Sometimes all the work that Digital Explorer seems slightly divorced from the real world. I had two amazing lessons today that reminded me of how much young people in this country deserve a great global education and to be supported.

The first instance was a class doing their Citizenship coursework promoting the work of UNICEF. Groups had gathered round tables talking about different ways that they could work together. We had one group talking about making T-shirts featuring their new cartoon creation ‘Bruce’ the penguin: a cute, cuddly, polar spokes-penguin for child rights everywhere. Another group were telling me how they were going to spend half-term making a flash animation. Wow!

The second moment brought tears to my eye with a class discussing careers and university. We made a circle of the chairs in the classroom - out with the formal rows - and had one chair in the middle. Pupils took it in turns to sit in the middle and talk about hopes, fears and everything else. Chosing options at this age and considering careers is pretty terrifying stuff and some complained of the pressure of results and testing.

Then one short speech really moved me. A pupil explained how her family never had enough money for her to go on school trips or for nice clothes. She wanted to know if she would be able to afford to go to university. She would be the first member of her family to do so. She wanted to make them proud and to succeed.

It really brought home to me three things:

• we need to provide a great and engaging global curriculum for our young people
• we need to provide more opportunities for young people who wouldn’t ordinarily have them
• these young people are amazing - don’t believe what you read in the papers!

This is the video that has been inspiring us in the classroom…