Relentless bullying can make a person’s life unbearable and can lead to tragic results.
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The year 10 drama class from Bomaderry High School took ownership of a project aimed at showing why bullying is unacceptable.
This is how the project unfolded and ended up as a seriously strong video.
Bomaderry High says, “Bullying ‘No Way!’”
The students
Miette Hancox sums up what the video was all about.
“It was about bullying and its different kinds and how to prevent it and not just let it happen and being proactive in reporting it and hopefully ending it,” she said.
Miette said she had witnessed bullying, especially in primary school.
“[Bullying] makes you feel helpless but the only thing you can do is tell someone else and hope they can do something,” she said
“It makes you feel disappointed in the people that you are around.”
Miette is pleased with how the video turned out and said the feedback, overall, was positive.
Fellow student Callum Field was happy he played a role in the video.
“I like to help show people that bullying is not okay,” he said.
“Bullying makes a person feel really bad and could lead to them doing really bad things like self-harm.”
Callum has also witnessed bullying.
“It would be good if a bully could see the video so they could see what they are doing and how it affects someone,” he said
Callum said social media means people can’t escape bullying.
“I think it's worse because people can just message you now and don’t have to approach you and they can keep spamming you and post something about you - they can continue it online,” he said.
Callum is also proud and happy about the video – see below.
The teachers
Head Teacher Wellbeing Julie Mehic said the students took ownership of the project.
“At the beginning, it was let’s just make a video about bullying but these students in the year 10 drama class are just awesome. I just went in and talked about an idea and showed them examples of videos and said, ‘I want to make our own version.’
“Their first comments were ‘That is TV bullying and that is not real bullying’.”
For two lessons the students brainstormed ideas and came up with different scenarios.
All up it was five to six periods of work.
Mrs Mehic said the scenes and the ideas behind the video all came from the students.
She added it also important to get the all the school staff involved in the filming.
Every staff member within the school got on board with the project.
“It created conversations about bullying which is what we need to do,” Mrs Mehic said.
Head Teacher Creative and Performing Arts Gina Myers-Brown said it was important the students owned the project.
“They are facing this in a school context every day in some way, shape or form. There would be kids in this class that have been victims of bullying who have been incredibly brave and stood up to the mark and taken an active role in the development of this piece,” she said
“These guys created and shaped this from just brainstorming it and right the way through to edits and the type of text that needs to be included.
“The fact they have put themselves out there into these roles is brave. They knew it would make them vulnerable to comments from their peers.
“All bar a few people who were going to use it as an opportunity to poke a finger - the major of the kids have been incredibly impressed and congratulated the guys on their efforts.”
Ms Myers-Brown said she was proud of the students.
“It was brave of them and they did it all in a mature manner and they are a unique group of students. They have been a delight to work with and I could not be more proud of them if they were my very own,” Ms Myers-Brown said.
“A lot of effort has gone into making sure this video can go out there because if we can affect one person then we have done our job.
“If these guys are having a dialogue with their friends about the inappropriateness of bullying, what they can do to help, where they can get help and if one more person finds out where they can go and get help then we will have fewer tragedies to follow up from this horrific epidemic.”
What next?
The Department of Education has taken notice of the video.
The department wants a copy of the video to put on all its social media outlets.
It started as an anti-bullying video and has turned into a resource because things kept getting added on.
There is the negative, the positive and where you can go and get help at the end which evolved with everyone’s input.
Numbers to call for help
Lifeline
13 11 14 (24/7)
beyondblue
1300 224 636 (24/7 seven days a week)
Kids Helpline
1800 55 1800
headspace Nowra
4421 5388