The World around us

It is a difficult time for everyone at the moment and what is happening in the Middle East is hard to watch –or fully comprehend. The language that surrounds “Epic Fury” dehumanises those who are innocently caught up in this war and at times sounds like adolescents playing video games. But this is not a game, real people with real lives and deep loves are being killed, hurt and made homeless. Critical thinking in education, empathy for others. inclusive school policies and conflict resolution matter more than ever. This newsletter contains information about projects, conferences, training and more but first two related issues.

Lindsay and Craig Foreman – detention in Iran

Many of you will know – and by now at least know of – Lindsay and Craig Foreman. Lindsay is a positive psychologist who was travelling the world finding out what people thought made for a ‘good life’. She was due to present her findings at the IPPA conference in Brisbane in July 2026. Lindsay and Craig were arrested in Iran in January 2025 and in February 2026 convicted of spying and sentenced to ten years detention. Of course since then the situation has dramatically worsened. If you want to know more, sign petitions to ask the UK government to take stronger action and perhaps contribute to this campaign, you can do this. Their experience mirrors that of Nazarin Zaghari- Ratcliffe. Along with many other injustices silence is not an option.

Together March Against the Far Right

If you are in the UK on 28th March this march will take place in London. It has been organised by more than 600 organisations including Oxfam to show solidarity against the politics of the far right and those who sow seeds of hatred. It promotes the alternatives of kindness, fairness, compassion and inclusion – and of course hope. More details here.

UK Social Media consultation

Also for the UK, the government is consulting on (their words) “further measures to prepare children for the future in an age of rapid technological change. This includes potential age restrictions on social media and other services such as gaming sites and AI chatbots, restrictions on addictive design features and risky functionalities, and better support for parents and families.” More detail here.

Other news and opportunities

Global Citizenship Education 

Would you like to be considered as one of the first 25 schools to pilot the Global Citizenship Trustmark? 25 schools worldwide will be invited to form the Founding Cohort, a fellowship of school leaders working alongside each other to set the standard for the field. If you are or know a school leader who might be considered for this initiative write to schools@globalcitizenshipfoundation.org

Words Matter

This campaign to address verbal abuse of children and young people has launched a free course How to communicate with children so they thrive. You can read more about this here – this LInked-In post includes a great video clip worth a watch.

Conferences, Research and Resources

Empathy Day Festival (4-11 June) – online and live with many resources available.

The Positive Schools conferences in Brisbane, Sydney and Fremantle in October and November this year are focused on behaving well. I am delighted to be delivering a keynote at all three and look forward to seeing old friends and colleagues.

Research 

From the Harvard Centre on the Developing Child: The importance of stability in the developmental environment.
From the Greater Good Science Centre. Why diversity is good for society 
From Edutopia. The 25 most significant education studies of 2025 – Scroll down to the one on relationships!

Resources 

Building Better Schools with Evidence Based Policy: This no-cost resource contains 38 ready-to-use policies written by leading experts and provides a succinct summary of best practices. It’s a potential time-saving resource for schools and also a succinct summary of important topic areas for schools today.

The ASPIRE Culture Cards  – 20% Discount with code EdInstitution20

On the website

Read the latest vignettes in our Love of Learning visits. Dominic Boddington and I have now visited 6 of our 10 primary schools across England investigating what they are doing to inspire children to love learning. All are different but there are strong threads throughout. We have summarised just four of these so far and will be putting up others in due course.

I had a great conversation with Becky Dawson at Twinkl about how the ASPIRE principles help make schools ‘child ready’ rather than children being expected to be ‘School ready.’ You can listen to this here.

Benjamin Margetts wrote us a brief summary of his research asking secondary students what makes for a positive school culture and what impact does this have. You can read this here and also get information on how to find out more.

The next newsletter will include more information about the Handbook of Wellbeing in Education: Research Transforming Practice which is almost ready for submission to Edward Elgar Publishers.