Zach Donson, a Year 12 on what integrity means to him:

It all started a couple weeks ago, me and my friends were at the mall and we see this dude. Now, this dude had his hands full and he was in a rush. He went to his car, put his stuff down, unlocked it, put his stuff in the car and then he drove off.

Then we realised something, this guy had left his phone behind.

So we go over, pick it up, and immediately start discussing what we think the right thing to do is.

Eventually we came to a group decision to call the first number on the phone and let them know that their mate dropped it and that’d we’d leave it in the mall information centre.

Because of this, Mr McKinley asked me to give my definition of integrity.

Integrity, what is it? Integrity is about doing the right thing, even when no one’s watching. It’s also about personal values. The example here is that my friends and I all believed in the value of treating others as we wish to be treated… so we kept our integrity around this value and returned the phone, which is what we would hope would happen if it was our phone that was lost.

Values work best when a group believes in them and as a school our key values are PRIDE and RESPECT

So the challenge here for everyone, students and teachers alike is that we find a way to relate these values to ourselves and to adopt them into our personal lives. Whether it’s having pride in your appearance, your work…or having respect for your friends, teachers, or yourself.

It’s important that we buy into these key values and use them because that’s what integrity is all about.