Five activities for secondary school students at home

Posted on 04.05.20

Here are five practical activities that parents and teachers can use to support secondary school students at home to learn about gender inequality – and how they can bring about change in the world.

1. Create a campaign

Duration: 1 hour
Materials required: Campaign Planner, paper and pens

Young people can use our Campaign Planner to help plan their own campaign. Ask your child what changes they would like to see in their school or in society more widely. Perhaps they want to challenge the way that some subjects are associated more with boys or girls, or maybe they feel passionate about tackling the gender pay gap. By filling in our campaign planner, children can imagine and plan how to create the changes they want to see in the world.

 

2. Explore gender stereotypes

Duration: 20 minutes
Materials required: Exploring Gender Stereotypes activity guide, paper and pens

What’s the problem with gender stereotypes? Can they shape reality? What pressures are there on people to conform to these stereotypes? Our Exploring Gender Stereotypes activity is a great way to start a conversation about what gender stereotypes are and how they are harmful. Children are given 5 minutes to write down as many gender stereotypes as they can think of, followed by a structured conversation about their answers.

 

3. Take a stand on the ‘opinion continuum’

Duration: 30 minutes
Materials required: Opinion Continuum activity guide, paper and pens

Phrases such as ‘man up’ and ‘don’t be such a girl’ are commonplace in schools and society more widely. Our Opinion Continuum activity encourages young people to explore the impact of this language. Simply create two signs which say ‘very harmful’ and ‘not at all harmful’ and place them at opposite ends of the room. Read out each statement in turn (for example ‘you throw like a girl’) and ask your child to place themselves somewhere between the two signs according to how harmful they think the phrase is. From here, you can start a discussion as to why they chose their position, allowing children to move if their opinion changes during the conversation.

 

4. Quiz

Duration: 15 minutes
Materials required:
Quiz Questions, paper and pens

What percentage of engineers are women? How many women alive today were married before they were 15 years old? Which country has the highest number of female parliamentarians worldwide? Test children’s knowledge on the inequalities that exist between women and men with our Quiz.

 

5. Get creative to raise awareness

Duration: 1 hour
Materials required: Arts and crafts materials or a computer

Over a third of girls at mixed-sex secondary schools have been sexually harassed while at school. 66% of female students and 37% of male students in mixed-sex sixth forms have experienced or witnessed the use of sexist language in school. Why not ask your child to create a poster to raise awareness of sexual harassment, sexist language or gender stereotyping? For further guidance, take a look at our Poster Activity guide which can be adapted for use at home.

 

We hope these activities help to get young people inspired to take action to tackle inequality between women and men. Get in touch to let us know how you get on by emailing Nina Humphries at nina@ukfeminista.org.uk

For further information and resources on tackling sexism visit:

UK Feminista’s School Resource Hub
National Education Union
Let Toys Be Toys
Tender