Are you down with OBPP?

Ok, so I have to admit making a really old reference to a less-than-great song from the early 90s with that title, but hey, it sounded good. 🙂

What is OBPP, you probably wondering?  OBPP stands for the Olweus (ohl-vay-us) Bully Prevention Program that we have recently started at our school.  It’s not new–just new to us–and is actually been around for years and based on some great research.

We began our Olweus journey with a very important definition.  Regardless of what we (or our students) thought bullying was, this is now our school-wide, shared definition:

Screen Shot 2014-02-09 at 2.40.42 PMWe started talking about this definition last fall, after we discussed what we thought it meant.  What we found out was that we were not all on the same page.  How important that we’re all now speaking the same language!

The second part of starting Olweus with our kiddos came by way of learning some new bullying rules.  They are related to the Robinson Road Rules that we already have in place, but are specific to what every kiddo (and adult!) should do if we see bullying happening:

IMG_2247

After we’d been working with these two important documents for a little while, and after the staff/teachers had done some learning together about OBPP, we were ready to officially kick this off with our kiddos.  This happened on a really spectacular half-day in January.

Check it out!

We started the day off together as a whole school in an assembly.  The energy in the gym was so great--wish we could do this every Friday!

We started the day off together as a whole school in an assembly. The energy in the gym was so great–wish we could do this every Friday!

5th Grade sang “Everyday Heroes”

Following our assembly, 3-5 grades rotated through some activities designed to get us motivated and excited about the work ahead.

First, we had a class meeting around our new bullying rules, and our thoughts about them.

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During our 2nd rotation, we got to go to the gym to work with Mr. Lee on some tae kwon do.  He’s been to our school before, and always has a great presentation for us.

Here we’re learning about how bullies are more likely to target people who seem like they don’t have confidence….

 

Among some other things, we also did some exercises.  In this video, Landry did an AMAZING job of leading us.  He is BEAST!

 

For our last rotation, we participated in something that teachers around Robinson do all the time–look at data.  As part of the Olweus work from last year, every kiddo in grades 3-5 took a bullying survey and we were looking at the results.  There were graphs up all around the cafe, and our job was to silently comment on what we thought about what we saw. (As a point of clarification–our answers are represented by the 4th grade data.)

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What an amazing day of inspiration and learning!  We are ready and motivated to make a difference in our school and our world!

35 thoughts on “Are you down with OBPP?

  1. Wow, Lilly Anderson you have beautiful lungs, you sounded beautiful. I love that Robinson is working with the Owleus program, it is so importatnt that we all stand up for each other and never bully.

      • Thanks, Mitzi for your reply, too! hee hee And as far as knowing how well you sing…does Mia get her talent from you? This whole Olweus thing is already doing great things for our students and I’m excited to continue to see what happens. The fact that it’s continuing on at Nipher is a plus, too, I think–this knowledge may be even more important at the middle school level! Thanks again for reading and for commenting! 🙂

    • So nice of you to say that, Mia! You’re a pretty fabulous singer yourself, you know? 🙂 And you know what–you’re a step ahead of an assignment I’m going to give for tomorrow. Your comment is already here!

      Mrs. Bearden

  2. I believe that this program, will help not even our school but the district. Hopefully we can set an example for other schools and students who will eventually enter this district. Though the last things is that we need to make it last which is why new students need to learn it.

  3. The Owleus program seems like it will have an impact and will make a change. I think that we needed to create a better environment, and this program will hopefully help. Right now, I think it already has made a change, because kids now feel safer around other kids.

  4. I would never guess what that obriviation was if I did not look at it.i think that day was awesome and I think we could have that every Friday.

    • I think the bullying program will be a huge impact in our schools! After the assembly I already felt better about bullying!

  5. I hope that the program will help our school and all of kirkwood school district as well. I think we need to find a way to, on the first or second day of school to show a presentation of the bullying rules and how to do them.

  6. I like to hear what your point of view was. I had a great time at the practice for the owleus kick off. I enjoyed the video. Thank you for posting that video.

  7. The owelus program was great! It taught us a lot of new things! Now since we know about it WE can tell others! It’s good because it makes kids feel safe. Oh and p.s that post my mom sent was on my account but she sent it! But it was true! Lilly does have a beautiful voice!

  8. I like to hear what your point of view was.I had a
    great time at that
    assembly it was fun and I learned a lot that day .It was a great learning all about bullying!

  9. Well I think we should talk about owleus bulling moepre as a class and go over that every Monday but that night was great but when I was up on stage I was really nervous about my speech.but I think that lesser people will stop bulling because of that talk we had and more people will have more confidence to stand up and say something.

  10. I found myself singing back to you, “Yeah, you know me.”

    We use Olweus at my school too. Most lessons still result in near fights, but I think it will work well for you (we are a special group :)). I think it seems like a good program.

    Do you have The Morning Meeting book (think that’s the name of it)? My friend has it, and it also has several activities that I loved with fun activities to do quickly to just get your gets working together in a fun way. It looks like the cover of The First Six Weeks of School, but I don’t think the authors are the same.

    Jen

  11. I think it’s good that we made a poster because it will help remind us what we have to do.i think when Ross lee came that helped us talk to bullies and deal with bullies

  12. I feel like the olweus program is going great and it is a good way for students to help and interact with others and share there thoughts and experiences with bullying!

  13. Lilly sings so good that day was so fun I liked it becaus almost the hole school was in the gym together so cool and it was fun to sing together to.

  14. I really think that this Olweus program is already making our school a better place to learn and make more friends! It was great to sing with all of my friends while preventing bulling from happening at Robinson! I hope that everyone else at our school feels the same way!

  15. I think on that day when that man came to the school was fun because when we were in the cafeteria we were talking about the bulling thing I think it was great because it was talking about what we had to do when we see someone being bulliedand when we were in the gym it was so fun because we had to do some extirsize with that man that was telling use what to do.

  16. Thanks for all the complements! I think the assembly was amazing, hopefully it changed some people’s minds on how to treat others. Great post Mrs.Bearden!

  17. Thanks for all the complements! I think the assembly was amazing, hopefully it changed some people’s minds on how to treat others. Great post Mrs.Bearden!

  18. Mrs.Bearden I am commenting on are you down with what ever i forgot. I do not like how people are writing on the post and some of them was the one that was bulling people and they was keep on doing that I was not here last year

  19. Pingback: It Just Takes One! | 20somethingkids and 1kookyteacher

  20. Pingback: At Robinson, Inspiration is EVERYWHERE! | 20somethingkids and 1kookyteacher

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