How’s this one:

Gravity is such a bully…
It always brings us down.

In many of our resources, we reflect on the concept of the second greatest commandment that Jesus shared: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ (Mark 12:31) –  raising the dignity of those around us rather than bringing them down, and encouraging students to treat others as they would like to be treated. This is an excellent starting point as schools approach Anti-Bullying Week.

As you will no doubt be aware, Anti-Bullying Week (15 – 19 November 2021) provides a crucial opportunity for schools to confront problems, plan to make changes and be reminded to choose kindness. The Anti-Bullying Alliance, who coordinate Anti-Bullying Week in England and Wales, explained the thinking behind this year’s theme, ‘One Kind Word’. They said, ‘the isolation of the last year has underlined how little acts of consideration can break down barriers and brighten the lives of the people around us.’

They explained that over 400 young people, teachers, and parents, helped decide on this theme, with the common view from the young and not-so-young, that they wanted anti-bullying work to be about hope and the positive and kind things we can do to halt hurtful behaviour in its tracks.

Time for another joke, I think…

How would you describe the average bully? Mean.

There is one specific area of bullying that is rife in schools and needs particular attention: homophobic bullying. Here at Ten Ten, we are giving our attention to creating new, stand-alone further resources for primary and secondary, which will sit alongside our Life to the Full programme and will, at an age-appropriate level, confront the reality in our schools of bullying of all kinds (especially homophobic bullying), and call children and young people to take action and follow in Jesus’ footsteps of peace and kindness.

We’ll let you know when the new Ten Ten resources will be available for download on the website. In the meantime, We are pleased to be sharing with schools some of the resources provided by the Anti-Bullying Alliance.

You can prepare for Anti-Bullying Week by:

  • Getting involved with Odd Socks Day to kick off Anti-Bullying Week on Monday 15th November.
  • Watching the official ‘One Kind Word’ videos for primary and secondary schools.
  • Checking your own language, subconscious attitudes and prejudices.
  • Using at least one kind word each day. Look for the opportunities. It can make a big difference to someone else’s day!

To see out this article, I leave you with one final, topical joke. You’re welcome.

A school bully asked all of his usual victims to get together and be waiting for him so he could get through all of his beatings quickly, but none of them showed up.

End of joke. There was no punchline.