UK's Kindest School in Northampton invited to Parliament
East Hunsby Primary School have been given the award by charity 52 Lives.
Students from a Northampton Primary School, who have been named the countries Kindest School, have been invited to Parliament!
East Hunsbury Primary has been named School of Kindness by charity 52 Lives. Since picking up the award last week their local MP mentioned their achievement in the Commons leading to the invite.
The Schools Senior Leader responsible for Mental Health Kelly Roberts tells us how she found out about the back in March award:
"I read through and I was like, yeah, we do that, we do that, we do that. And it was all about teaching our children to be kind to themselves, teaching them to be kind to each other.
"And being kind to the environment, it's kind of a three pronged attack. So I read it through and I thought you know we do absolutely all of those things."
Head teacher Katherine Pennington says kindness is something they teach at all times in the school, from teaching the children how to react to unkindness, to having kindness ambassadors helping children work through disagreements in the playground:
"I think kindness shouldn't be underestimated as a value, kindness and making a kind choice can actually be one of the hardest decisions that you can make, but it will always be a kind decision.
"So we talk about to the children how to navigate unkindness as well, and we teach the children that the greatest gift that they have is how they react to something, and the impact of kindness. So that even though if you experience unkindness, you can still choose to be kind."
They both say when they found out they had won they couldn't quite believe it. And Kelly told us about the moment the children found out they had won:
"Oh, it was magical. Honestly, it was almost a month that we kept it a secret for. And then Jamie and Greg from the charity came in to present the award.
"I had to let it slip to about five children beforehand because they were going to be start a part of the presentation. But when they came into the assembly to present it, the roof came off, Greg said it was louder than the chair at the Taylor Swift concert when he announced it."
Future trip to Parliament
Their local MP Mike Reader raised their achievement in the Commons, suggesting to the House that his colleagues may all have something to learn from the East Hunsbury students.
It lead the Speaker of the House MP Lucy Powell to extend an offer of a visit to Parliament to the students.
Kat says it may have to be September now as the students break up for the summer today:
"Just waiting for the logistics, the date and when, but of course we will be taking the children because they lead the way with this absolutely and I think the exciting kind of element to that was that the Deputy speaker of the House suggested that our children could teach the MPs to be a little bit more kind to each other."
They say they'll take the trip in their school bus, which has the words 'Be Kind' on it.
The school also appeared on ITV's This Morning, getting a visit from presenter and actress Jodie Prenger.