Day two - Change By Design

Arriving bright and early at 9am for the second day of the project, we were greeted by a representative from the University councilling service ready to give us a better insight into the problem in hand. She discussed the main issue of anxiety which is probably the most relevant and common problem for students trying to cope with the pressures of modern society, revealing how figures have drastically increased over the past three years due to tough economic times. After kindly answering any further questions we had, we were then returned to our previous groups and asked to begin prototyping our ideas from yesterday. Splitting into pairs we were able to explore our ideas further, playing with the concept of child friendly games or activities which included both the child and any relevant adults. After some research we settled on exploring the pre-existing activity ‘the Parachute’ which involves a giant, multi-coloured parachute being waved up and down/spun around by a group of children/teachers.

After a short presentation to keep the rest of the room up to date with our thought processes we returned to our groups and started discussing the idea as a whole. Opting to stick with the parachute as the main component of the learning activity we looked at ways to include everyones ideas in some way and after lunch the final concept was created;

“The concept works by introducing a ‘double-parachute’ which simply involves a second layer of material being placed over the colourful parachute. Upon this second layer – which will be completely white, there will be 6 removable panels each with different headings addressing reasons for bullying.The game begins by everyone sitting on the floor around the white parachute before someone uses a ‘twister-board- style’ dial to decide which topic to discuss. For example, if it lands on ‘race’ then the teacher should begin a discussion in which the children are able to talk about their feelings on the subject. Once this has come to an end the panel on ‘race’ will be removed to reveal the brightly coloured material below. This will continue until the whole parachute is colourful and waving it can begin. After the children have had some fun the dome can be created and they can all sit in the space together, reflecting on what they have just learnt/answering any questions they might have.

As this activity is physically demanding and may not be possible for disabled pupils, we would suggest a list of other games which could be played with the parachutes to accommodate all types of disabilities.These could include -ball game – expressing thoughts/feelings anonymously - felt ball game – interactive and touch frisbee – smaller can be used at home use of sounds or smells.