Positive Behaviour Support

At Gwynne Park Education Support Centre we reinforce a whole school Positive Behaviour approach. This means, we focus on preventative actions to reduce escalations and increase each child’s ability to self-regulate by encouraging positive and safe behaviour choices when children are feeling angry, frustrated or upset.

This follows our school expectations for staff, students, families and our visitors to:

1. Respect yourself
2. Respect others
3. Respect the environment

We recognise the importance of providing a continuum of support for students:

Tier 1 Behaviour expectations for all students are clearly defined, taught and encouraged. Whole school Social & Emotional Learning programs are implemented and quality classroom practice are a key focus.

Tier 2 More intensive and specialised practices are implemented for targeted groups.

Tier 3 Individual ‘wrap around’ interventions and supports are provided to individual students.

We also recognise the importance of the:

• Implementation of evidence based interventions and strategies
• Support for staff to consistently implement behaviour management strategies
• Ongoing monitoring of student progress and the effectiveness of school systems

Part of our strategy is to:

• Share and use a common language to describe feelings and behaviour
• Communicate with families so that language and strategies are consistent at home and school
• Teach and provide time for identifying feelings, behaviours and relaxation techniques
• Establish visuals, modelling and verbal cues as reminders for appropriate behaviour
• Acknowledge and reinforce acceptable behaviour
• Provide and teach opportunities for the students to use self-control/ self-monitoring techniques
• Incorporate specific programs and employ specialists
• Have designated strategies and areas to de-escalate, relevant to each child

When this works, we avoid confrontation and escalations as the students are supported to communicate and problem solve towards positive outcomes. We do this at point of need, through ongoing explicit instruction and scheduled lessons with class staff, families, specialists and support providers.