Within the Our Class resources, each lesson is based on a short story containing a fictional character in a primary school class who is experiencing a friendship challenge. The stories provide the backbone for each session, with discussion and subsequent class activities based around the plot and character experiences. Using a story structure like this enables children to explore difficult topics without having to share personal experiences, and is recommended good practice in teaching sensitive areas. However, the nature of the activities are designed to help children apply the fictional scenarios to their own context by considering how they could use what they have learnt within their own friendships.

All of the stories are available when you download the resources.

The stories can be introduced to the children in a variety of ways. They could be read to the children (in a ‘story time’ format), the children could read the story themselves (if their literacy levels allow) or they could be presented in an interactive way with various children reading the voices of the different characters. The images in the story are particularly helpful in bringing the characters and plots to life, so colleagues may want to display the story on the whiteboard as they go through, or show a video. We have recorded videos narrating each of the stories below, to help educators should they wish to present the stories in this way during the sessions.

 

Story 1: Welcome to Our Class (for Lesson 1)

Story 2: Tommy’s story (for Lesson 2)

Story 3: Halina’s story (for Lesson 3)

Story 4: Ruby’s story (for Lesson 4)

Story 5: Benson’s story (for Lesson 5)