Blog Post

EMPATHY BOOSTING ACTIVITIES AT SOUTHBANK’S IMAGINE FESTIVAL

  • By EmpathyLab
  • 31 Jan, 2017
Empathy Lab is thrilled to be part of the Southbank’s superb Imagine Children’s Festival. Do come and join us at two free events on Friday 13 and Monday 16 February 2015. We’ll be using rhymes and stories to help children understand their own and other people’s feelings, and sharing them with parents and carers.

Empathy boosting rug rhyme session, 10.30am, Friday 13 February

Join us in a special kind of Rug Rhyme for children aged 0-5. We’re partnering with The Poetry Library to immerse children in rhymes that are great for parents and carers to share face to face with children to help build closeness. After the rhyme session, we’d love parents and children to help us make a creative display expressing feelings about enjoying rhymes and poems together.

INCLUSIVE MINDS’ DAY: Monday 16 February

Sue Hendra and Norman the Slug 11.00-11.30

EmpathyLab uses stories to help children understand their own and other people’s feelings, and is partnering Inclusive Minds to create this event. It features author/illustrator Sue Hendra (pictured above) and Norman, a slug who longs to be a snail. In a hilarious, touching and hugely creative session, Sue will involve children in exploring Norman’s feelings and children’s responses will form part of the EmpathyLab Feelings Wall.

EmpathyLab Feelings Wall drop in 11.30-1.30

Children can meet Sue Hendra, read Norman the Slug, and have fun making, drawing and writing about their responses on the EmpathyLab Feelings Wall.

Read our crowd-sourced recommendations for books that help you understand someone else better.

Keep up to date with what we’re up to on Twitter.

Find out about the Top Ten Messages from our Think In and our next steps.
By EmpathyLab 29 Feb, 2024
Ofsted have recently said that inspectors need to have more empathy. Journalists have asked politicians where their empathy is when talking about refugees or homeless people. These adults were obviously not at school when EmpathyLab started Empathy Day. But what we hope for children today is that even if they’re not seeing empathy being modelled at home, they are exposed to books in school which promote the consideration of others. The publication of the annual Read for Empathy lists supports schools aiming to develop this crucial life skill.
The collection consists of 65 books for 3-16 year olds, each chosen for its unique contribution in building young people’s empathy.

The primary collection for 3-11 year has 40 books; the secondary collection features 25 books for 12-16 year olds.
By EmpathyLab 29 Feb, 2024

I am very fortunate to have been on the Read for Empathy booklist judging panel over the past few years.

I’m also a practising classroom teacher so I would like to consider how the books on the list can influence what happens in a school.

Firstly, along with many other schools, reading aloud is an important part of our school day, every day, almost without fail. All the teachers at my school are aware of the EmpathyLab booklist, and often use it as a basis for choosing their next class read. Knowing that the books touch on important aspects of our children’s lives is key; we all understand how important representation is in stories. These are books that make a difference, that lead to passionate discussions in the classroom and can actually influence children’s behaviour .

The booklists become increasingly valuable. We have a couple of hundred empathy texts at our school – they are there on merit. Staff often refer to previous lists if there as a particular aspect of empathy that they want to include or share with the children.

Our Year 6 Reading Champions often seek out picture books from the  list to take in to KS1 and Reception when they read stories, so we already have the next generation educating each other about the importance of empathy. I love the fact they often meet beforehand (they tend to work in twos) to discuss what questions they might want to ask the children once the story has been read. After each booklist is released, they also spend several of their Friday recommendation slots in assembly talking about a couple of the books. We have parents in on our Friday assembly so it’s a great way to share the texts with them and help raise their awareness of our work.

We often use the books as our teaching texts for English, partly because they encourage excellent writing but also because they provide a fantastic opportunity for our pupils to develop their empathy skills.  The Wild Robot by Peter Brown, Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo, Freedom by Catherine Johnson, Eyes that Kiss in the Corners by Joanna Ho and A Street Dog Named Pup by Gill Lewis are all books that have made in into our English curriculum as a result of being on one of the Read for Empathy booklists. Well, that’s not strictly true - Edward Tulane was there before that as it’s one of my favourite ever books, but you hopefully take my point.

Reflecting on our empathy journey over the past few years, I’ve also found that the more books children read that address empathy, where they can relate to the characters and their choices, the more books they want to read. It’s almost a virtuous circle. Many begin to realise that such books can  empower them to think about situations.

For example, as soon as we finished A Street Dog Named Pup last year, several of them immediately wanted to read other books by Gill Lewis. Because empathy is a thread that runs through much of her work ( Gorilla Dawn , Moon Bear , The Closest Thing to Flying and so on). Thanks to EmpathyLab's lists, I was able to point them in the direction of several other books, by her and others.

I think we agree that teaching children about empathy and providing them with opportunities to develop it is one of the most important gifts we can give them as adults. The fact that empathy has gone from being something that schools sort of understood a few years ago to being something that has got an increasingly solid evidence base is crucial.

There’s always been anecdotal evidence that reading stories is important for children and that it can change how they think but now that’s backed up with research. The empathy revolution (and it is a revolution) is only going to pick up more momentum over the next few years as the need for it becomes ever more apparent. Working in schools and in the world of children’s books means that we’re in the front line. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be. 
By EmpathyLab 11 Apr, 2023
Teachers we work with say that children are finding it hard to communicate about their feelings, and have raised anxiety levels and emotional turbulence. We’re taking two steps to help.
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