Empathy Week and the Importance of Wellbeing

In celebration of ‘Empathy Week’, students heard about how reading is particularly important in helping develop empathy, something that can be enhanced over a lifetime.  Through reading great book characters, students get to immerse themselves in another’s world and feel what someone else is feeling.  Ines from Year 7 spoke about Sophie from ‘Keepers of the Lost Cities’ as a character she had felt empathy for and Vidhi from Year 8 talked about the book character Elsie Hollis from a ‘A Spoonful of Jam’ by Michelle Magorian.

Caitlin in year 7 empathised with the book character Lyra from ‘Northern Lights’ by Philip Pullman, saying: “I empathised with the character Lyra most at the end of the book, when her best friend Roger is killed by her father, and she felt betrayed and guilty as she had looked up to Lord Asriel, her father, and blamed herself for his death. This made me feel really bad
for Lyra as she was only trying to help and ended up losing her best friend. I would tell her that it wasn’t her fault and there was nothing she could have done to save her friend, but she should accept that it wasn’t her fault
to make peace with her friend and let his memory live on.”