COMPASSIONATE pupils have been recognised globally for their empathy winning a coveted world award for the second time in three years.
Reid Street Primary School, Darlington, collected the prestigious Global Empathy Award 2023 accolade beating finalists from Switzerland and Saudi Arabia, as well as countless schools from around the world.
Founded by eminent UK educationalist Ed Kirwan the award-winning global schools programme attracts interest from a million students, aged 5-18, from more than 40 countries.
Empathy is the ability to understand another and create space for them to reveal their authentic self. The competition challenged pupils to use the power of film, resources and events, to collect people’s stories and spark meaningful conversations, questions and empathy across the week.
By live video link the competition CEO Mr Kirwan announced Reid Street Primary School as the winner. He said: “You have put in some amazing work into your fantastic project. You are the next generation of change-makers.
“Empathy is singularly the most important thing we can have or exercise. It’s great to see so many entries and it has been so hard to choose in what has been an amazing year again. Reid Street’s video, working with all ages, encapsulates empathy through time.”
Pupil Anna Jacob said: “As we had already won before we didn’t expect to win again. It’s the best thing ever.”
Principal Paula Ayto said: “Coming out of lockdown we wanted to do something to bring the school together again and spotted the Empathy Week competition which we won. We have continued to work with the organisation with Ed spending some time in our school and we have been a beacon for the initiative explaining why empathy is important in education.”
The school celebrated its 110th anniversary this year. Ten years ago when it marked its centenary it invited people to share their memories.
"We thought we could build on this for the latest project," Mrs Ayto said. “Also, one of the school governors, council leader Steve Harker, is connected with Darlington Dementia Friends who came in to train the school’s Dementia Choir, which performed to raise money for the charity, and the school’s Rota Kids and staff were trained as dementia friends.
“We show pupils that they can change the world and aren’t powerless just because they are young. We are building a power generation with empathy.”
The school’s Rota Kids placed a recycled Happiness Bench in the Denes and looked at what else could be done to improve the community. Every single class looked at elements of the local community, including the hospital next door, the railway and nearby Holy Trinity Church. The project was also a means to help the school’s high number of pupils from other countries learn about the town.
Physical and mental wellbeing was another important theme of the project, which covered from the 1800s to present day, and featured the memories of previous headteachers and pupils.
Year 4 teacher Amy Miller pulled all the information together as a video. She said: “The project helped the children understand that memories are important and will matter to them. It was lovely for the children to explore the area that surrounds them but they might not have been fully aware of previously. The children were fantastic at listening to other people’s stories.”
To tie in with the 75th anniversary of the NHS pupils collectively walked 1,000 miles to raise hundreds of pounds for the memorial hospital learning about their area as they went.
The award was the latest in a string of successes recently for Reid Street Primary School which secured gold in the School Wellbeing Award after working with Leeds Beckett University's Carnegie School in association with the School’s Advisory Service, the Asthma Friendly School accreditation and the Gold Award for School Games, a notable achievement since Reid Street has no playing fields.
