact of bullying behaviour, empowering the students to become upstanders who can use kindness to change the school for the better.

The students have gone away proudly wearing their Anti-Bullying Ambassador badges, and geared up to start running campaigns and initiatives in school that will promote wellbeing and happiness for all, while stamping out bullying behaviour, by educating their peers about its impact on others. I cannot wait to see what they do first. You will be seeing exciting events run by the Ambassadors very soon.

The Diana Award Facilitators returned on Wednesday 13th March to repeat the training for several local primary schools. It was a joy to host these young role models, and we look forward to welcoming The Diana Award again in the future.

Maya Kamau (Year 10) said: “I’m really thankful to have been given the opportunity to take part in this; I got to meet loads for different people from a variety of schools that shared the same experience and aspiration to be an Anti-Bullying Ambassador too, we did some very interesting activities and I learnt some really cool things. Excited for what’s to come!”

Anaya Kirtane (Year 10) added: “The Anti-Bullying Ambassador training was an incredible experience. We met two wonderful women who work with The Diana Award, and they taught us all the tools that we, as anti-bullying ambassadors, would need to fulfil our jobs successfully. The day was filled with positive energy, and we were given many opportunities to interact with the other schools and help each other. I really enjoyed the experience, and cannot wait to start working on different projects to help the community of BGS.”