Playground Pals

Empowering children to make a difference

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.

Aims of Playground Pals

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 Pals 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, for 12-15 pupils. 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

The Playground Pals Programme has many benefits, including:

Development of School Community

Implementing Playground Pals helps create a positive ethos within the school community.

Increased Mental Well-being

Playground Pals fosters friendship and collaboration, leading to increased confidence and self-esteem.

Positive Impact on Students

With the Playground Pals Programme, students develop social skills and gain a sense of accomplishment.

Resources

To support your school with the Programme, you’ll gain access to key resources that help make the programme accessible to all students.

“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