Putting Empathy into Action: PSHE with Leena & Zach

PSHE with Leena & Zach is now>press>play’s multi-part series which tackles issues like mental health, anti-bullying and online safety head-on. We immerse pupils into the lives of two friends, who are very different from one another, but who both experience the dizzying ups-and-downs of school and family life in the 21st century. Each lesson comprises a five-minute long audio episode, embedded within a 40-minute-long session.

Meet Leena: an extrovert, impulsive, loves basketball and dancing, doesn’t love literacy or spelling tests; she and her two sisters are brought up by their Grandad. Meanwhile Zach is quieter, sensitive, loves collecting ‘MagicQuest’ stickers, doesn’t love big changes or itchy labels; he lives at home with his Mum and his stepdad.

now>press>play’s schools love that we put children in someone else’s shoes, boosting their empathy and understanding. Our real-life contexts, built via immersive storytelling, breathe life and reality into what can otherwise become abstract case studies. Our active, oracy-based follow-up lesson gets your pupils communicating effectively, improving their emotional literacy and working towards real-world solutions.

We are well-aware that delivering PSHE can be a challenge to plan around existing priorities and continual pressure on classroom teachers. Our lessons require minimal preparation: a single slideshow that is simultaneously teacher- and pupil-facing - with no extra materials to prepare beyond that. PSHE with Leena & Zach can boost your existing scheme of work, or it can become it. It’s also very effectively deployed as intervention work or with nurture groups.