new house reading challenge

It's Empathy Day today and to celebrate and recognise it at UGS we have themed our House Library Challenge for this half-term: Read for Empathy.

Empathy Day is a national event that launches Empathy Lab's Mission Empathy initiative, whose objective is to build empathy awareness, skills and action amongst children and young people, with the vision: Read. Connect. Act

Empathy Lab's Read for Empathy collection of suggested titles promotes reading as a key empathy-building practice, that supports understanding, feeling, thinking, and acting, while bolstering skills in perspective-taking, and in recognising and naming emotions.

As author and Waterstone's Children's Laureate Joseph Coelho, a supporter of Empathy Lab, observes: "We can all increase our empathy superpower through reading, because the empathy we feel for the characters in stories can transfer to real life situations".

Some of our students are pictured above browsing a special display of titles in the LRC that have been specially collated from our own range of resources in recognition and celebration of Empathy Day, and to support the reading challenge.

We are fortunate at UGS to stock an expansive range of fiction and non-fiction titles that are themed around empathy for all in its broadest sense: for all in society and in all cultures; for community; for friends, family and loved ones; for the planet; and for ourselves. And we are proud to promote this selection of books amongst our students, and to provide opportunities to read, engage, and take perspective.

We look forward to seeing our students participate in the library challenge, and enjoying the outcome of their reading choices.