The Little Match Girl – Resource pack for teachers Lesson Six – SMSC Focus
Lesson Objectives:
• To understand the meaning of cruelty and kindness
• To recognise what cruelty, kindness and greed look like
Suitable for pupils working at:
Key stage one and two levels
Preparatory tasks prior to delivery:
• Check you have access to the supporting PowerPoint
• Print the supporting An Act of Kindness worksheet for the students
• Prepare writing and drawing equipment to complete the tasks
Task One:
Provide students with the definitions of cruelty, kindness and greed on slide two of the supporting PowerPoint and discuss these as a class. You may wish to provide some examples to the class, possibly from recent news, to aid their understanding. These may link to social injustice, poverty, wealth and social class.
Cruelty: purposefully causing harm to others and not caring about it.
Kindness: being friendly, charitable or caring.
Greed: a selfish need for power, money or food.
Task Two:
Display the images on slides three, four and five for the students and watch the corresponding scene from the production film. Each scene exemplifies one of the above characteristics from the show. After each clip, stop and discuss as a class how you feel this displayed the named characteristic (cruelty, kindness or greed).
Task Three:
In pairs or small groups, using the show clip analysis to help them, ask students to create a list or mind map of what these characteristics may look like in everyday life. For more able or key stage two students, you may wish to ask them to give examples too.
For instance:
Cruelty: being at war.
Kindness: giving to those less fortunate.
Greed: a boss taking a big bonus when the workers are paid a low salary.
Task Four:
Using the grid on slide six of the supporting PowerPoint ask the class to group their examples into the four sectors: school, community, home and environment. You may wish to do this task in smaller groups or as a whole class exercise. Then as a class, ask students to provide examples of how we may see these characteristics in the four sectors during everyday life, using the table on slide seven of the supporting PowerPoint.
Here is a list of some examples:
| Sector | Cruelty | Kindness | Examples of greed in society |
| School | Excluding another student from a game | Helping out a new student | Consider how and why some people may be less fortunate and powerless than others and link this to greed. |
| Community | Not cleaning up your dog mess from the pavement | Raising money for a local charity | |
| Home | Never helping around the house | Doing something nice for someone at home like making them breakfast | |
| Environment | Dropping litter | Using a recycle bank |
Task Five:
Ask students to complete the Act of Kindness worksheet provided, where they must reflect on:
• One kind thing they could do and where
• One act of kindness they would like to see or receive
• Give an example of how they could make someone’s day
• Give their own examples of what kindness could look like at home, school, in the community and for the environment
• Draw an image of kindness