Argos corporate news
Start of new school term sees 5,000 secondary schools benefit from new anti-bullying packs
15 September 2005
Five thousand secondary schools across England, Wales and Northern Ireland are benefiting from brand new anti-bullying packs, courtesy of Kidscape, the only nationwide charity dedicated to preventing bullying and child abuse, and Argos, the UK’s leading multi-channel retailer.
The packs contain a ‘bully free’ DVD package including guidance notes for teachers, a street sense leaflet to give teenagers advice on keeping safe outside school and a Kidscape resource list in case the schools need further support. They are going to be well used according to Robin Smallwood, assistant headteacher of St Cenydd School, Caerphilly: “These bully-free packs are excellent. They will give schools practical and simple ways to deal with the difficult issues of bullying”.
“Being able to provide 5,000 secondary schools with this sort of resource is just fantastic,” said Michele Elliott, director of Kidscape. “We receive 16,000 calls a year from distressed parents of bullied children and hundreds of these children have either attempted or thought about suicide. With Argos’ support these packs will go some way to teaching all of these children how to overcome the torment of bullying and go on to lead happy and successful lives.”
Argos managing director, Sara Weller, said she was delighted that Argos could make a real difference to such a real problem by supporting this project: “The impact of bullying affects so many families in so many ways that the work Kidscape does is so very vital. As we are such a family focused retailer, we are committed to helping local communities and funding projects such as these where the help we can provide will have a huge impact across thousands of children and their families.”
And the impact is huge. Part of Argos’ ongoing support is to fund some of Kidscape’s ZAP courses – one-day assertiveness training sessions for badly bullied children– which help over 600 children a year.
“In these sessions, groups of children learn non-threatening techniques which let them regain self-confidence and teach them how to deal with bullies and bullying behaviour,” added Michele Elliott. “The courses show a huge success rate with over 85% of participants telling us that they are no longer bullied after attending a ZAP day.”
