Page 511 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 20 February 2019
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where students can get on with the job of learning. It achieves this through the whole school community, including students, families and staff, working together. Among other things, it involves clear values and expectations about behaviour, explicit teaching of expectations and appropriate behaviours, whole-school recognition of positive behaviours, involvement of parents and the wider community, clear and consistent procedures and modifying the physical environment to reinforce the values and expectations of the school. It is widely used and successful and because of this the positive behaviours for learning approach is being rolled out in all government schools in the ACT, including Theodore Primary School.
As I said last week, this journey of change with the positive behaviours for learning program does take some time. It is not a quick fix. There are no silver bullets. It takes time to change culture in a school.
Theodore began the journey of implementing PBL at the beginning of last year. And, as I understand it, there are layers of competency that occur over years so that the approach is robust and enduring. As I said, Theodore began this in 2018, and it started with staff induction and training; training of coaches, who support their colleagues in applying the approach; lesson planning; and by developing behavioural values or expectations aligned with the school’s existing values. At Theodore the behavioural values or expectations are “safe, respectful learners”.
At the beginning of 2019, as had been planned from the outset, the school then began rolling PBL out among students and families, initially with a focus on appropriate playground behaviour. Students are incrementally participating in lessons drawn from the approach as teachers explicitly teach appropriate personal behaviours in the context of behavioural values and expectations. These lessons are about empowering children and young people to learn to manage themselves. They learn through modelling or role play to shape their personal behaviours and redirect themselves to appropriate responses. Alongside this, students are equipped with strategies to engage with adults or other students when they need help.
Teachers are then able to apply lessons from the classroom to conflict in the playground, taking advantage of real-life circumstances as teachable moments. While the goal is that students learn to self-manage their interactions, as in all human behaviour change takes time and is never perfect. When the behavioural values and expectations are not upheld, clear, consistent consequences are applied according to the severity of what has occurred. At a base level this might involve restorative practice.
Theodore Primary School is being supported through the implementation of PBL. The community and this Assembly have regularly been updated on its implementation. The government is tackling bullying and violence but what is essential is that leaders and influential people in our community, such as those in this place, and journalists, respect the incredibly hard work required of teachers, school leaders and support staff as well in responding to bullying and violence in schools.
I am disappointed that, yet again, instead of the opposition’s making a positive contribution, our schools are being used as a political weapon to make a personal attack against me. Perhaps instead of seeking stories to stir up controversy—
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