Anti Bullying
Anti Bullying Courses & Workshops
Anti Bullying in Angus & Tayside
We can provide great Anti Bullying Courses & workshops for children. Mark Davies is a certified Anti Bullying coach under Richard Vince of 'neverbullied.com'. Mark has put together a comprehensive Anti Bullying programme that he calls 'Junior Jedi Knights'.
Anti Bullying Courses for Schools or Children's Organisations
The sad fact is that bullying is very common these days. Mark Davies has worked with children since 1987, & has worked nightclub security since 1986. He has seen firsthand the way that violent & anti social behaviour has changed in society over the past two decades.
Mark originally began training in the Martial Arts because he was getting terribly bullied in primary school. He had been very ill as a child, & was very quiet. After moving primary schools due to his health he ended up in the difficult situation of being badly bullied by the son of the teacher, very much a no-win situation. He decided after this that he was never going to be the victim of bullying again, & threw himself into Martial Arts training with a passion.
This experience of being badly bullied over a long period of time, & the experience of turning his life around gives Mark a deep insight & empathy with those children being bullied. Several years ago Mark became friends with Master Richard Vince from Norwich. Richard was the creator of a highly praised anti bullying system, & Mark trained under Master Vince to become a certified coach. Mark has now launched his own Anti Bullying programme, which he is offering to schools & children's organisations.
Junior Jedi Knights- building self esteem in children
Marks programme starts off by teaching children that very often they have the choice whether they get bullied or not. Bullies are for the most part not looking for a fight, they're looking for victims; so he teaches how body language can affect how people see them, & how they can either give off signals that say "I'm a victim" or "stay away, I'm NOT a victim". The children learn how to identify behaviours that could be attracting bullies, & how to alter their behaviour to stop bullies from targeting them.
We look at WHY people bully. Some children don't realise that they are bullying. If they come from an environment where this type of behaviour is normal they very often consider this behaviour to just be the way the world is. We help children to identify bullying behaviour & see why it's wrong. We help children to understand the concept that what they consider to be 'ok' might be considered bullying by another person. We aren't in any way teaching that 'its ok to bully', we're teaching the kids that by understanding bullies we make it easier to defeat bullying.
We teach children about self esteem, & how they can build their self esteem & feel good about themselves. We meet many children who have terribly low self esteem, & this shows in their body language; which tells the world that they're a victim waiting to happen. We show them simple ways to take control of the signals they give off through their body language, so that even if they are scared or nervous they can make a conscious effort not to reveal their true feelings at the time.
We do all the above with a combination of presentation/lecture & fun games/activities. We want the children to enjoy the workshop, as children learn more if they're enjoying the experience.
Children's Self Defence
Where many anti bullying programmes fall flat on their face is that while they are offering a great deal of advice on bullying, they don't give any solutions to physical confrontation. It is all very well telling children to "just tell the teacher" & to "make sure you tell your parents", but this doesn't help the child when they're just away to get physically abused! The law in the UK says that ANYONE has the right under law to use reasonable force in the prevention of crime or injury to themselves or another, so long as the force used is neither excessive or cruel. If you tell children that they are not allowed to stop someone from assaulting them, & that they must just let themselves be hit, you are in fact breaching their human rights! Very often as adults we're very good at telling children what they are not allowed to do, but not very good at giving them workable solutions to real world problems.
An optional part of the Junior Jedi programme is an intelligent personal protection module. Teaching children self defence is a difficult & touchy subject. On one hand you do not want the children taught methods that are going to cause too much injury to the attacker, but on the other hand many of the techniques taught on current 'control & restraint' courses to care staff & nurses do not work in real life & are useless. Mark Davies is an Internationally renowned self defence expert, who teaches his methods to Special Forces & Government agencies. He knows exactly what works in real life & what doesn't; but because of the type of professionals he trains his methods have to be intelligent & work on an appropriate 'force ladder'. He has put together a special syllabus that teaches minimal forces techniques designed to allow a child to safely escape a physical attack by another child, without the danger of causing severe injury. The important thing is that these techniques actually work, & are simple enough that children can learn them in a short period of time. The children learn how to use this small group of movements to deal with the most common forms of physical bullying. Having the knowledge that they can protect themselves works wonders for a childs self esteem & shows in increased confidence. Knowing that they can protect themselves also cuts down on the likelihood of weapons carrying too!
The techniques taught are of a nature that they are not really suitable for 'offensive' use, so are of little use to bullies themselves; so there is no chance of bullies using them to become "more effective bullies".
This part of the course is an optional module, but is highly recommended, as without it the child is only getting part of the solution.
Interested in hosting our programme?
We are available to perform our workshop for interested Education Authorities, Schools or Children's Organisations. We can tailor the programme to fit your time frame or particular requirements. Please contact Mark Davies to discuss how we can work with you.