Tag Archive for: global goals

Photo by Adam Nemeroff on Unsplash

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World Kindness Day – Thursday 13 November
Every year on 13 November, people around the globe pause to celebrate World Kindness Day — a day dedicated to the simple yet powerful act of being kind. This day offers a unique opportunity to foster empathy, strengthen relationships, and build a culture where kindness is not just encouraged, but expected.

Why Kindness Matters

Kindness isn’t just about being nice — it’s about showing respect, understanding, and care for others.
In schools, encouraging kindness can lead to a safer, more supportive, and academically productive atmosphere. It reduces bullying, builds stronger relationships through empathy and respect, and improves students’ overall well-being and motivation.

Impact on the school climate

  • Reducing negative behaviours: kindness leads to a significant reduction in bullying and creates a safer, more inclusive environment where students feel valued.
  • Promoting positive relationships: it encourages empathy and respect among students, teachers, and staff, leading to a more connected and supportive community.
  • Improving students’ well-being: schools with a culture of kindness see a decrease in symptoms of anxiety and depression and an increase in feelings of positivity, happiness, and self-worth.
  • Increasing safety and engagement: a supportive environment fosters greater student engagement and motivation, making students more interested in learning and more likely to attend school.
  • Boosting academic performance: research shows a strong link between positive social behaviour like kindness and higher academic achievement.

Impact on individuals

  • Building emotional intelligence: kindness helps students understand different perspectives, develop self-acceptance, and build social and emotional skills.
  • Instilling responsibility: acts of kindness empower students to recognize that their actions can make a positive impact, encouraging them to be proactive contributors.
  • Enhancing self-esteem: when students are treated with kindness and encouraged to act kindly, their self-esteem and sense of self-worth increase.

Impact on the school as an institution

Attracting staff and families: a school known for its kind and nurturing environment can improve its reputation, potentially leading to higher enrolment and staff retention rates.
Creating a stronger community: it builds a more cohesive school community where everyone feels welcomed and supported.

Make Kindness Continuous

World Kindness Day is more than just a a date in your student or teacher planner — it’s a reminder that every day holds the potential for compassion and making school a positive place to be.

 

 

Photo by Adam Nemeroff on Unsplash

A Vital Time for Our Planet

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The COP27 climate summit took place in Egypt in November, with leaders from around the world coming together to discuss a plan to address the climate emergency.

This year, a historic agreement was reached to create a fund dedicated to helping vulnerable countries cope with financial losses brought about by climate change. For a long time, there has been concern that not enough help has been given by wealthy countries (that contribute the most to pollution and emissions) to poorer countries who contribute less to the climate emergency but are more adversely affected by climate change and climate-related disasters.

However, the summit was criticised for the lack of progress that has been made in cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Is progress being made?

For nearly three decades, the United Nations has brought together almost every country from around the world to a global climate summit – a Conference of Parties (COP).

In November 2021, the UK hosted the 26th annual summit, COP26, in Glasgow, Scotland. Leading up to COP26, the UK worked with every nation to reach agreement on how to tackle climate change.

COP26 was an international summit that had a sense of urgency, and world leaders, tens of thousands of negotiators, government representatives, businesses and citizens arrived in Scotland for thirteen days of talks.

At each COP summit, every country must agree to all parts of the plan for it to be completed, and the resulting agreement of COP26 is known as the Glasgow Climate Pact. Countries that signed it are working to implement it – but many scientists and citizens felt that the Glasgow Climate Pact wasn’t ambitious enough.

What further action is needed?

Many felt that the pact failed to address the need for our planet to stay below 1.5C of warming. This minimum temperature is essential to ensure a habitable environment for humans and animals.

The pact was also criticised for not including the phasing out of coal and fossil fuels. Instead, the wording ‘phase down’ was used. Following this year’s COP27 summit, it’s clear that ‘phasing down’ has not had the impact needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Young people are taking the initiative

In October 2021, days before COP26, the 16th United Nations Climate Change Conference of Youth, COY16, took place and was one of the largest entirely youth-led global youth climate conferences in the world. The Global Youth Position Statement that was issued following COY16 represented the views of over 40,000 young people worldwide.

And while COP26 took place, Greta Thunberg and over 100,000 young people marched through Glasgow’s streets, calling for change.

How can you encourage youth involvement?

While COP26 significantly increased the public’s level of interest in the climate emergency, biodiversity loss, and other environmental issues, this year’s summit didn’t have the same sense of urgency.

Young people are demanding politicians act with more urgency to prevent a climate catastrophe. Many are joining local climate action groups to campaign for:

  • Greater commitment to phasing out fossil fuels and moving towards renewable energy.
  • More initiatives to preserve and restore natural habitats and wildlife.
  • A faster shift to a more equal and nature focused economic system.
  • A cap to global temperature rise, keeping it below 1.5C.

To assist, educate and inform about this vital subject, Boomerang has created student climate action planners. We’re working with ypte (Young Peoples Trust for the Environment) as our principal content partner, a leading UK charity set up to encourage understanding of the environment among young people.

Plan for a sustainable future

Our student planners contain a wealth of content designed to support teaching and learning. We work to stimulate student interest and help to navigate them through their school year. We also assist in the meeting of Ofsted judgement criteria. Our student diary content is reviewed and refreshed each year to ensure it remains relevant and engaging for students.

Click here to view:

The Secondary Design Planner

The Classic Planner

The Primary Planner

If you’d like to know more about our secondary planner content for 2022/2023, please get in touch on 01252 368 328

Or visit our website, where you can explore the diary content in digital format at https://boomeranged.co.uk/portfolio/secondary-design-school-planners/

The World’s Largest Lesson: Global Goals in Schools

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We need your help.

If you’ve used Boomerang school planners before, you’ll know that we promoted the Global Goals with the World’s Largest Lesson last year. Well this time we want to reach even more people! The World’s Largest Lesson 2016 will deliver an even bigger impact and we need teachers and schools to get involved.

Global Goalsglobal-goals

We care so much about the Global Goals that we’ve dedicated an entire double-page spread to them in our 2017/18 school planners. So what are the Global Goals all about?

Well, the United Nations adopted the 17 Global Goals as part of a new sustainable development agenda, in the hope of building a better Earth.

These goals serve as the world’s to-do list, aiming to achieve three extraordinary things by 2030 – end poverty, combat climate change and fight injustice & inequality.

If you want to know more about each individual goal, just click here to visit the official Global Goals website.

It’s easy to think that goals of such a huge scale are impossible to even attempt to achieve. But by working together and starting close to home, we can make an impact. It’s especially important that we reach out to young people and ensure that we promote these goals in as engaging a way as possible. This is where the World’s Largest Lesson comes in…

What is the World’s Largest Lesson?largest-lesson

A groundbreaking movement, teaching young people about the Goals and encouraging them to become the generation that changed the world.

Take part during the week of 18th September 2016 – don’t forget!

You can use your role as an educator to show students that they aren’t powerless by any means and that their actions really can make a difference.

What Next?

Join the World’s Largest Lesson by clicking here for access to exclusive content and regular updates.

Download and print these useful, tailored resources, from motivational posters to lesson plans, to help you to promote the Goals to students.

Make sure that you take a look at the Global Goals full library of resources here.

Feeling inspired? Head to http://worldslargestlesson.globalgoals.org/  for all the information you need!