Kindness has been on the curriculum for pupils at Mount Pleasant Primary School this term, and some of its youngest pupils have put their knowledge in to action and taken kindness to the community.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Grade one and two pupils spent a day last week helping clean seats and pick up sticks around the Ballarat Botanical Gardens as part of their kindness in community studies.
Mount Pleasant principal Kate Robinson said the whole school had been studying kindness this term - and staff had noticed a real change in the schoolyard as a result.
"Our whole school inquiry has been kindness in community about how we develop this disposition in our students of positively contributing to our community, and looking at community on a local and global scale," she said.
The regular principal's award has also been changed to a kindness award, to cultivate kindness in children rather than being based on achievement.
"Kindness is something we've put out there with a shared language for all of our community ... and combined with us being a School Wide Positive Behaviour school we've seen great improvement in that data. It's a cumulative effect but having shared language around kindness for everyone to use has definitely helped."
As part of their global kindness outlook, Mount Pleasant donated its old playground to a school in Cambodia and have banded together to raise money for new play equipment for their school yard.
"We used the playground donation as a way to kick off the kindness," Ms Robinson said. "Every year level of students has been inquiring what kindness looks like in the classroom, in the local community and global community."
For the grade 1/2 pupils, the visit to the Botanical Gardens was about them contributing to the local Ballarat community. "It's about taking action and giving students a chance to make a difference in their own lives and the lives of others by taking positive action."
Wearing high viz vests, the youngsters cleaned up seats and gardens, collected sticks and debris blown away in recent winds in partnership with volunteers from Botanikids.
The school's senior pupils have donated books and clothes to students in Cambodia, while other students have come up with their own ideas to raise money for their new playground.
One of the most visible is a car show to be held at the school on Sunday from 10am to 1pm, which grade 1/2 pupil Deacon.decided to organise with the help of his mother and grandfather.