PSHE Home and Belonging

Home and belonging: Home and belonging – Script references Discussion points 1. Art activity 2. Drama role play and discussion activity 3. Writing activity

Home and Belonging This PowerPoint consists of script references, followed by discussion points, and art, drama and writing activities. The suggestions offered allow the students to probe the themes of the play more deeply. Teachers can select and adapt these ideas to meet the needs and interests of particular students. If teachers are aware, or become aware, of students with deeper personal experiences such as situations of migration, it is advisable that other appropriate staff become involved in the work.

What is Home? (script) All the characters in the play have different ideas of what ‘home’ means to them: Grandma made her home in the City of Bread because she had no choice. She doesn’t like to talk about the ‘old country’. “This is home, Anna, you are my home.” (p 34.) Anna has always lived in the bakery. She doesn’t want her home taken over by someone else who has just arrived “This my place, my place…” (p 63). For both Anna and Grandma, ‘home’ is strongly associated with people, rather than geography.

What is Home? (script) Josip has been forced to leave his home. He wants to go back, but memories of home and family are painful: “I fank you, but I did not want to come 'ere. I did not want to come 'ere dis country. I wanta be in my home an' appy….I try forget where I come from, the badness, I try to forget the music of my fahvver and the cooking of my muvver, if I 'ear the music I jus' cry, if I smell the food I jus' cry, but my heart is still is there I leave everything behind.” (p 64.) Mr Miah doesn’t know where his home is anymore. He uses the words ‘desh’ and bidesh’ to describe this. In several languages of the Indian subcontinent ’Desh’ and ’Bidesh’ are words meaning ‘home’ and ‘away’. (NB They are also recent street/urban language for ‘rubbish’, ‘bulls**t’, & other derogatory terms!) “Desh, bidesh…which is which?” (p 34.) “I stayed, 10 years became 20, until I no longer knew where home was, desh, bidesh, I lost touch with my family, life slipped through my fingers, but this was home.” (p 58.)

What is Home? - discussion In small groups ask pupils to discuss the idea of home. Possible prompts: What is home and why is it important? Where is my home? Who lives with me in my home? Would it be home without these people? What makes somewhere feel like home? What is your favourite thing from home? What is an ideal home? /continued

What is Home? – discussion (cont): Possible prompts Could your ‘home’ change? How? Have you ever moved? How did it make you feel? How would it feel if you had no choice? What makes you belong somewhere? Where do you belong? Can you belong to more than one place at the same time? Is it hard to belong somewhere new? Did you feel left out?

What is Home? – 1. Art activity Ask the students to create a visual art piece or collage reflecting what the idea of home means to them as individuals.

What is Home? – 2. Drama role play activity In the play, Josip had to leave his home because it was too dangerous for him to stay there. He travelled a long way and left his friends and family behind. What was Josip’s first day at school like? From the play we learned that is was difficult at first for him to make friends at his new school. In small groups, brainstorm/mind map what it would be like to be Josip on his first day of school in his new city.

What is Home? – Drama role play activity (cont.) Possible prompts: How did Josip feel? Who else was there? How did he behave? How was he treated? What situations might have happened? In small groups devise, and role play, a scene depicting Josip’s first day at school. Allow for both positive and negative situations to occur in the role play. In response to less positive situations, ask the students questions to develop discussion. (See also Forum Theatre in English)

What is Home? – Drama role play activity (cont.) Further discussion: What could we do to make Josip’s first day at school better for him? How can we support someone to feel included? Have any of you ever felt excluded? How do we want to be treated by our peers and teachers in our school community? What can we do, here in our class, to ensure no one feels excluded? This could lead to the development of a set of guidelines for how the class treats one another, using a child centred approach in the creation of it.

What is Home? – 3. Writing activity Imagine that you are like Josip and you have no choice but to leave the place you call home. Maybe your family is travelling with you or maybe you have to do it alone. Write an imaginative short story, or diary entry, about leaving home…. What would it feel like if you have to leave home? Where are you going – or do you know? Who is with you? Why did you have to leave? Are you excited to leave? What are you taking with you?

What is Home? – Writing activity (cont.) How are you travelling to your new home? What is it like – what do you smell, touch and taste on your journey? Do you see things you have never seen before? What are the people like? Do they speak the same language? Do they look like you?