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Caring Schools for All Elementary Schools Symposium

On May 25/26 we were delighted to offer, in collaboration with our Equity and Inclusion Department, our “Caring Schools For All” symposium. The event was attended by representative leaders from all Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) elementary schools. The purpose of the event was to:

  • raise awareness of the WRDSB Character Development, Equity and Aboriginal initiatives;
  • provide a planning framework to assist schools in mapping out next steps;
  • develop school leadership to move these initiatives forward;
  • identify site leadership teams that will lead and liaise as these initiatives move forward;
  • celebrate successes;
  • identify best practices.

We were pleased with the participation of all attendees and certainly felt that the event provided a “golden” opportunity to move our initiative forward.

Two resources available from the symposium are provided for school use:

A copy of the PowerPoint presentation provided by Mark Schinkel at the symposium.

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A copy of the Planning Framework that schools will use to assess their successes/challenges during the past school year and focus their attention for the year to come.

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A Resource booklist for “Resources That Open Children’s Hearts, Minds & Eyes To Our World And Each Other”. It accompanies a May workshop provided for teachers.

What is Character Development?

Character Development is an ongoing process of growth that intentionally models, teaches and inspires all people to want to do the right thing for the greater good of our whole community.

Character Development is the journey of connecting deep caring to knowing, feeling and doing.

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Read the Ministry document ‘Finding Common Ground’

Guiding Principles

Guiding Principles form the foundation for Character Development in the WRDSB.

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See Guiding Principles pdf

About Our Logo

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The WRDSB believes that the challenge of developing character requires an integrated approach. Becoming people of character not only requires explicit teaching and knowledge about character, it also involves translating that knowledge into deep caring and action. In other words, it involves not only the head but also the heart and the hands.

The logo we have chosen as a graphic representation of our initiative speaks to this integrated approach. We recognize that Character Development is a matter of the head (knowing), heart (feeling) and hands (doing).

Character Quotes

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Use These Character Quotes