School-Wide Positive Behaviours
At the start of 2019, Newham Primary School began a journey towards becoming a ‘School-Wide Positive Behaviour Support’ school. School-wide positive behaviour support (SWPBS) is a framework that brings together school communities to build positive, safe, supportive learning cultures. SWPBS has an extremely strong evidence base behind it, and is supported by the Department of Education and Training as a ‘best practice’ model for schools to use.
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In essence, SWPBS requires that school communities define what positive behaviours they expect of their children, and then work together to teach those expectations clearly and frequently to students. The expectations are drawn up in a ‘Matrix of Expectations’ which is highly visible around the school, and referred to daily. The school then provides positive recognition of the times in which students are successful in demonstrating those behaviours, and provide logical consequences and further support or re-teaching when the expectations are not met. Most of all, it is the clarity that students have about what is expected, and what will happen when the behaviours are demonstrated (or not) that gives the framework its power.
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SWPBS is built on the understanding the behaviour is a learned response to a given stimulus, and therefore is something that can be taught and re-taught. When communities do this together consistently it is far easier to make progress in this area.
There is a lot more work to do before we are able to fully implement a SWPBS framework, but already it is starting to have an impact. Parents will continue to be updated on, and involved in our progress with this initiative, as they are able. Watch this space!
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Social & Emotional Learning
We value and respect diversity. We encourage our students to be who they are, and to seek to understand others. We want our students to be able to ride out the highs and lows of life with a growth mindset, positive manners and pro-social behaviour.
We work hard to ensure our students are ‘ready to learn’ in the classroom and they are taught strategies to regulate their behavior. All of this is done under the ethos of equity – students will get what they need to thrive, and everyone does not need the same things at the same time.
We believe that behaviour, resilience, social skills and positive coping strategies can be taught, and we offer a comprehensive curriculum to all grade levels. The key outcomes of our Social & Emotional Learning curriculum, and use of the
Berry Street Education Model is to develop an awareness and understanding of:
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emotional literacy
personal strengths
positive coping strategies
problem solving
stress management
help seeking behaviours
gender and identity
positive gender relationships
Where conflicts, or behaviour that does not meet our expectations occurs, we seek to engage the child or children in reflection about the choices they have made, who they have effected, to repair the relationship in the most appropriate way and seek for them to pledge to ‘do different’ next time.
We believe in re-teaching behaviour, just like we re-teach kids how to do multiplication!