From February 14th to 25th, 2022, McKay students, staff and families participated in a School-wide focus on “Lifting Each Other Up Through Kindness". We kicked off our Kindness focus with Red Valentines Friendship Day on February 14th.  

This school-wide initiative lasted on ways to be kind to one another included lessons, events and activities designed to make a difference in the lives of others within our learning community. Our focus also included on Pink Day on Wednesday, February 23rd, with some important lessons on how we can ensure that we take a stand against Bullying and promote kindness and love over anger and hate.

This two-week long focus culminated in a Kindness Celebration over Teams, in which we acknowledged, reflected upon and celebrated our learning about how to be kind, and the impact that being kind to one another had had upon us here at McKay. On the 25th, we hosted a Pink Day Zoom Assembly in which each class presented their journey of learning about kindness. 

SCHOOL-WIDE FOCUS ON “LIFTING EACH OTHER UP THROUGH KINDNESS"

In early February, interested staff joined a Kindness Committee to discuss ways to lift each other's spirits - as we recognized all of us were feeling the impact of the Global Pandemic and that we needed the support of one another - perhaps more than ever. We brainstormed ways to promote, encourage, foster and teach kindness, to develop social responsibility and empathy within our students, and try to raise everyone's spirits in the context within which we were living. 

The following is a summary of the school- wide plans created by our Committee and actions of our students, staff and families over these ten days of learning:

February 14th – 25th, 2022

Thursday February 14th

• Red Day – celebrating Valentine’s Day
  • 9:00 – 9:30 am Zoombly (Assembly over Zoom) to kick off our focus on kindness
    • Mrs. McLeod read a story about Kindness
    • Mr. Hurst explained the Valentine’s Friendship Flower activity for classes to do at some point during the two-week focus:

Friendship Flowers Activity

• All classroom teachers will received an envelope with the following materials:
  • Pre-cut flower pieces for each student in the class:
• Each student will receive a flower with 5 compliments or positive comments from their classmates.

Tuesday February 15th  to Friday February 25th: 

• We promoted, taught, acknowledged and tracked or logged our students "Acts of Kindness" each day
• Over the next 10 days of school, staff focus on teaching and/or brainstorming ways our students can be kind to one another.

• Our Teacher Librarian, Ms. Mui, set aside books with a focus upon or theme of Kindness, Frienship, or Empathy for staff and students and provided resources for educators on how to teach and promote kindness
• Our Kindness Committee provided classroom teachers with a variety of templates or ideas to log or track acts of “Lifting Each Other Up Through Acts of Kindness” 

Friday February 25th  - Kindness Celebration Day

• 9:00 – 10:00 am Assembly on Teams:
  • Mr. Hurst created a Kindness Focus Movie celebrating the many acts of kindness that our students had demonstrated during our Kindness Focus days at Bridge
    • Students from each class were interviewed and shared the acts of kindness their students demonstrated, some of the learning activities in which they participated, and how this focus impacted their lives

LINKS TO OUR SCHOOL FOCUS ON THE CORE COMPETENCY OF COMMUNICATION:

Being kind to others certainly ties into an important aspect of Communicating: Connecting and Engaging With Others.

We wanted to hear how this focus on lifting each other up through kindness had impacted them and also wanted to use this as an opportuinity to improve our students’ abilities to effectively and descriptively communicate their thinking and learning. 

With this in mind, three to five students in each division met with Mr. Hurst and reflect on their learning about kindness. 

LINKS TO THE CORE COMPETENCIES OF:

1) POSITIVE PERSONAL AND CULTURAL IDENTITY

2) SOCIAL AWARENESS AND RESPONSIBILITY 

Learning to be kind to one another not only makes McKay a better place for all of us to call home. It is an important part of the K to 12 Provincial Curriculum, with strong ties to the Core Competencies that are listed above.

In the Image Gallery below, you will see examples of a lesson plans on being kind at different grade levels - K,  Grades 1 to 3 and Grades 4 to 7. These images highlight the Core Competencies targeted in these lessons, and they are just one example of the many learning experiences provided for our students during our Kindness focus.

In the Image Gallery, you will also see some examples of our Friendship / Kindness Gardens on display throughout the school. Each Bulldog student helped to create a Positive Comment Kindness Flower for 5 of their classmates - and each received their own flowers with 5 kind or positive comments from their peers.