Empathy Day Festival

Resource type: Event

Price band: Free

Key stage: KS1, KS2, KS3, KS4

Region(s): All of UK

The Empathy Day Festival (2nd-12th June) is a 10-day programme of activities, author events and CPD opportunities leading up to Empathy Day on 12th June 2025.

Empathy Day and the Empathy Day Festival celebrate the importance of empathy and the vital role that books and reading play in raising an empathy-educated generation. The programme of activities is designed to inspire young people to learn about empathy and build their empathy skills by putting empathy into action.

Activities for the Empathy Day Festival 2025 include:

Empathy Challenge activities and supporting resources to help young people develop their empathy skills.
Online assemblies with Children’s Laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce and award-winning author Manon Stefan Ros.
A programme of live and on-demand online author events for children and young people.
A range of CPD webinars featuring expert guest speakers.

Cost: Free with registration.

About EmpathyLab: EmpathyLab was founded in 2014 by Miranda McKearney OBE, Sarah Mears MBE, Craig Hill and Caroline Scott. Its aim is to develop children’s empathy and social activism through stories in order to build a more caring world.

Further resources:

Explore the titles in the latest Read for Empathy Collection, a selection of 70 books for 3-16-year-olds that offer insights into other people’s feelings and life experiences and help build key empathy skills such as understanding different points of view.
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 Action Month in November is an opportunity for schools and libraries to focus on putting empathy into action, revisiting the empathy resolutions set during Empathy Day.
Other events in the literacy calendar that provide an opportunity to explore empathy further include Empathy Week, World Kindness Day, Anti-Bullying Week, Children’s Mental Health Week and A Day of Welcome.