Shining a Light
on Respect, Kindness and Resilience
“Mrs Semmens, I really think Student B should get a SPARK. He was so kind to me when no one was watching. He stopped playing with his friends just to help me. I want to celebrate him for his kindness.”
Moments like this happen every day at Northern Christian School. We regularly hear stories from students, staff, and parents about our students showing respect, kindness and resilience, often when no one is looking. These are the stories worth celebrating.
It’s not just about earning a reward. It’s about building a positive culture that reflects our identity as a transformational Christian learning community. Our hope is our school community strives to live out our school values every day:
Respect – We expect and model respect.
Kindness – We encourage and celebrate kindness.
Resilience – We promote and nurture resilience.
These values are not just words on a poster. They are deeply woven into our daily life at Northern. I love how our students from Kinder to Year 6 know and confidently articulate our school values in their own words and actions. In previous schools I have worked at, the values were unclear or felt meaningless, and even the staff often did not know what they were. Everyone in the Northern community knows them, and they align with the broader Vision, Mission, and Values of Christian Schools Tasmania and act as a compass for how we behave, speak, and make decisions.
We teach these values intentionally, just like we teach reading and mathematics. Behaviour needs to be taught and practised, and we use a consistent language across the school to help students understand and reflect on their actions.
So, what is a SPARK?
You might be wondering, what exactly is a SPARK? Is it something from the electricity box? Not quite!
SPARK stands for Students Practising Acts of Respect, Resilience, and Kindness. These tokens are given out by staff when they see students actively and intentionally living out our school values, whether helping a classmate, bouncing back from a challenge, or speaking with kindness.
Students collect SPARKs in their class SPARKs Jar. When they reach milestones like 5 or 10 SPARKs in a term, they receive rewards such as a barista-made hot chocolate. But ultimately, it’s not about the hot chocolate, it’s about honouring and celebrating the heart behind the action.
Whole-School Celebration
Our goal is to fill up the School SPARKs Jar (we’re nearly halfway there). When this happens, all classes will enjoy a special celebration decided by our Student Representative Council. It’s a wonderful way to acknowledge that, as a school community, we are working together to recognise and celebrate students who choose to live out our values daily.
A Christian Foundation for Positive Behaviour
Through our Shining Lights Program, and as part of our Building Positive Behaviour and Culture Framework, we intentionally teach what respect, kindness, and resilience look like in action through role plays, discussions, clear expectations, and, most importantly, through the lens of our Christian faith shaped by the Bible.
Respect comes from knowing that every person is made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).
Kindness flows from understanding God’s kindness towards us
(Ephesians 4:32).
Resilience is strengthened by the hope we have in Christ, who walks with us through every challenge (Romans 5:3-5).
At Northern, we don’t just teach that these values are merely good behaviours. They reflect the heart of Jesus, and therefore, we encourage students and all those in our community to live them out as a response to the love and grace God has shown to us.
Speaking the Truth in Love
We celebrate these moments with great emphasis, yet we also hold students accountable when they do not meet these values. That, too, is an important part of growing in character. Sometimes, students may not realise the impact of their behaviour. As one of my mentors, a wise, very well-respected, humble and experienced CEO, often says, “People don’t realise what they’re doing unless they’re pulled up on it.”
Speaking the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), with honesty and grace, is vital to discipleship. When we call out unkindness, disrespect, or poor choices, we are not doing so to shame, but to guide our students towards who God is calling them to be. As Ephesians 4:15 (NLT) reminds us, “Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.”
Accountability, when done in a loving and consistent way, is just as powerful as celebration in shaping the kind of community we hope to be - a transformational Christian learning community. Together with our families, we are raising children who shine brightly, students who show kindness when no one is watching, respect others because of who they are in God’s likeness, and persevere through life’s challenges with a living hope in Jesus.
Bethany Armstrong - Principal
