4.4 Maintain Student Safety
Describe strategies that support students’ well-being and safety working within school and/or system, curriculum and legislative requirements.
Describe strategies that support students’ well-being and safety working within school and/or system, curriculum and legislative requirements.
Student safety and wellbeing are enhanced when students feel connected to their school, have positive and respectful relationships with their peers and teachers, feel confident about their social and emotional skills and satisfied with their learning experiences at school.
(NSSF 2001, p 2) |
Students are better prepared for learning
when they are healthy, safe and happy, therefore, student welfare is the responsibility of all staff working in a whole school context. Student learning cannot be separated from student wellbeing. |
National Safe Schools Framework
The National Safe Schools Framework identifies eleven key elements to assist schools in planning, implementing and maintaining a safe, supportive and protective learning community that promotes student safety and well-being.
These are:
1. affirm the right of all school community members to feel safe at school
2. promote care, respect and cooperation, and value diversity
3. implement policies, programmes and processes to nurture a safe and supportive school environment
4. recognise that quality leadership is an essential element that underpins the creation of a safe and supportive school environment
5. develop and implement policies and programmes through processes that engage the whole school community
6. ensure that roles and responsibilities of all members of the school community in promoting a safe and supportive environment are explicit, clearly understood and disseminated
7. recognise the critical importance of pre-service and ongoing professional development in creating a safe and supportive school environment
8. have a responsibility to provide opportunities for students to learn through the formal curriculum the knowledge, skills and dispositions needed for positive relationships
9. focus on policies that are proactive and oriented towards prevention and intervention
10. regularly monitor and evaluate their policies and programmes so that evidence-based practice supports decisions and improvements
11. take action to protect children from all forms of abuse and neglect
Referenced:
https://www.mdc.wa.edu.au/images/pdf/Policies/Safe-Schools-Framework.pdf
https://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/national_safe_schools_framework.pdf
National Legislation
- Disability Discrimination Act 1992
- Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) Act 1986
- Racial Discrimination Act 1975
- Racial Hatred Act 1995
- Sex Discrimination Act 1984
- Education Services for Overseas Students (ESOS) Act 2000
Bullying
Schools take the issue of bullying seriously, taking an active role in ensuring schools are educated in keeping students and staff safe.
Every school is expected to have a safe, supportive, respectful and positive learning environment free from bullying, harassment, discrimination and violence, so student well-being and academic outcomes are maximised.
Schools, parents and children can access a range of resources through the national Bullying. No Way! website.
Preventing bullying involves everyone talking together openly and respectfully.
If your child talks to you about bullying:
- listen calmly and get the full story
- reassure your child that they are not to blame
- ask your child what they want to do about it and how you can help
- visit bullyingnoway.gov.au to find some strategies
- contact the school and ask for information about the school’s plan for preventing and managing bullying
- check in regularly with your child.
Pastoral Care
The pastoral care provided by our teachers ensures your child is given a feeling of belonging, support to develop a positive self image, and help to manage the successes and disappointments in their life.
Effective pastoral care in public schools is underpinned by a positive school environment where:
- teacher-student relationships are based on trust and mutual respect
- each student’s physical, social, intellectual and emotional development is promoted
- there are strong partnerships between the school, parents and community.
Your child’s safety and welfare
All staff in schools have a duty of care for the safety and welfare of your child while they are at school.
Teachers exercise their professional judgement to achieve a balance between making sure students don’t face unreasonable risk of harm and encouraging independence and maximising learning opportunities.
This duty of care underpins and drives the policies and practices of all Western Australian public schools.
Student behaviour Support
Teachers have a responsibility and a commitment to helping your child to learn, including teaching the behaviours needed to succeed at school as well as later in life. Parents and schools play a shared role in a young person’s learning and work together to provide the best environment for learning successful behaviour.
Every school has a behaviour support plan that is developed in consultation with the school board or council.
Buddy Systems
Buddy systems can help to promote friendship and support between older and younger peers through regular collaboration, which also fosters a sense of whole-school community. The key characteristic of most buddy systems is the participation of older students in positive, supportive, structured and facilitated one-on-one relationships with younger students. Buddy systems can create feelings of connectedness that enable both older and younger ‘buddies’ to bond more closely with their school within a psychologically safe environment, thereby increasing the likelihood of more positive school behaviour and less bullying or unacceptable behaviour.
Restorative Practices
Restorative practices are used to respond to incidents of bullying and unacceptable behaviour in order to repair harm to relationships. Restorative practices involve the development and enhancement of relationships in schools and teaching conflict resolution and other problem-solving skills. Three specific restorative practices are:
- Small group conferences with a small group of students or an individual student who have been involved in an incident of harm that is determined to have a less serious impact. I have manged conflict resolution within the school
- Classroom conferences involve a whole class in addressing issues that have affected student well being and teaching and learning in the classroom. I experienced a classroom conference where the school principal and class teachers addressed the upper school year 5 & 6 on racism
- Community conferences are conducted by a trained facilitator and bring together, in the event of a serious incident of harm, the perpetrator and the student being bullied or harmed, as well as their families and appropriate school personnel.
Bounce Back! is a wellbeing and resilience class-based program for children and young people from Kindergarten to Middle School. It offers practical strategies to help children function well at school and in life. Bounce Back is a whole school social and emotional learning curriculum program. It promotes positive mental health, wellbeing and resilience for students and teachers plus safe and supportive class and school learning environments.
Bullying can have a lasting impact on everyone involved, including those who witness it, so it is important to work together to create safe school communities for everyone.
Schools, parents and children can access a range of resources through the national Bullying. No Way! website.
They can also find legal advice for parents about sexting, image-based abuse, filming young people fighting, and cyberbullying from Legal Aid.
More Information:
Bullying - www.bullyingnoway.gov.au
Cyberbullying – www.esafety.gov.au
Support – www.kidshelpline.com.au
Kids Helpline is available anytime for your child to speak with an experienced counsellor about how they are feeling.
Legal advice (online) - www.resources.legalaid.wa.gov.au/project/r-u-legal
Resourced from : https://www.education.wa.edu.au/bullying
.Looking out for one another and lending support is a key life skill for any age group.
R U OK? have produced a curriculum aligned K-6 package designed to introduce and emphasise the value of close connections and strong relationships. The toolkit encourages students to look out for their classmates by asking R U OK?
RUOK? Day
Whilst on Placement we a promotion on RUOK? Day . This was a stepping stone to grow the awareness of RUOK? for years to come within the school
A note went out to families about the information for student participation
Staff and students came to school dressed in something yellow or gold on the day and the donation went into helping local mental health/emotional health group
The RUOK? start a conversation was explained to students at the usual Wednesday assembly .
For students, learning how to support their peers and talk about how they feel is an important life lesson, so where better to start than in the classroom? These resources for primary, secondary and tertiary institutions will help students everywhere start a conversation.
One of the staff ideas was to create a buddy Bench or maybe a Buddy Bench, somewhere to sit when you need a friend and to talk to someone.
https://www.ruok.org.au/education
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09qk0lXTfi4&feature=youtu.be
R U OK? have produced a curriculum aligned K-6 package designed to introduce and emphasise the value of close connections and strong relationships. The toolkit encourages students to look out for their classmates by asking R U OK?
RUOK? Day
Whilst on Placement we a promotion on RUOK? Day . This was a stepping stone to grow the awareness of RUOK? for years to come within the school
A note went out to families about the information for student participation
Staff and students came to school dressed in something yellow or gold on the day and the donation went into helping local mental health/emotional health group
The RUOK? start a conversation was explained to students at the usual Wednesday assembly .
For students, learning how to support their peers and talk about how they feel is an important life lesson, so where better to start than in the classroom? These resources for primary, secondary and tertiary institutions will help students everywhere start a conversation.
One of the staff ideas was to create a buddy Bench or maybe a Buddy Bench, somewhere to sit when you need a friend and to talk to someone.
https://www.ruok.org.au/education
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09qk0lXTfi4&feature=youtu.be