Empathy Week

Resource type: Event

Price band: Free

Key stage: KS1, KS2, KS3, KS4, KS5, EYFS

Region(s): All of UK

Empathy Week is an annual festival designed to help students aged 5-18 understand and develop key empathy skills through events, stories and film-based resources. Empathy Week 2026 will take place from 9th-13th March. The theme for 2026 is My / Your / Our Culture.

The Festival is supported by a range of teaching resources created by experienced teachers and empathy experts. Resources include:

Film-based assemblies that can be downloaded to use anytime during Empathy Week.
A programme of live and on-demand speaker events.
In-person events for students and teachers in the UK.

Cost: Free with registration.

About Empathy Studios: Empathy Week was set up in 2020 by former teacher and filmmaker, Ed Kirwan. It is now administered by Empathy Studios, an education and creative studio that provides films, resources and training to help schools develop a whole-school approach to building empathy skills.

Further resources:

Catch up on the Empathy Week briefing for a quick, practical overview of this year’s resources and how to make the most of what is on offer.
Read the pilot study report conducted by the University of Cambridge on the impact of the Empathy Week Programme.
Put empathy into action by running a Readathon sponsored read that will raise money to provide books and storytelling events for seriously ill children in hospital while also promoting reading for pleasure.
Empathy Day Festival in June is dedicated to celebrating the importance of empathy and the vital role that books and reading play in helping young people develop key empathy skills.
The annual Read for Empathy Collections feature books that encourage young readers to see the world through other people’s eyes.
Empathy Lab offers CPD training packages to help primary and secondary schools develop and embed a book-based empathy strategy.
Other events in the literacy calendar that provide an opportunity to explore empathy further include World Kindness Day, Anti-Bullying Week, Children’s Mental Health Week and Refugee Week.