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Newsthink: teaching current affairs

Topical teaching resources exploring what is happening in the world, and the news, from a humanitarian perspective.

Our Newsthink resources are packed full of ideas for how to help young people learn about current affairs and the world around them with a humanitarian outlook. The resources use real-life examples through film clips, photographs, and stories linked to British current affairs and international news, prompting discussion and developing media literacy and critical thinking.

Browse our media literacy teaching resources and find out more about how to teach current affairs with a humanitarian approach.

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Newsthink teaching resources

1 - 12 of 32 results

  • A photo taken from inside a car as a British Red Cross emergency response volunteer drives across a wintery landscape.

    Act of courage

    Age:

    11 - 16

    Type:

    Lesson plan

    Subjects:

    PSHE, Tutor time

    Topics:

    Newsthink, Disaster and emergencies

    Secondary PSHE discussion activity looking at what drives us to help others and the importance of personal safety while helping.

  • Two Spanish Red Cross responders walk through ankle-deep floods from torrential rain, as an older couple pump water into the flooded street from their doorway and another man passes by.

    Newsthink: Flash floods in Spain

    Age:

    10-19

    Type:

    Quick activity

    Subjects:

    PSHE, Tutor time

    Topics:

    Disasters and emergencies, Newsthink

    Teaching resource to help students explore how floods impact communities and how people come together after extreme weather events.

  • An Afghani father holding his two toddlers

    The Afghanistan crisis

    Age:

    11-19

    Type:

    Quick activities

    Subjects:

    PSHE, Tutor time

    Topics:

    Conflict, Newsthink, Refugees and migration

    Secondary teaching resource exploring the 2021 Afghanistan crisis. Have conversations with students to examine humanitarian issues and their impact on people.

  • Two children wearing school backpacks holding hands walk through a street filled with rubble and destroyed buildings in Aleppo, Syria. One child wears a red jacket.

    School in Syria

    Age:

    11-16

    Type:

    Lesson plan

    Subjects:

    PSHE, Tutor time

    Topics:

    Conflict, Newsthink

    Give your classroom the opportunity to think about the importance of their own education by understanding how lives are for the students in Raqqa, Syria.

  • The remains of a ruined building due to bombing in Yemen.

    Sounds of conflict

    Age:

    11–19

    Type:

    Lesson plan, Newsthink

    Subjects:

    PSHE, Tutor time

    Topics:

    Conflict, Newsthink

    Secondary PSHE activities discussing airstrikes in Yemen and who and what is protected under international humanitarian law.

  • A Sudanese mother and her children who have fled from the conflict in their own country as refugees in Chad.

    Refugees through time

    Age:

    11-16

    Type:

    Lesson plan

    Subjects:

    PSHE, Tutor time

    Topics:

    Newsthink, Refugees and migration

    Educational teaching resource considering the shared humanity of refugees and migration through history. Suitable for secondary school students aged 11 to 16.

  • Polish Red Cross volunteer with glasses holds a coat and blanket, speaking to a woman in a winter coat and hat. Behind them, women and children in winter clothing hold suitcases, among 420 people who left Ukraine.

    Newsthink: Ukraine

    Age:

    11-19

    Type:

    Quick activities

    Subjects:

    PSHE, tutor time

    Topics:

    Newsthink, conflict, refugees and migration

    Examine and discuss the 2022 Ukraine crisis using a photo based activity. This teaching resources is suitable for secondary school students Key Stages 3 and 4.

  • Staff and volunteers from Magen David Adom in Israel (MDA), Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have been working round the clock to respond to urgent needs, including treating casualties.

    Newsthink: Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory

    Age:

    10-19

    Type:

    Quick activities

    Subjects:

    Tutor time, PSHE

    Topics:

    Humanitarianism and the Red Cross, Disasters and Emergencies, Newsthink

    Learn about the rules of war and how they apply to the conflict in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

  • A wooden thermometer showing a high temperature.

    Newsthink: Heatwaves

    Age:

    10-19

    Type:

    Quick activity

    Subjects:

    Geography, tutor time, PSHE, citizenship

    Topics:

    Disasters and emergencies, first aid and the bystander effect, humanitarianism and the Red Cross, Newsthink

    Learn about the impact of heatwaves in the UK and around the world, with this Newsthink resource. Explore how extreme heat affects individuals and communities.

  • Inside a big warm and sunny tent, exhausted women and young children sit on mats and chairs. Two Sudanese Red Crescent volunteers give out supplies while everyone waits calmly.

    Newsthink: conflict in Sudan

    Age:

    10-19

    Type:

    Quick activity

    Subjects:

    Tutor time, PSHE

    Topics:

    Conflict, humanitarianism and the Red Cross, Newsthink, refugees and migration

    A teaching resource to explore the crisis in Sudan through a humanitarian lens. Suitable for the top year of primary and all of secondary (10-19 years old).

  • Old woman in Sundarbans, Bangladesh, affected by Monsoon floods.

    Monsoon rains

    Age:

    11-16

    Type:

    Lesson plan

    Subjects:

    PSHE, Tutor time

    Topics:

    Humanitarianism and the Red Cross, Newsthink

    Secondary PSHE discussion activities looking at the monsoon season in the camps in Bangladesh.

  • Polina sits on a sofa with her daughter-in-law Karyna, who holds her eighteen-month-old son Makar on her lap, while Mylana sits beside them in soft natural light in Tony’s house in Derbyshire.

    Migration to Britain

    Age:

    11-16

    Type:

    Lesson plan

    Subjects:

    PSHE, Tutor time

    Topics:

    Refugees and migration, Newsthink

    Educational resource to help secondary school students (11 to 16) build empathy and understanding toward migrants/refugees risking their lives to reach the UK

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