Spread A Little Happiness

Can kindness change the world? & How can my kindness change my community?

In Spring 2018, the C24 Year 7 expedition was called “Spread a little happiness”.

The learning targets were :

  • I can investigate and explain different religions and the impact they have on a community
  • I can reflect on how different religions and their cultures have an impact
  • I can analyse the language, structure and form of a monologue and apply this to my work
  • I can produce a 3D product specifically for an elderly person that reflects their interest

The anchor text for this expedition was Feather Boy by Nicky Singer.  The book follows the story of a young boy Robert Nobel who becomes friends with an elderly lady after his school visited her at the old peoples home.  The old lady asks Robert to go to Chance House to solve a mystery. Students discussed how the relationship was formed between Robert and the elderly lady.

For the case study students researched and explored Sikhism, Christianity and Buddhism to consider how these religions looked after and supported their community.   As part of this case study fieldwork was carried out to the Gurdwara Sikh Temple. Students also had experts from the Chinese community within Doncaster to discuss how they look after the generations of their families and its elderly community.

The experts for this expedition were the elderly who accessed 4 different community centres through the charity Age UK. Students were assigned an elderly person who they interviewed and found out their past.  Following this students used the information gathered to design and craft a personalised kindness box filled with items in it.

As part of this expedition students took part in service learning by visiting the community centres to play games such as dominoes and cards with the service users.

The expedition culminated with two Presentations of Learning’s, the first took place in the community centres in Doncaster where students presented their personalised kindness boxes to their elderly friends. The second was a Presentation to their parents where they shared their knowledge of the elderly, what Dementia is, their monologues, their letters to their elderly person and footage of the service users at Age UK receiving their boxes.

All resources relating to this expedition can be found below:

Expedition Posts

Final Product – Kindness Boxes

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This expedition was also completed in 2015 (C21), 2016 (C22) and 2017 (C23) with students creating Kindness boxes in 2017 and then completing random acts of kindness at Lakeside Shopping Centre, Doncaster, where they handed out flowers, bottled water, sweets, baked goods and other gifts to the shoppers there in 2015 and 2016. Students also created a ebook with their speeches in the first year which can be seen below.

C23 Final Product – Presentation of Kindness boxes Celebration of Learning

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C22 Final Product – Acts of Kindness and Extracts from student reflections

Acts of Kindness

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C21 Final Product – Acts of Kindness and Extracts from student reflections

Final Product – Acts of Kindness

Final Product – Can Kindness change the world? student reflections…