Open to all primary schools in Australia, Interrelate’s Say No To Bullying poster competition is being used as a way to help teachers start a conversation with students about bullying and how they can work together to help prevent it.
The initiative, which allows young people to express their feelings through art in a supervised and safe environment, was developed by Interrelate, a not-for-profit provider of relationship services. Registrations have now opened for schools wanting to take part in 2019.
The competition coincides with the National Day of Action Against Bullying and Violence on 15 March 2019.
“Every year at the beginning of the year we use the no bullying program to start a conversation with students about bullying, about behaviour in general,” said Ruth Harris, Principal at Borenore Public School. “We’ve been doing the program for four years now and the students have a platform to speak about bullying.”
Registering early means that schools will receive their teacher’s pack with lesson plans and activities to help with discussions around the subject of bullying before the end of this term, enabling them to factor these activities into their lesson plans for the beginning of Term 1 in 2019.
“In our first year as a national competition in 2018, we received 48,000 registrations from 200 schools,” says Patricia Occelli, CEO at Interrelate. “It’s very encouraging to see this level of engagement with schools and their students around such an important subject.”
The theme of the 2019 competition is ‘Be kind. Lend a Hand’. To register your school, please click here.