Building Character: Mona Heights Primary Students Embrace the Power of Integrity

At Mona Heights Primary School in Kingston, integrity is no longer a simple value written on a classroom wall or discussed during a lesson.

For an increasing number of students, it is becoming a choice they make every day, even when no one is watching.

A lost pair of eyeglasses returned to its owner. Money found on school grounds handed over rather than pocketed. Students sharing games and resources with their peers.

Children who once struggled with their behaviour stepping forward to help others.

These may seem like small acts but at Mona Heights Primary they are being celebrated as signs of something much bigger – a school culture in which children are learning to understand integrity and put it into practice.

This transformation is being guided by the Integrity Corner Initiative, a partnership between the Integrity Commission and the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information.

The initiative is being piloted at four primary-level institutions, namely, Mona Heights Primary, Alvernia Preparatory, Pratville Primary and McIntosh Memorial Primary.

Conceptualised as a proactive response to the need to strengthen values such as honesty, kindness, fairness and responsibility within school communities, the initiative provides dedicated spaces where students can engage in creative, reflective, playful and educational activities that reinforce integrity-based learning and positive behaviour.

The initiative was inspired by the theme for International Anti-Corruption Day 2025, ‘Uniting with Youth Against Corruption: Shaping Tomorrow’s Integrity’, which highlighted the role of young people as agents of positive change.

At each participating school, the Integrity Corner is built around four themes: Create, where students express ethical values through art; Play, where they learn through interactive activities; Read, where stories introduce ethical values; and Celebrate, which shines a light on positive examples of integrity.

For Mona Heights Primary School Principal, Alex Hepburn, the initiative has complemented efforts already under way at the school to strengthen character development.

“We had started an Integrity Club because we saw [where there was a need] to inculcate in all children the values that we saw were missing,” Mr. Hepburn explains.

He adds that the need was not merely theoretical. “The school had experienced incidents involving students taking items belonging to others, prompting administrators to consider how they could reinforce positive values in a practical and sustained way,” he notes.

The partnership with the Integrity Commission and the Ministry of Education provided an opportunity to deepen that work, the results of which have been “transformational”, Mr. Hepburn shares.

Since the Integrity Corner was introduced, Mr. Hepburn says the values being reinforced through the initiative have increasingly become visible in students’ everyday behaviour.

The Corner has provided a dedicated space where integrity is discussed, practised and celebrated, helping to move the concept beyond the classroom and into the daily life of the school.

He points to one recent incident that, for him, captured the change taking place at Mona Heights Primary.

“A student lost her eyeglasses. Another child found them and approached the principal to report that she had found the glasses and wanted to return them,” he recalls.

For Mr. Hepburn, that act demonstrated the kind of behaviour the initiative seeks to nurture.

The same pattern, he says, has emerged when students find money or other valuable items.

“We find where the children are now turning the money in,” he says, noting that even a newly appointed member of the school’s administrative staff remarked on the willingness of students to hand over items they find.

At Mona Heights, integrity is also being reinforced through the Integrity Champion initiative, created by the Integrity Commission to recognise students who demonstrate integrity in their everyday actions. Selected students receive Integrity Champion badges that they can wear around the school.

The recognition is helping to create an environment in which doing the right thing is something for which students want to be known.

For Principal Hepburn, one of the most encouraging indications of the initiative’s impact has been the change he has seen in students who previously struggled with their behaviour.

He recalls one student who approached him and declared, “Sir, I think I’m full of integrity.”
When Mr. Hepburn asked what he meant, the student explained that he had been preventing fights, helping other children and even tying the shoelaces of his classmates.

The encounter showed Mr. Hepburn that the initiative is reaching children he might not have expected to respond so readily.

“For me, that’s my greatest takeaway – to see those that you really thought would not have been impacted having that impact,” the Principal says.

The experience has reinforced his belief that values in education must begin early. Recalling a lesson from his own childhood, he stressed the importance of equipping children with the values and skills they need while they are young, so they can grow into responsible citizens.

“Education cannot just be about academics; it’s about the holistic development of a child, and initiatives such as the Integrity Corner can help schools play a deliberate role in developing children who understand the importance of values, accountability and responsible behaviour,” he says.

His vision extends beyond the school gates. He wants Mona Heights students to become “change agents” – young people who lead by example rather than simply follow others.

For grade-five teacher Dionne Williams, who is responsible for Mona Heights Primary’s Integrity Corner, the impact of that message is visible in the everyday interactions taking place among students.

She says the school embraced the initiative because it saw an opportunity to strengthen character development from an early age.

Having interacted with students in the Corner daily, Mrs. Williams describes their response as positive, noting that they are “making their way towards becoming Integrity Champions here at school and beyond our walls”.

She recalls an encounter with a student who was eager to use new interactive materials being added to the space.

When asked what she wanted to do with them, the child responded that she wanted to share them with her friends, have fun and relax.

According to Mrs. Williams, the interaction reflected the values of sharing, cooperation and consideration for others that the initiative seeks to cultivate.

She also observed that some students who had previously been regarded as having behavioural challenges are now among those demonstrating positive actions, partly because they want to be recognised as students who exemplify integrity.

The principles promoted through the Integrity Corner are also being reinforced throughout the wider school environment.

Mona Heights’ core values are captured in the acronym RISE: Respect, Integrity, Service and Excellence.

Mrs. Williams adds that the Integrity Corner has naturally complemented what teachers are already doing in their classrooms.

Some classes have introduced activities such as kindness walls, where students identify acts of kindness they have experienced or demonstrated. Meanwhile, the school’s weekly recognition of Integrity Champions has become a school-wide activity.

“Every Monday morning, we highlight our Integrity Champions of the Week with a shiny badge that they get to wear all around the school,” Mrs. Williams says.

She sees the school as planting a seed that should eventually extend beyond the school gates and into students’ homes and communities.

“Integrity should not just be here at school, but a part of the children,” she notes.

The Integrity Corner Initiative is designed to support that broader goal. Its objectives include encouraging student participation and ownership, reinforcing classroom lessons on values and ethics, providing teachers and students with resources for ethical, values-based learning, and strengthening partnerships among schools, parents and communities.

The pilot was launched through the partnership between the Integrity Commission and the Education Ministry, with starter kits provided to the four participating schools in February 2026.

The kits included posters, banners, reading books and other branded items, while the Commission also provided guidance on setting up the Integrity Corner spaces.

As the pilot progresses, the partners are looking towards sustained engagement through follow-up visits, ethical values-themed school challenges, Integrity Week activities, continued recognition of Integrity Champions and teacher support.

At Mona Heights Primary, these efforts are helping to demonstrate that integrity is not simply a lesson to be taught. It is a habit to be developed, a value to be practised and, ultimately, a way of life.