HeadteacherChat’s Review of Kidscape

Read the full review below...

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How does Kidscape describe their product?

“Kidscape is an award-winning bullying prevention charity that gives practical support to help build supportive communities safe from bullying and harm. This includes CPD-accredited staff training in bullying prevention, safeguarding (basic and advanced), online safety, sexual harassment and peer mentoring.  We also deliver classroom-based workshops for children including ZAP bullying awareness and response workshops, kindness champions, RISE transition support and Young Community Leaders.  

All schools have a legal duty to prevent and respond to bullying. Keeping Children Safe in Education 2022 is clear that bullying is a form of emotional abuse (see para 28). It also lists bullying as a form of child-on-child abuse (see para 35). Kidscape can give schools the training and practical support they need to build supportive communities, reducing experiences of bullying and empowering children and staff to take positive action to challenge bullying behaviour.   

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What does it enable you to do?

Kidscape has used  its 30+ years of experience to develop a wide range of workshops, trainings and resources to support schools, parents and local communities with safeguarding and, specifically, bullying. 

For school staff, these include award-winning CPD-accredited courses (both online and face-to-face) in safeguarding, online safety and bullying. Kidscape also ‘train the trainers’ - providing training directly to staff to enable them to cascade information to children on topics such as peer mentoring (for Years 5-8), online safety and RISE transition for Year 6 pupils, focussing on social skills as they prepare for high school..

Individual children who have experienced bullying can be referred by a school to the ‘ZAP Workshop’ – a free, assertiveness course for children and parents/carers (online every month). It aims to help children identify, and be proud of, their own unique strengths and skills, and explore a range of terms and types of behaviour associated with bullying, including ‘active bystander’. Children are also shown a range of practical assertive strategies and skills to keep them safe online. Parents of children referred are also encouraged to attend a workshop to provide an open discussion on a number of topics regarding bullying. These include the emotional challenges families face and how parents can work productively with schools to resolve a bullying situation. 

As well as training and workshops on bullying, Kidscape has a range of free resources to use within schools, ranging from ‘Top Tips’ for dealing with bullying to lesson plans for Anti Bullying week and a guide to writing an anti-bullying policy. Kidscape has also produced resources to help specific cohorts of children deal with bullying, through communication tools for autistic children, and by translating their top tips into at least 17 languages.

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Benefits of using Kidscape:

• Provides practical support for schools with their legal duty to address bullying
• Helps to address an important issue for children, parents, carers, staff and governors
• Provides evidence-based, high impact approaches 
• Saves time.This is our ‘day job’ – we appreciate schools are under huge pressure and we are here to help.
• Ultimately, children who feel safe learn better

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Testimonials:

“The trainer was terrific - really knowledgeable and down to earth, and a great role model for talking about difficult topics and making people feel comfortable and at home” (Delegate - Advanced Safeguarding and Child Protection)

“Huge benefit in assisting with anxiety levels and also addressing a huge worry around bullying.” (Staff attending RISE transition training)

“I just wanted to send you a quick e-mail to thank you for your fantastic Kidscape Peer Mentoring training. It is clear to see that you are passionate and enthusiastic, and I think that definitely rubbed off on me. You were engaging, fun to listen to, knowledgeable and I left the session feeling excited to get stuck in with the programme rather than a deflated, 'This is going to be way too much' feeling that I often get when leaving training. I really appreciated you emphasising the support that you would be able to provide after the session too - in short, you are amazing!” (Delegate - Peer Mentoring Training)

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In summary, HeadteacherChat recommends Kidscape because: 

We are delighted that Kidscape is a charity partner of HeadteacherChat.

Providing training for school staff, children, and parents, Kidscape ultimately helps children to feel safer, happier, and to know how to deal with bullying more effectively. 

Lucy Coy  CEO, HeadteacherChat, September 2022