A culture of kindness is taking root within Highfield Leadership Academy as the Christmas season approaches.
Our pupils and staff are marking advent with the daily opening of a Kindness Calendar. Opened digitally during each day’s tutor group time, the Kindness Calendar is full of activities intended to highlight that not all gifts need to cost money. With 25 activities that include sharing compliments and offering help, the Academy aims to bring hope through small acts of kindness.
Our Executive Principal Helen Mackenzie OBE explained,
“Our Kindness Calendar moves away from the commercialism of Christmas and aims to foster a sense of goodwill right through December. Everyone at Highfield is encouraged to look for opportunities to support others on a daily basis, donate to local causes, and look after ourselves better too.
“Already the Kindness Calendar is having a tangible impact; the mood in school so far this December is one of benevolence and charity. I’m looking forward to what the rest of the month has to bring!”
The Academy is also using its Kindness Calendar activities to support two local charities. During December we are collecting donations of non-perishable food for Blackpool Food Partnership, as well as warm clothing, hats and scarves for local homeless charity Streetlife. In addition, there’s a new tree taking root in Highfield Leadership Academy: the Kindness Tree. Enhancing the culture of pupils working together and supporting one another, pupils are invited to pin pledges of help for others in the academy to the eight foot tall ‘tree’. The tree’s hand-shaped ‘leaves’ represent the helping hand Highfield pupils pledge to lend one another.
Simon Hyams, who leads PSHE at Highfield Leadership Academy, said,
“Launched during Anti-Bullying Week last month, the idea of the Kindness Tree is to give our pupils a visual stimulant to encourage teamwork across the academy. While trees outside have lost their leaves for winter, our Kindness Tree is gaining more day by day.”
For more information about our Academy’s charitable activities during December, click here.
