So Yarra Ranges Special Development School is a school for students who have an intellectual disability. We have students that start in our early education program all the way to seniors finishing school at 18.
Janet Taylor:
The philosophy behind School-wide Positive Behaviour Framework is that we're supporting our children with their behaviour to engage in their educational program.
Stacey Gietman:
Our tier one supports are the supports that we have around the whole school. Every student has access to the same supports, whether that is on excursions, in an art class or their regular classroom. We then move up to our tier two supports where we identify students that need some extra support with their behaviours, and help them to develop those positive behaviours.
Stacey Gietman:
And then our tier three supports are for the students that just need that little bit of extra targeted support.
Cathie Antony:
Lots of our students have goals actually surrounding their capacity to undertake a behaviour in more than one environment and SWPBS is perfect for that because you can use the same language in multiple environments and cement the behaviours.
Stacey Gietman:
So, our school values at Yarra Ranges SDS are be safe, be responsible and be respectful. So, we teach this explicitly in the classroom and also in those incidental moments.
Janet Taylor:
We have a TV program, ‘MeTV’ that teaches those desired behaviours.
Stacey Gietman:
So our MeTV program was created to teach students behaviours through video peer modelling.
Students:
Welcome to MeTV!
Stacey Gietman:
So when they see either themselves or a friend, they are more likely to pick up the behaviours and skills that we are wanting to teach them.
Janet Taylor:
We have a token system that rewards the behaviours we wish to see.
Stacey Gietman:
So, we have a big focus on positive reinforcement and rewarding the students when we see them display behaviours that relate to our school values.
Janet Taylor:
We have a distributive model of leadership here, so the decision making comes from the staff.
Stacey Gietman:
And we meet fortnightly to have a look at the data and to discuss what's working well. And then we take that to the whole school. So we're keeping everyone involved in what we're doing and why we're doing it. So I think when you see the data, it makes you realise that everything that you're doing is for a purpose.
Janet Taylor:
We're constantly looking, measuring, and planning for what needs to happen next.
Cathie Antony:
SWPBS tends to give children more autonomy. It allows for student voice a lot more. And all those sort of elements allow our children to have less frustration because they're able to communicate what's happening.
Stacey Gietman:
It works. We see a positive response to the strategies that we put in place.
Kirralee:
Ever since I started here at juniors, I was a little toddler going out of control. And now that I'm 17, I've learned that the SWPBS guides me through all these years to be responsible, safe, and respectful.
Janet Taylor:
School-wide Positive Behaviour - it's the right thing to do by children. And as educators, we need to do the right thing by them, supporting them to achieve their potential. And it provides a framework enabling us to do that.
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