SWPBS

Our School-Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) work continues to focus on creating consistent, positive and predictable learning environments across the College, while recognising students who demonstrate our College expectations of Excellence, Respect, Teamwork and Commitment.

In the first five weeks of Term 3, staff have issued almost 3,000 Success Passes. Each Success Pass represents an opportunity to acknowledge students for positive choices, engagement in learning and their contribution to our school community. Thank you to students for continuing to demonstrate our expectations and to staff for making positive behaviour visible.

Our Entry and Exit Routines remain an important part of creating consistency across classrooms. At the beginning of lessons, students are expected to line up appropriately, wait for their teacher and be ready to enter and begin learning. At the end of lessons, students are expected to pack up appropriately, ensure their learning space is left ready for the next class, stand behind their chairs and wait to be dismissed by their teacher. Staff continue to explicitly teach, prompt and reinforce these routines, and we are continuing to monitor them across the College to ensure the strong practice established earlier in the year is maintained.

Our current whole-school focus is Call to Attention. A Call to Attention is the signal a teacher uses to indicate that students need to stop, listen and give their full attention. The specific signal may vary between teachers, but students should know and respond to the Call to Attention established in each of their classes. When a teacher gives their Call to Attention, students are expected to stop talking, pause what they are doing, attend to the teacher and listen carefully to the instruction. Staff are continuing to explicitly teach their chosen signal, use it consistently and provide students with reminders and feedback when required. We are also monitoring implementation across classrooms so that we can continue building greater consistency for students.

Our College is proud to have already achieved Bronze recognition for our implementation of SWPBS, reflecting the significant work undertaken by students and staff to establish positive behaviour systems across the school. Our next goal is to build on this achievement by working towards Silver recognition this year. Achieving Silver would make Lara Secondary College the first secondary school in Geelong to reach this level of SWPBS recognition, an exciting milestone that would reflect the sustained commitment of our entire College community.

Thank you to our students and staff for continuing to support this work. Every Success Pass, successful classroom routine and positive interaction contributes to making our College a calmer, more focused and successful place to learn.

Pak Walker

Leader of SWPBS & SVAL