By Callum Ludwig
Launching Place Primary School has received a Bronze Award for its implementation of the Victorian Government’s School-Wide Positive Behaviour initiative.
The initiative helps government schools provide their own universal framework to respond to student behaviour, ensuring a consistent and fair response to student behaviour.
Inclusion Leader at Launching Place Primary School Candice Nyman said the team is really excited to receive the award because while of course behaviour is never going to be perfect, the staff have worked hard to have the documents and training in place to respond.
“Everyone is on the same page and we’re dealing with it all in the exact same manner, it’s about consistency, it’s about the kids knowing exactly what’s going on, the teachers knowing what’s going on and the parents knowing what to expect as well,” she said.
“It has minimised our negative behaviours, because the kids know that if they do X, Y or Z, then they know what the behaviour response will be because it’s all cut and dry and clear.”
The Positive Behaviour framework gives schools the freedom to set a precedent for teachers to use to respond to behaviour and issue consequences while offering general guidance on appropriate measures to do so.
The Department of Education’s information on the initiative includes information on:
Increasing appropriate behaviours and decreasing inappropriate ones,
Identifying and responding to difficult behaviour influences, triggers and factors
Creating a school-wide support framework and behaviour support plans
How to do a functional assessment of student behaviour
How to manage extreme behaviour incidents and emergencies
How to implement a cooperative approach with families on student behaviour and
How to appropriately enforce consequences for students in response to behaviour.
Ms Nyman said Launching Place Primary School have behaviour matrices for students and staff to refer to and run lessons to help students understand them.
“It helps teach them the correct way to interact with people, particularly teachers and means we can be proactive rather than reactive to their behaviour,” she said.
“It has also made it a lot easier for us because the kids don’t question your response, because you can go ‘This is the behaviour we just saw and this is what the chart says to do so let’s reflect on our behaviour.’ It has benefits from both perspectives.”
