Jaime Thurston

@SKingdonWard He loved it Sarah!

@jaimethurston I sent it guaranteed tracked to Reading yesterday. I trust it will arrive safely. 😊

@jaimethurston Hello Jaime, I have a signed Emma Watson photo and would like to send it to Dale, the Harry Potter fan. Do I send it to the Reading address? Stories involving children being bullied are heart breaking. Thank you for your wonderful work, Jaime. Have a lovely day.

Meet the winner of our Outstanding Pupil Award…a 7 year old boy from Berkshire who found out that food banks sometimes don’t receive enough donations and wanted to do something about it. @Binfieldschool

Congratulations to Cara-Diane and Tilly from @strettonsugwas in #Hereford! These girls created a kindness podcast in their school and just won our Collective Kindness Award! Thanks to @ScampandDude and all of our judges @emilycoxhead @JoTutchenerS @ManjitDarby @StChads_Croydon

Congratulations to @UnderbankPri - the winner of our Kind School Award 2024! 🏆 The judges had an incredibly tough job - thank you to everyone who submitted a nomination. (Our runners-up and other category winners will be announced over the coming week)

What a lovely way to spend a Monday afternoon…watching some of our amazing judges discuss the ‘kind adult’ category of our Kindness Awards. The number of kind souls working in our schools has made their job incredibly challenging!

We somehow end up in some amazing places @101Greig . I still don’t know who nominated me for the honour - let me know if it was you!

@naomicfisher Our charity has helped countless children who were getting into trouble for incorrect uniform, when their parents simple couldn’t afford it. It’s essentially punishing children for being poor.

Recently I talked to a young person who told me about starting secondary school. We were lined up, she said, and our uniform was inspected. I had never been in trouble at primary school but they said my shoes were wrong. There was a coloured stitch around the heel. She got a warning that first day, and told that the next day the same shoes would mean a short detention. There was no time or money to buy new shoes before the next day so back she went with the same shoes and duly got a 30 min detention. She tried to explain but was told there were no excuses. Next day it was the same. Still no time or money to buy new shoes so she wore her black trainers and hoped they wouldn't notice. They did. Also not allowed. She got angry when given another detention - it’s unfair! -  and she told the teacher so loudly and tearfully. This was disrespectful behaviour and so her sanction was increased.  More behaviour points and she’s heading for Reset.  She still can’t get new shoes. What exactly are those sanctions meant to be correcting? Where is the ‘misbehaviour’ which will be changed by ‘consequences’? Was it buying those shoes in the first place - not really her mistake, since she’s 11? Or was it not having money to buy new ones? Or having parents who work hours which means they can’t shop during the week? Or not quietly accepting the sanctions?  What is she meant to be learning from the experience? I can tell you what she did learn because she told me. She learnt that she hates getting detentions and that she doesn't think the teachers like her. She learnt that school cares more about the threading on her shoes than about her education and learning.  She started telling her parents she won't go. That’s seen as more ‘behaviour’ and her parents are told to put sanctions in place at home. Pretty soon she's very unhappy - but that still doesn't change the threads on her shoes. That’s the problem when we make sweeping statements about ‘behaviour’ which fail to ask questions about what is going on. What we see as ‘misbehaviour’ is dependent on the context. If by 'behaviour' we really mean 'compliance' then we should call it that. Learning to comply isn't the same as learning to behave. That's because behaviour is about much more than compliance. Behaviour is the result of an interaction between the person and their environment. If we ignore the role of the environment, we can make things worse.

So proud of the work of our School of Kindness

It’s #WorldBookDay, so we’ve helped to provide books for 100 children living in poverty -the children are under 5 and don’t have proper homes. Most live in shared housing / hostels. The books will be given to the children at an event being run by the kind people @magpieprojectuk

@rhosstreet @52Lives Thank you for joining! I’m glad the children enjoyed it

This morning, Year 2 joined a virtual assembly with the incredible 52 Lives, highlighting the skills needed and benefits of being more empathetic. The children then recorded how they could show empathy in a variety of circumstances. @52Lives #RSSwb #RSSrve #RSScfw

Next Life 101 workshop… @101Greig and I will be running our next Resilience Workshop on April 9th and 10th in Wokingham. life-101.co.uk/resilience-cou…

Do you know an inspiring adult working in a school? Or a pupil who has gone above and beyond? There are 4 award categories and nominations close on April 30th schoolofkindness.org/kindnessawards

With some extra donations, we have been able to buy a sewing machine, printer and materials to help a young Ukranain refugee set up her own business. She has lost family members and is all on her own, but she is determined to support herself by making uniforms.

A boy in one of our Kindness Workshops last week made this for his best friend … #friendshipgoals

@naomicfisher The charity I run often receives requests to help families who are stressed because their children are getting punished for not having the right shoes / blazer etc, but they are living in extreme poverty. Baffles me that some schools might punish a child for this.

A parent messaged me today with the copy of a letter from their child's school. Any child who doesn't have all the right equipment on any day will get a demerit and an automatic hour long detention after school. How many adults would like that policy in their workplace? Would it help you to organise yourself? Or might it make you highly anxious?

My favourite poem from my favourite poet @Donna_ashworth . And a beautiful thought to start your weekend with. This is from her book ‘Wild Hope’

What a week! Thank you to all the children and teachers who took part in our #childrensmentalhealthweek activities. Can you spot your class in the video? Thank you @NBBRecycledFurn for your support. And thank you @Place2Be for starting all of this!

This was incredible. Five years ago we were working with a few thousand children a year….I’m so proud of how much our school project has grown. This assembly was led by @101Greig , featured science from @DrDRHamilton and concluded with a beautiful poem read by @Donna_ashworth