‘Dulwich Chingu’ - World Kindness Day 2019
Last week all students united with their Chingu Partners across the College to celebrate World Kindness Day. True to our mission statement of ‘the kindest school in the universe’, and in honor of our friendly host country South Korea, the occasion was a perfect opportunity for Senior School students to visit, once again, their Primary School ‘chingu partner’, to connect and bond through play and peer support. This was the third occasion this term to celebrate the connection across the College - our ‘Dulwich Chingu’ Wellbeing project.
Here, Year 11 Heather kindly shares her experiences of the event:
On World Kindness Day Year 11 were able to meet our tiny Year 2 chingus and we had a blast playing with them! The Chingu project is one in which students are connected throughout the College on special occasions throughout the year; each Senior School student is introduced to a younger student in Primary School and we have become chingus! In Korean this means ‘friend’. Us Year 11’s were luckily paired with the most enthusiastic bunch of students in Year 2, who not only made us feel welcome but also made us run laps to play tag and also helped to find the inner Picasso within us by convincing us to help them with Art projects. Some of them had made us cute thank you cards, which was a lovely gesture; some of us organised some activities to highlight the need for kindness and share its importance with our chingus. What they gave us in return was not only warm smiles and giggles, but also a chance for us to reflect on the past week. The date we had to meet our chingus was the week following our IGCSE mock exams, so it was a great opportunity to relax and forget about all the stress from assessments! Since Year 11 is so important for us to finally fulfill our grades, we all really enjoyed and appreciated having some downtime with the adorable Year 2 students. We hope to see them again soon for World Education Day in January and really hope that our chingus all had as much fun as we did!
By Heather in Year 11
The Dulwich Chingu Project is a yearlong project designed to connect our students across the College, for peer support and a strong sense of belonging, meaning and purpose - key aspects of wellbeing in a world where young people can feel increasingly disconnected from each other and from the concept of being safely part of something larger than themselves. All year groups across the College are matched up - please ask your child about this experience! The Chingu partners will meet again at the end of January for World Education Day. For more information on the theory of Wellbeing and Pedagogy please explore the influential work of Dr Martin Seligman, Dr Helen Street and The Institute of Positive Education.
Ms Victoria Finch
Senior School Assistant Head (Wellbeing)
