Hi,
did you see the Play Paws resource that’s now on the Resource Toolkit? That’s full of ice breakers and could lead into discussions

We use the YFC Rock Solid stuff. I normally adapt it to fit a lunchtime and for the kids that come but it’s an interactive session with games and a talk on a certain theme each week.

See http://www.yfc.co.uk/resources/rocksolid for more info

We did a lunch club called Spirit Zone (name nicked from Mark Berry!!) in a number of schools here in Luton. Exploring beliefs in all sorts of ways. The whole session was based on the ‘talky bit’ rather than saving that till the end of games/activities etc. It had a clear expectation that it was a place to explore faith and we did something symbolic to create a different atmosphere to match that expectation - ie light a candle and we’d cover desks in coloured fabric to change the feel of the room. We looked at elements of faith that can be understood by those with no church background i.e. hope, fear, love, creation and let the young people bring their understanding and opinions, as well as sharing ours, looking for a common ground to start from. We did activities like placing a variety of passages on a theme (say from poets, newspapers, the bible) and asking pupils to pick their favourite and share why it resonated with them, getting discussion going. We’d use art to describe what was personal/important to us - sharing or not, activity - they wanted to do a litter pick after thinking about the school community. One group had a very strong sense of social justice so we used the Action Aid ‘Send my friend to school’ pack and Make Poverty History info. We also had a session where they shared their talents, following on from thinking about what makes us who we are.I loved these clubs because they were very holistic, we explored faith together and it was a very immediate way into talking about God and responding to Him.

Not much to offer on this, but to say what a good thing that you have kids from the non-traditional school community in your eyesight. I do also wonder about whether bullying is too much discussed sometimes - my preferred topics include angels, inspiration, forgiveness, rage, evil and many more before bullying. My experience is that many kids get sick of PSHE lessons on bullying

Off the point a bit but in response to Lat. I think a good way of doing bullying is by doing building positive friendships/communication skills/assertiveness/problem solving etc am constantly amazed by the problems with friendship groups and the inability to fix them. Bring out the sorry board (see resource toolkit) again!!