Playground Pals

Growing Skills, Making a Difference is our Peer Mentor Programme for Children and Young People.

A Peer Mentoring programme is bespoke and offers schools and organisations a best practice approach to addressing low level mental health and wellbeing issues, such as bullying behaviour, anxiety and friendship conflict, that can impact on children and young people in their care. Through our programme, we work to engage and empower children and young people to develop a positive ethos across a whole school or organisation community, inspiring them to create an environment that meets the emotional, academic and social needs of pupils and staff.

We have developed two core training programmes to support schools, colleges, youth and community organisations in implementing an empowering, effective, sustainable, support programme that works for their setting; Playground Pals for primary age children and Peer2Peer for secondary age young people.

Growing Skills, Making a Difference Flyer

Everyone has the right to feel safe in the playground and the main aim of our Playground Pals initiative is to encourage a healthier and more active playtime; one that is harmonious and reduces the potential for minor dispute.

Playground Pals are an important part of school life. Children volunteer to be a Playground Pal and make the commitment to help encourage happy and sociable play-times. They will be a point of contact for children during breaks and can help encourage friendship and games, make sure no-one feels alone and are able to sort out any minor concerns.

Playground Pals are friendly and approachable and of course, do not replace the role of the teacher in sorting out problems, but are a support to the children and staff on duty.

Setting up a playground buddy scheme need not be a huge burden and once in place, can boost self-confidence and self-esteem and create a positive ethos throughout the whole school community.

BulliesOut’s creative and interactive primary school programme for Years 4-6 has been designed to be delivered over one school day. Through innovative delivery methods involving games, art, stories and drama, the programme empowers children to promote inclusion, friendship and kindness.

Benefits of a Playground Pals Programme

Creates a positive ethos through the whole school community
Promotes and encourages friendships
Increased confidence and self-esteem
The Playground Pals gain a sense of accomplishment

Additional Resources:

Playground Pals Information Brocure for all attendees
Playground Pals Tabard to identify each Pal in the playground
School Lead Handbook
Kindness Posters to display

Using visual, auditory and kinaesthetic elements the programme is accessible to all pupils.

“The training day was really informative and enjoyable. The role play session and the discussion on emotions through the mask making activity were so useful and the drama work really helped with empathy. The discussions enabled the children to put their own ideas forward. We’re really looking forward to setting up our Playground Pals scheme”.
Primary School, Bristol
Contact us to book a training day for your school.

Need to talk?

If you are being bullied or are concerned about someone who is, you can receive help and support from one of our trained Mentors through our e-mentoring service.

If you would like a Mentor to email you, please contact: mentorsonline@bulliesout.com

If you would rather speak to someone over the telephone, you can call Childline on: 0800 1111

For any community-related issues, such as anti-social behaviour, we would suggest contacting your landlord, the local police or your local environmental health department (where applicable), as we are unable to deal with these types of complaints.

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