The 2023 Great Kindness Challenge at BISW

The British International School of Washington embarked on The Great Kindness Challenge from January 23 to 27. It was our third year participating in the program, which the campaign Kids for Peace developed to promote a culture of compassion. It was a chance for students from Early Years to Year 13 to lift one another up, cheer one another on, and show the world that kindness matters.

The children received a checklist of kindness activities to work on at school and elsewhere. Their parents and guardians helped them keep track of their acts of kindness all week, and then we calculated the total. Before the challenge began, we announced our reasonable goal of 5,000 acts of kindness. In the end, we soared past that number and achieved a remarkable 10,483 acts of kindness, nearly 25% more than last year.

We paired students across Years 1 to 9 as “kindness buddies” for the week. Together, they played team-building games, read books, and created a piece of collaborative artwork with other classes. They also learned a special song about kindness and sang it during the primary school’s Friday assembly.

Meanwhile, upper secondary students completed 300 hours of service work at local charities Martha’s Table and A Wider Circle, which support the DC community through education, health and wellness programs, and family engagement activities.

“It’s always a pleasure to see our students work together towards a goal, especially when that goal is to make our school a more inclusive place,” said BISW School Counsellor Devon DeCataldo, who coordinated the activities for our students.

We also celebrated kindness through themed dress days. For example, students wore fantastic hats of all shapes and sizes on Hats Off to Kindness Day.

The Great Kindness Challenge has been a tremendous success at our school. Many BISW community members refer to this time of year as Kindness Week and look forward to it, and it helps to set the tone for kindness year-round.