| Activity: Ivan and Liz are splitting up
KS3 Citizenship 1.2b. 1.2c. Personal wellbeing 2.1d.
KS4 Citizenship 1.2b. 1.2c. Personal wellbeing 2.1c.
Current KS3 Citizenship 2a PSHE 3b
Current KS4 Citizenship 2a PSHE 3i
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This activity encourages the students to think about what happens when a couple who have children split up. Students are asked to provide advice for Bethan, who has written a letter to an agony aunt. She is an eleven-year-old girl whose parents are splitting up.
Discussion
Talk about the problems associated with a couple splitting up and the effect it has on their children. It's highly likely that several of the students in your teaching group will have experienced the effects of their parents separating, and this is clearly a sensitive issue. Make sure the students know who they can talk to if they are worried about their home relationships.
Role play
Ask the students to work in small groups of three or four and to alternate acting out the roles of Ivan, Liz, Bethan and a mediator. The mediator is there to help the parties reach their own solution and not to take sides. It's the mediator's job to try to help people resolve their differences peacefully, and to encourage them to see both sides of the argument. The students need to think carefully about what each character would say, especially when it's their turn to be the mediator.
Extension activities
Challenge the students to draw up a charter of ten rights for the children of couples who split up. This could include anything that is important to children. Possible ideas might be the right to a certain number of hours per week with each parent, the right to say where they want to live, or the right to choose where to go on holiday and which parent to go with, etc. |
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