Wellbeing

School Wide Positive Behaviour Support

The purpose of School Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) at Whittlesea Primary School is to improve student outcomes through a safe and inclusive learning environment. As a SWPBS school, our community expectations of ‘Respect Your School’, ‘Do Your Best’ and ‘Help Others Succeed’ are pivotal to our school’s success. The school expectations underpin the SWPBS framework across the school. The expectations guide the language used for both positive re–enforcement and when dealing with behaviour issues.

SWPBS Features:

  • As with all learning, behaviour must be taught, modelled and reinforced.
  • The Behaviour Matrix is explicitly taught to every classroom in every location at WPS.
  • Students’ individual needs and abilities are catered for.
  • Staff have a common understanding of what the expected behaviours look like.
  • All staff take responsibility for implementing consistent behaviour management strategies using a common language.
  • Behaviour management data is used to guide further teaching and planning.
  • Positive rewards and acknowledgments are offered to reinforce school expectations and behaviours.
  • Staff actively pre-correct and teach expected behaviours.
  • Sound relationships are built between staff and students.
  • Appropriate consequences are applied if a student is not demonstrating the expected behaviours.
  • All staff refer to the school’s Behaviour Process Chart for a consistent approach to responding to inappropriate behaviour
  • Teachers need, when appropriate, to anticipate behaviour problems before they fully emerge, implementing appropriate strategies to diffuse certain situations.

Tiered Intervention Framework

SWPBS uses a tiered intervention framework which invests in:

  • Tertiary prevention (tier 3): specialised, individualised systems for students with high-risk behaviour (approximately 5% of students)
  • Secondary prevention (tier 2): specialised group systems for students with at-risk behaviour (approximately 15% of students)
  • Primary prevention (tier 1): school and classroom-wide systems for all students, staff and settings (approximately 80% of students)

 

Universal Interventions

Universal interventions are evident in every area across the school. The expectations, behaviour matrix, behaviour flowchart, targeted curriculum and the reinforcement systems form the common language and climate of SWPBS. These systems cater for the majority of our students.

 

Targeted Group Interventions

Targeted group interventions are aimed at cohorts of students that may have a similar point of need or interest. For example, the ‘Chin Up’ program is aimed at regulating anger and developing a variety of coping skills. ‘BOLT’ – Bikes over Lunchtime aims to support students to develop friendships whilst working on a common goal. Other group interventions may include small groups working in the sensory space, learning how to get along with others and take turns or pay a compliment. Group interventions can also be classroom based.

 

Intensive, Individual Interventions

Students with high-risk behaviour require targeted interventions to support them to be successful at school. These students may require 1:1 interventions, individualised schedules, reward programs and individualised approaches to their daily routine. At WPS we refer to this as being a student’s “Program”. These students also require a Positive Behaviour Support Plan that outlines all the specific programming. A Student Safety Plan also needs to be developed to ensure that escalations are dealt with appropriately.

 

School Wide Behaviour and Learning Expectation Matrices

The School Wide Behavior Expectation and Learning Matrices are charts that clearly communicate Whittlesea Primary School’s expectations for positive behaviors and learning in various school environments. They aide in teaching, modeling, and reinforcing the expected behaviors in the learning spaces, toilets, outside, gym, assembly, cyberspace and in the community. The Matrices help teachers, principals, aides, and parents consistently reinforce a set of key behavioral and learning expectations during students’ daily routines. When they are visibly displayed in the classroom and other settings, they help to increase students’ understanding of school wide expectations, and offer specific examples of actions students can take to meet these expectations.

 

Behaviour Process

Teachers follow the Behaviour Process flowchart when re-directing behaviour.

The Behaviour Process flowchart needs to un-packed at the beginning of the year in each learning area. Teams may develop targeted lessons to revisit the Process and ensure that all students and staff have a shared understanding. It must be on display in all learning areas for everybody to see and refer to. Classroom teachers may create their own visual representations of the flowchart suitable to their age of students, however wording and vocabulary must be consistent with the original to ensure continuity. It is essential that the flowchart is followed in a consistent and calm manner to ensure an agreed upon approach across the whole school.

When implementing consequences the following points are made:

  • A positive/supportive/logical consequence/approach is to be taken.
  • Children must be closely supervised at all times.
  • Consequences need to be appropriate to the issue being resolved.
  • The dignity of each student must be maintained throughout the Behaviour Process.

Positive Reinforcements

Golden Tickets

Golden Tickets are an important aspect of our whole school Positive Behaviour Support. Staff hand out Golden Tickets when students have demonstrated our school expectations. The Golden Tickets are a form of acknowledgement, a simple and instant way to acknowledge the positive behaviour displayed by a student. The primary purpose is to acknowledge and reinforce the behaviour that the student has demonstrated. The Golden Ticket is not the focus. Golden Tickets can be redeemed at Whittlesea World on designated days.

A variety of other positive reinforcements are used throughout the school. These include:

  • Principal’s Awards
  • Learning Legends
  • Students of the Week
  • Specialist Award
  • Individualised Reward Systems
Whittlesea World

Each week, students are able to redeem their Golden Tickets for items available at Whittlesea World. A variety of items are available as well as privileges such as ‘Principal for the Day’ or time with a staff member to play a game. Some students choose to save their Golden Tickets for the bigger priced items such as sports equipment. Others are happy to redeem their tickets as soon as they have earned five tickets.

Student Leadership

Student leadership at Whittlesea Primary School comes in many forms and is open to students in different year levels. Student leadership is not only about formal ‘leadership’ programs. Students can be leaders in the classroom, through their actions in the playground, through their support for others, or their involvement in academic, sporting, or local community events.
Whittlesea Primary School is proud of its two school captains and two vice captains. Some of the roles and responsibilities for school captains include running monthly community assemblies and representing the school in community events, such as the ANZAC Day March.

There are other leadership opportunities for students in Year 6. One example of this is the elected house captains. These students are responsible for assisting with school events and activities, such as twilight sports events and tournaments. They also perform leadership roles such as attending to the school flag and operating the sports borrowing system.

Students in Years 4 to 6 are provided with the opportunity to be part of the – ‘Community Leaders Program.’ This is comparable to ‘work experience’ and provides our students with an insight into other aspects of the ‘work’ that is completed in schools by the administration staff and teachers. This program will also help to enhance our students’ leadership ability, sense of responsibility and self-confidence and also develop their skills in the areas of communication, time management and independence.

Students also have the opportunity to be elected to be part of the Student Representative Council (SRC). Each class elects one student to be their class representative during our annual transition programme. The S.R.C also comprises a S.R.C. Captain who is a year 6 student who leads the S.R.C. and chairs the meetings. At Whittlesea Primary, the S.R.C. are involved in organising whole school events and raising the profile of student agency within the wider school community These students meet regularly to organise various fundraising events and embrace volunteering opportunities and projects within the local community. S.RC representatives are encouraged to represent their classes by bringing ideas forward to meeting and relaying information back to their peers through weekly class meetings.

All students from Years 3-6 are given the opportunity to participate in the ‘iLead’ mini unit. This program is designed to build the leadership capacity of all students and draws on the concepts presented through the GRIP Leadership conference which our school captains and house captains attend annually.

Leadership 2020
House Captains 2020
SRC 2020

House Program

The house system at Whittlesea Primary School aims to foster a connection to school for our students. They are placed in one of the four houses, which they remain in throughout their primary school journey. Throughout their time at school students will compete in our house athletics carnival and other whole school events for their house, and earn points for their house by demonstrating our community expectations while at school.

The 4 houses embrace the Indigenous names for Australian animals:

  • Bunjil – Eagle (yellow)
  • Dugat – Fish (blue)
  • Dhulin – Goanna (green)
  • Korangorangeet – Dingo (red)

House captains and vice captains are selected from Grade 6 each year to represent their house at sports carnivals, during assemblies and at other whole school events. The primary role of the house captains at Whittlesea Primary School is to help run the house program through the collection and announcement of house points, as well as looking after sport at the school. They run sports borrowing during the beaks so that all of our students can borrow equipment and be active, they help set up and run the inter-house sports competitions on Friday mornings in Term 3 and 4, and help out with the PMP program in the Foundation Physical Education classes.

Child Safe

Statement of Commitment to Child Safety

Whittlesea Primary School is committed to the safety, participation and empowerment of all children.

We have zero tolerance of child abuse, and all allegations and safety concerns will be treated very seriously and consistently with our policies and procedures.

We have legal and moral obligations to contact authorities when we are concerned about a child’s safety.

Whittlesea Primary School is committed to identifying, and where possible, preventing child abuse by following established processes and protocols. As such staff complete regular training around child abuse risks.

We have robust human resource management systems and recruitment practices for all staff and volunteers.

Whittlesea Primary School supports and respects all children, as well as our staff and volunteers. We are committed to the safety of children from a culturally and/or linguistically diverse backgrounds, and to providing a safe environment for children with a disability.

Chaplaincy Program

The chaplain is another significant adult in the school for young people to connect with. The chaplain provides a listening ear and a caring presence, and in doing so offers a message of hope. The chaplain has a ‘pastoral care’ relationship with the school community. Students and their families, each with their unique story, find additional support from the school chaplain.

The chaplain leads by positive example, and supports school life through clubs at recess time and is a member of the breakfast club team. There is an earned and honoured partnership between the school and the chaplain who is supported by local churches in Whittlesea, and these may at times be able to provide additional assistance. The ‘on the ground’ connections provided by the chaplain help students meet life challenges.