OJCS Receives TELUS and WE Schools Kindness Award

OJCS is the award recipient of the TELUS and WE Schools ‘Rise Above’ Kindness Award for our dedication to fostering a community of kindness! The $1500 donation was awarded to OJCS in recognition of our commitment to making our classrooms and school community a safe, inclusive, and friendly environment for all students. How have we done this?

• Our OJCS ‘Community of Kindness’ week in November (formerly called ‘Bullying Prevention Week’). One of our school goal’s this year is for students to develop the skills to have healthy and respectful peer relationships. You can read more about the week here: http://ojcsstudentlife.edublogs.org/2018/11/28/ojcs-community-of-kindness-week-hevei-na-im/ 
• Another initiative is that we created our own ‘7 Habits of Kindness’ prototype team who have focused on weaving Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits from his book ‘The Leader in Me’ into our school culture. The 7 Habits focus on developing the character of each person- read more about it here. This has included initiatives such as our monthly assemblies to introduce each habit and sharing resources and teacher PD around the 7 Habits. Each month Dr.Mitzmacher blogs about the ‘Habit of Kindness’ we are focusing on.
• Discussions around the importance of being kind toward one another continues to be part of our curriculum- Mrs.Thompson and the grade 5 class completed a class novel study on the book ‘Wonder’. The students had to complete a WONDERful Acts of Kindness Challenge where students were challenged to complete 4 random acts of kindness. When students completed their act, they gave that person a ‘Pay It Forward’ card in hopes that the person who received the card would carry out there own act of kindness.
• Collaborating with Shannon LaValley from JFS, many of our students have participated in ‘Kindness’ workshops throughout the year to learn more about the importance of being kind and developing each of the 7 Habits.