Thursday 9 June is Empathy Day and schools across the UK are being invited to use an empathy-building challenge: nine activities modelled by favourite authors all designed to help pupils learn more about empathy (including the fact it is a skill they can learn) and how to put it into action.
This, though, is just one part of a powerful year-round, cross-curricular approach to teaching empathy that our school - Pentrehafod School in Swansea - and its associated primaries were charged with piloting in Wales and which has changed our culture and outcomes.
Secondary schools have their work cut out in this post-pandemic world. The issues that were a priority pre-Covid - like a corridor culture so easily fuelled by the negative, pervasive influence of some social media - have only been exacerbated by the long lockdowns. We’re not the only school to see returning pupils finding it harder to respect boundaries, to listen to teachers or peers, or to see things from others’ point of view. There is, every school knows, an increase in poor mental health.
Our Pentrehafod cluster in Swansea - 1,100 students in our secondary and nearly 2,000 in seven primaries - was already embracing the way the new curriculum in Wales allows for collaborative, cross-disciplinary planning, learning and teaching across key areas and the freedom it gives schools to shape teaching to meet their priorities. It also, powerfully, mentions empathy 35 times.
We are a restorative-practice school, and are ambitious to teach children to take responsibility for their actions, to put themselves in others’ shoes, to recognise their role in improving society - to realise the four purposes of Curriculum for Wales. It made us the perfect fit for EmpathyLab’s work.
Crucially, their research shows that empathy is a learned skill, that education is key and that empathy must be taught. The research also demonstrates how immersion in literature builds empathetic understanding and emotional literacy.
By the time we got involved, EmpathyLab had developed three invaluable tools - including the Empathy Education Programme that we’ve adopted, the Empathy Day event and the Read for Empathy book collection, selected by expert judges.
We could, of course, see the challenges of delivering this at secondary when there is usually less story-based literature, less continuity in teacher-pupil relationships and, of course, subject boundaries and priorities.
At the outset, we expected the English department to do the heavy lifting. The research demonstrated reading (and being read to) builds empathy and literacy skills at the same time, so empathy education could be built into the curriculum quite efficiently.
To begin with, English teachers and form tutors trained together, and our English Scheme of Learning was rewritten to include empathy-rich texts. We kicked off with opportunities for empathy learning for Years 7 and 8 via form tutor time, library sessions and subject lessons, including the humanities and expressive arts.
We saw how a simple switch like making time to read aloud to a class promoted inclusion. Meanwhile, putting the focus on character as well as plot in the subsequent discussions created safe spaces to talk about thoughts and feelings (on everything from homelessness to gender identity) when related to characters in the books.
The results were motivating. We had twilight sessions to share good practice and started to build cross-curricular links as we developed resources.
Gradually, subject teachers who felt their areas fell outside the project saw how it could be applied by them. So lessons in computer science covered the life of Alan Turing as well as his technical achievements, adding the human dimension. Geography classes used non-fiction texts to explore what happens when we export waste to other countries and, in science, human stories about the impact of transplants helped pupils understand the facts.
Crucially, we listened hard to what the pupils had to say and harnessed their voices. A group of Year 11s guided us, bringing their own vision to an inset day, including fun ideas (such as “The Empathys”, an Oscar-like celebration of book characters showing exceptional empathy, which takes place on Empathy Day). There were also pastoral initiatives such as a “transition charter” (created by pupil reps across the cluster) to support Year 6 ahead of their move, which helped ensure every child experienced an empathetic transition.
We could see early on how the approach was supporting engagement in class. Ongoing evaluation reported a positive impact on pupils’ understanding of empathy and the vocabulary they use to recognise and share their own and others’ feelings. We also saw increased engagement with social action.
We are now officially an EmpathyLab Alumni School sharing our experience with another cluster in Pembroke Dock and other secondary schools. This is, though, very much a journey and we are eager to explore what is possible in this pandemic-recovery period and beyond.
Lisa Carroll is deputy head at Pentrehafod School, a secondary school in Swansea.
For more information about EmpathyLab’s work across the UK visit their website or follow them on Twitter. Teachers can register for free Empathy Day resources here
