After 12 months in development, with input from teachers, students and the community, last Wednesday saw the launch of Huonville High School’s (HHS) School Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) programme at a whole school assembly.
SWPBS programmes have been successfully used in schools around the world to assist in improving social, emotional, behavioural and academic outcomes for students, which, in turn, gives teachers and students more time to focus on relationships and classroom instruction.
After extensive consultation, HHS has settled on four key values for its new SWPBS.
• Safety – caring for the physical and emotional wellbeing of ourselves and others.
• Responsibility – recognising and accepting the impact of our choices.
• Growth – improving by always learning and finding better ways to do things.
• Respect – respecting ourselves, others, our past and environment.
The school has also developed a matrix of behavioural expectations, and re-launched the school wide reward system – the ONYAs.
Some of the expected behaviours include wearing correct uniform, arriving at school on time, embracing challenges and learning from mistakes, speaking calmly, positively and respectfully and following staff instructions – first time, every time.
HHS student leader Josh Hale said that the new SWPBS programme ensures that both staff and students clearly understand behavioural expectations.
“The values put in more concrete terms what the school wants,” said Josh.
“Staff and students know what they should strive towards, and what is expected of them.
“So hopefully now students can work out achievable goals.”
HHS student leader Jackson Bumford agrees, adding that having student input into the values from across the school gives the programme a good chance of success.
“Different grades want different things,” said Jackson.
“If we based them on input from only the student council, it’s only Grade 10s, but we also need input from Grade 9s, 8s and 7s.”
Student leaders agreed that the start to Term 3 had been a positive one, and that, while the full effect of the SWPBS will need time to be felt, they feel confident that the programme will have some immediate benefits.
“This term has started off really well,” said Josh.
“It will take some time to fully come in, but I feel like it will have an impact in the early stages, even if it’s not a total turn around.”
SWPBS team leader Lachie Joyce said that development of the programme is ongoing, designing lesson plans to teach expected behaviours in home room lessons (40 minutes each Wednesday), developing policies to discourage negative behaviour, conducting further student forums and collecting data.
Mr Joyce said that the school welcomes parent and community input.
If you would like to be involved, contact HHS at huonville.high@education.tas.gov.au
