WHAT YOU WILL NEED Download the ‘rights and responsibilities’ and ‘celebrity couples’ cards from the Schoolswork.co.uk website by searching for ‘relationship factor’. Print them out and laminate them if you have the time and resources. Print copies for each group and put them in envelopes.
How often do we help our young people explore what is most important in a relationship? This resource is designed to help them think more deeply about the relationships they see in the media and what they can apply to their own relationships. By allowing young people to think about the qualities of a good relationship, and whether or not they see that modeled in celebrity relationships, they can then reflect on the quality of relationships they would like to have for themselves. These activities work well in small group settings, but can easily be adapted for a PHSE lesson.
Rights and responsibilities cards
Working in a group of four to six young people, give out the envelopes with the word cards inside. The cards are designed to help young people think about their responsibilities in a relationship. Ask the group to sort the words into the four categories: ‘Things I shouldn’t do’, ‘My rights’, ‘Things I’m required to do’, ‘Rewards, bonuses and advantages’. Some examples of what are on the cards include:
• Respect
• Flirt with others
• Listen
• Tease
Encourage them to get a group consensus, but don’t change where they put the words; they must make those decisions as a group. Asking questions such as, ‘Why have you chosen to put that word there?’ and ‘What do other people think?’ will help the group find agreement.
Allow them 10 to 15 minutes to do this activity then get some feedback once they are happy with their categories.
Celebrity couples
Say: ‘Based on the exercise you have just done, order these relationships with the best one at the top and worst at the bottom. Imagine you are judges on The X Factor, judging relationships instead of music talent’. The pictures include ten celebrity couples, including Jay-Z and Beyonce, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt and Kat and Alfie from Eastenders. Once they’ve finished, ask the group what they found interesting, obvious or difficult about their decision making process.
Wrap up the exercise with a discussion about any issues that have arisen, and what they may have learnt about implications for their own relationships using these questions:
• If we asked you to rate these relationships before we did the first activity together, would the outcome have been different? How?
• What makes a good relationship? How do you know when you are in a healthy relationship – what are the top five indicators?
• What part of the rights and responsibilities task stood out to you as being something that you are wrestling with when you consider a healthy relationship?
New playing card resource launching at the Youthwork Conference
R o m a n c e Academy has partnered with Schoolswork. co.uk to launch a new set of playing cards, designed to help young people talk openly in a helpful way about sex and relationships. Following on from the primary and secondary age playing cards that Schoolswork. co.uk already produce, these cards are designed to be played with young people either in a school, youth group or home setting.
They are ideal for discussion starters around the topics of sex in the media, culture, pornography, romantic relationships, responsibilities, community, character and selfesteem. They can be used in as many ways as you use a normal pack of playing cards; they are a pack of 52 cards with the four different suits. Each of the suits has a different category assigned to it to get discussion going in a different area around the theme of sex and relationships. Putting questions on playing cards takes out the confrontational element of having conversations around potentially tricky topics, and it also allows the young person to take the question as deep as they would like, or move on quickly to looking at another card or game.
If you are at the Youthwork Conference - they are available on the Romance Academy or Schoolswork.co.uk stand. Come and see for yourself!
