Since 2020, Pascoe Vale Girls’ College has implemented the School-Wide Positive Behaviour Program (SWPBS) framework to promote a positive and respectful school culture. The SWPBS focuses on recognising and reinforcing positive behaviors such as respect, responsibility, and self-regulation, rather than focusing on negative behavior.
At the core of this framework is our philosophy that “Pascoe Vale Girls College is an inclusive community that fosters the development of resilient, optimistic, lifelong learners capable of reaching their potential and making a positive contribution to society.”
Teachers and students refer to the Values and Expectations Matrix to guide making positive behaviour choices.
Teachers ensure a predictable learning environment by following the Classroom Mastery Routines, including:
- The Entry Routine: where students line up in an orderly fashion outside their classroom, walk in and stand behind their chairs, greet the teacher and sit to begin the lesson.
- The Cue to Start Routine: whereby the teacher counts down from 5 to 1 to enable students to refocus, transition between activities or reduce the overall volume of the classroom.
- Voices: Students are guided to use either their Silent, Partner, Group or Class voice when talking in the classroom to support an optimal volume level in the classroom.
- Questioning: Through the use of a range of methods such as pop sticks or the Compass Student Wheel, students can be asked to volunteer an answer at any time.
- The Exit Routine: At the end of the lesson, students stand behind their chairs, the teacher and students thank each other for the lesson, and the teacher dismisses the students from the classroom group by group.
Teachers and student leaders provide students with three rewards options to encourage repeated demonstration of the expected behaviours:
- Postcards which are mailed home to students and their families.
- Green Chronicles posts which appear on students’ Compass profiles.
- House tokens which students can spend at the weekly House Token Shop.
Teachers consistently enforce consequences through the Tiered Behaviour Response stages to discourage repetition of undesirable behaviours in favour of positive behaviours listed in the Values and Expectations Matrix.
A core component of the School-Wide Positive Behaviour Support framework are the Positive Classroom Management Strategies, mainly:
- Active Supervision: Teachers constantly visually scan, move about the room, and interact with students to provide timely assistance, effective feedback, and increase student engagement. Teachers use verbal reminders and non-verbal gestures to refocus students.
- Opportunities to Respond: Teachers use multiple strategies to encourage students to respond to questions, including: hands up, cold-calling, chorus responses, name generators, Compass student wheel, pop sticks, mini whiteboards, post-it notes, thumbs-up/down or fist-to-five, and other strategies.
- Activity Sequencing and Choice: Teachers regularly intersperse easier tasks among difficult ones, gain behavioural momentum by starting from easier to harder tasks, and provide a range of activities for
student choice.- Differentiating Task Difficulty: Tasks that are perceived as difficult by students can be: shortened in length, altered to a different response mode (written vs. oral), or receive increased teacher instruction, practice tasks or scaffolds.
The SWPBS program has helped create a safer and more welcoming environment for all students and staff. This approach has fostered a sense of community, and continues to encourage positive relationships and have a positive impact on student wellbeing and academic success.