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During autumn term in 2010, Oxfordshire anti-bullying ran a competition for Oxfrodshire Schools and Youth settings, challenging them to come up with great strategies and resources for combating bullying problems in their schools and communities. You can see some of the great entries on our anti-bullying website, including presentations, posters, videos and more.

The 2^nd prize (£50 to spend on an Anti-Bullying project) went to Iffley Mead School for their classwork, Anti-Bullying assembly and song. This is the song, which was written and performed by Iffley Mead Dali Class. 

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I travelled out to Eynsham young Peoples centre recently to talk to some of the young people and workers about positive activities. Top-most in their minds was a big residential they'd recently been on, which included lots of adventurous activities like canoeing and gorge-walking; but they also spoke about how much they enjoyed the sort of things they could do every day at the youth centre, like chilling with friends, relaxing and being themselves.

We know that taking part in positive activities is very good for young people. They boost confidence and empathy, and help them bond well with other young people. As this group and their workers talk about their experiences, the value emerges; we hear about young people helping each other, making new friends and facing new challenges, all around the catalyst of the residential activities. The group also included young volunteers, who helped support workers and the youth group; both workers and volunteers share their insights on how young person volunteers can add great value to structured activities -- and how they benefit from the experience, too.

We also hear them talk about how much they value and enjoy both the opportunities for activities and the extra support a young people's centre represents.

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A-level results on Thursday 19th August and GCSE results come out on the following Tuesday 24th August and and examinations. In this podcast, Debbie Denton from Oxford Connexions talks about how to get advice if your results aren't what you hoped, and we hear an inspirational track from Silecta from Ark T Youth project.

How to sort things out if your results aren't what you hoped:

1. Drop into call or text your local Connexions Centre to make an appointment.
2. Talk to your friendly, helpful Connexions Adviser.
3. Make the best choice from the available Opportunities.

If you need to talk to an adviser in the evenings or weekend you can contact Connexions Direct at any time between 8am and 2pm every day of the week. There will also be Connexions Advisers in schools on GCSE Results day, so whereever you are, you will never be far from good, useful advice.

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Oxfordshire Youth Offending Service doesn't only work with young people at risk of offending. They also run a very successful project for young victims of crime. As part of the recovery process, young victims produce creative work about their experiences. These help them come to terms with their experiences and are also used for education and training. This song, "Escape", was written by a young victim of crime, Alex Grew. Upcoming band South Parade performed the song with Carl Duringer.

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This one is a duet version of don't be pushed around. It's a male/female duet -- and, of course, young men and young women can both suffer bullying. These jingles were made by Matthew Arnold School in Oxfordshire, UK.

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This one of the anti-bullying jingles made at Matthew Arnold School is spoken-word and works really well, I think. I really like the young people all joining together to say: that's enough!

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I like the message of this one: it doesn't really hurt to put yourself first, and ask for a little help. There's an important point there; because young people suffering bullying are being hurt by other people being thoughtless, selfish and demanding, they don't want to be those things themselves. They don't want to make trouble, or put other people out, or put theselves first, even though that's absolutely what they ought to do.

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Pupils at the Matthew Arnold school created this bullying jingle. In fact, they created several, but this was my favourite; the reason being that it concentrates not on the badness of being bullied but on moving on, healing, becoming strong and stepping out of the shadow that bullying has cast over your life.

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The worker at Carterton is one of my very favourites, and today I like her more than ever. She sent me a CD containing a set of neatly edited, properly attributed and really amusing short animations as .mov files. None of this oh I must bundle it as a DVD nonsense, no "it'll need a bit of editing". It was one of the easiest jobs ever -- a couple of transitions, a project title page and away! She also did all the animation work with the young people -- reminding me that I really ought to get a simple animation package as it's extremely accessible technology nowadays, gone are the times when you needed to call in three artists and a film studio, it can all be done on the computer in the office. That said, the person doing the supporting has to be smart, creative and clever, too. She's all those things. Shelley, you are a star!

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I am delighted to be posting two separate animation projects at the moment. This one, from Bicester Ourreach Project, was done with the participation of MAP multi-arts projects, who do a lot of work with young NEET people (Not in Education, Employment or Training) although I'm not sure that this is with they as I got the media, but the worker delivering the disk (we are still stuck when it comes to successfully sharing or sending large data files like video in any way except hand to hand) had a car parking ticket about to expire so had to dash. He promises more information in an email, so maybe I'll find out more. In the meantime, here it is:

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