At Radcliffe Animal Centre we are working with schools and teachers to get them to think about using poetry, drama and music to explore issues around animal cruelty. The development of emotional skills is essential in cruelty intervention.
Drama and role play can assist with developing children’s empathy and compassion and encourage them to understand animal needs and feelings. It can also be a useful tool in facilitating discussion around a child’s own thoughts and feelings.
Poetry allows us to write in a more creative way and introducing the theme of animal welfare can give teachers a new dimension to their lessons, exploring words, their meaning and the feelings they evoke. For example what does it mean to be ‘neglected or rejected’ and what does fear feel like? Empathy is a key skill in working towards a more compassionate society.
Urban poetry/rap can even be put to music and it often connects better with our younger generation. By allowing young people to engage in more modern activities and workshops we hope that animal welfare education will grow and develop by demonstrating how it can be incorporated it into many different subjects.
We believe discussions on animal welfare are beneficial to both children, animals and our community as a whole, supporting learning and development on many different levels.
Visits to the animal centre are actively encouraged
Encouraging literacy whilst learning to be gentle and respectful around animals.
Bedtime stories, fairy stories or any other story you can think of!
Everyone loves a story and we wanted to celebrate the power of a story.
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