2.1

In school children are free to express their views, unfortunately this means that we cannot stop prejudice and discrimination happening. We promote freedom of speech at Round Oak School and through our lessons we aim to teach pupils what is right and what is wrong, regrettably we cannot influence what children say to each other on the playground and this is where some pupils take it as an opportunity to discriminate others away from any adult supervision. Discrimination and prejudice in school can be calculated and well thought out, a pupil may single out another pupil who is different from them and uses this opportunity to their advantage to bully and humiliate them.
Children can be discriminated against and experience prejudice in school for many reasons, they can be bullied from their peers as a hobby, a bully will single out a person for a specific reason and just because that pupil is not as cool as them or as popular then this pupil will unfortunately be discriminated against and made to feel demeaned and degraded in front of others. Children can be very cruel and premeditated and will discriminate against what someone will be wearing or if their appearance is not what it should be, some children will laugh and mock if you do not have the latest designer clothes or the most up to date piece of technology, our pupils can and do experience prejudice in school but be do try our best to stop it. A child can encounter such harassment if their hair is not neat and tidy in our school we have a young lady who has a constant problem with head lice, the school nurse has advised her parents on many occasions about how to deal with head lice but unfortunately they are a recurring issue this poor girl is constantly discriminated against as her hair is so unkempt but there is nothing that we can physically do as we are not physically allowed to intervene and treat this girl so we can only punish those for bullying her. As we are a secondary school it is the time in every pupils life in which they go through puberty so their face may develop spots causing them to be ridiculed and laughed, this will led to their self-esteem to be at an all-time low and their confidence especially during puberty will be knocked. Children also laugh and tease at birthmarks and freckles, I was bullied at seven years old by a boy in the school playground for having freckles, it had gone on for weeks and I was called all sort of names so that evening I went home picked up my dad’s razor blade and attempted to shave my freckles off from the top of my forehead all the way down my face to my chin, of course it did not work and my face was in even more of a mess than when I had started but I felt so low and just wanted my freckles to be gone, luckily the situation was resolved but I know first-hand how it feels to be discriminated against and being ginger I stood no chance. Children and adults can be so fickle and before a judged every day for how much money they do or do not earn, many people think that it is just people with no money who get discriminated against but this is not the case people with money also do, we have a child in school, all of their family has been through private education but because they are a child with special needs it is obvious too see that they are discriminated by their own family for not being as clever as everyone else, this child has been in tears on many occasions because they are constantly ridiculed and teased for being the dunce of the family, luckily child protection in school kicked in and this child received that help that they needed. Pupils do discriminate in school over weight, being fat you are called all sorts of names, left out of things and constantly mocked even being thin if they are very thin they are also teased there really is no winning for some of our pupils as unfortunately 99% of the time it is just because someone has taken a dislike like to them and will