In PSHE, we have been learning about pressure, which comes in different forms, and what some of those different forms are. The children have been learning strategies that they can adopt to resist pressure.
The children watched a short video, which introduced two characters, Zoe and Joey. Zoe wanted Joey’s chocolate bar and used two different ways of putting Joey under pressure: spoken and unspoken. Spoken Pressure is when a person asks you directly to do something, or says things to you that push you
toward a certain choice. Unspoken Pressure is when nothing is actually said to you, but because you see others doing something, you feel pressure to make a certain choice. We discussed how both ways made Joey feel and discussed why it was so unfair for Zoe to make Joey feel this way.
We discussed the different ways we have felt under pressure ourselves and came to realise that although a lot of pressure is unkind, some pressure is in our best interests (for example when we are put under pressure by our parents to go to bed at a reasonable time etc.). We had an excellent discussion and examples of ways we are put under pressure that came from the discussion included acting a certain way, looking a certain way, achieving something or doing something we don’t want to do.
The children took part in a role play activity where children were given scenarios to rehearse in small groups and each scenario depicted a different kind of spoken or unspoken pressure. After a short rehearsal time, these scenarios were performed to the class, and the audience were asked to identify what type of pressure they had witnessed and to describe how it could make someone feel.
To finish off, we discussed a range of different strategies the children could use to help themselves in such scenarios (e.g. distractions, taking time out, remembering our good qualities etc.).
