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 2025 will take place 10th-14th March 2025. Theme to be announced.

The Festival is supported by a range of teaching resources created by experienced teachers and empathy experts. The resources are differentiated into five age categories from 5-18 years to enable all students to access social concepts at the appropriate cognitive level.

Empathy Week 2024 ran from 26th February – 1st March 2024 and the theme was ‘Home’. Resources for 2024 included:

Two film-based assemblies per age group that can be downloaded to use anytime during Empathy Week.
A programme of on-demand speaker events.
Online CPD workshops for teachers.
In-person events for students and teachers.

Cost: Free with registration.

About Empathy Week: Empathy Week was set up in 2020 by former teacher and filmmaker, Ed Kirwan, with the aim of providing students with the opportunity to develop the emotional skills required to make them successful global citizens in an ever-changing and increasingly connected world.

Further resources:

Bespoke CPD training for schools also available. Contact Empathy Week for further details.
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 in June is a day 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 an 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.