AT Mona Heights Primary School in St Andrew, 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 and 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 — Mona Heights Primary, Alvernia Preparatory, Pratville Primary, and McIntosh Memorial Primary schools.

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.

Principal of Mona Heights Primary School Alex Hepburn, says the Integrity Corner Initiative is helping to strengthen positive values and encourage responsible behaviour among students.

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,” said Hepburn, who noted that the need was not merely theoretical.

Grade-five teacher Dionne Williams reads with student Olivia Stewart in the Integrity Corner at Mona Heights Primary School, where stories and interactive learning activities are used to reinforce values such as honesty, kindness and responsibility.

“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,” added Hepburn.

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”, Hepburn shared.

He said since the Integrity Corner was introduced, the values being reinforced through the initiative have increasingly become visible in students’ everyday behaviour.

The Integrity 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 recalled.

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

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

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 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 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 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 said.

The experience has reinforced his belief that values in education must begin early.

“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,” declared Hepburn.

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.

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.

— JIS