South Gippsland Specialist School began implementing SWPBS in 2012 with the purpose of establishing, a safe, supportive and positive learning environment.
SWPBS involves the establishment of a continuum of behavior support that considers all students and emphasises prevention. It is a proactive approach and focuses on teaching all students agreed expected behaviours and pro-social skills rather than just reacting to inappropriate behavior.
In addition, a small number of students will require highly individualized and intensive interventions. These interventions are:
The primary prevention aspect of SWPBS consists of rules, routines and physical arrangements that are developed and taught by school staff to encourage appropriate behavior.
Students who are following the schools expected behaviours are acknowledged by being given a token and then they exchange that token for a prize. The token winners are then published in the newsletter
This year we have modified aspects of the SWPBS system to incorporate aspects the Respectful Relationships Initiative into the system.
At SGSS, the school community has developed four simple expected behaviours:
More information about SWPBS
The SWPBS Team is the whole school who meet regularly to develop SWPBS at South Gippsland Specialist School.
The team operates under a mission statement, with the aim of promoting both academic and behavioural competencies of all students.
South Gippsland Specialist School is committed to developing our school community to be safe, friendly, respectful learners.
The team is responsible for the implementation and support of SWPBS within the school.
Some of the team’s tasks include:
SWPBS Handbook 2021
Work experience guidelines for South Gippsland Specialist School
Resource Smart is a Victorian Government initiative that helps schools benefit from embedding sustainability in everything they do. Schools take action to minimize waste, save energy and water, promote diversity and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Provides a prevention and risk management framework to schools, helping them better integrate cyber safety practices and promote the safe use of online technology in their community.
Kids Matter is a mental health and wellbeing initiative for primary schools and early childhood education and care services It’s not a program, but a framework that helps staff, parents and carers to work together to create settings that better support children’s social and emotional wellbeing needs. Kids Matter has 4 focus areas:
Self-regulation refers to a person’s ability to manage their emotions and impulses. It is an important part of our overall mental and physical well-being.
The process involved in self-regulation can be divided into three broad areas: sensory regulation, emotional regulation and cognitive regulation.
Allows students to maintain an appropriate level of alertness in order to respond appropriately across environments to the sensory stimuli present.
Allows students to respond to social rules with a range of emotions through initiating, inhibiting, or modulating their behavior in a given situation.
Allows students to use cognitive (mental) processes necessary that enable them to plan, focus attention, remember instructions and start and finish tasks.
At the South Gippsland Specialist School, we support students with self-regulation by providing the Engine Room program and Zones of Regulation.
The Engine Room program focuses on gross motor skills, in particular vestibular and proprioceptive movement activities. These skills are very important for development of balance, coordination, eye control, attention, being secure with movement, spatial awareness, pressure exertion and some aspects of language development. Proprioception is the sense that lets us know where our body parts are, how they move and how much strength our muscles need to use.
Vestibular activities include swinging, spinning, jumping, walking and running.
Proprioception activities include pushing, pulling, weight-bearing and carrying heavy objects such as, carrying a pile of heavy books or moving a wheelbarrow.
The Zones of Regulation assists students to recognise when they are in the different zones or states of arousal. Calming techniques, thinking strategies and sensory strategies are explored, enabling students to develop a toolbox of strategies from which they can choose to help self-regulate.
Students gain an increased vocabulary of emotional terms, skills in reading facial expressions, perspective on how others see and react to their behaviour, insight about events that trigger their behaviour, and problem-solving skills. Executive functioning skills are addressed in order to increase flexible thinking, awareness of impulse control, and understanding the big picture.
The Zones of regulation categorises states of alertness and emotions into four coloured zones:
Low states of alertness, such as sad, sick, tired or bored.
A regulated state of alertness
A heightened state of alertness, such as stress, anxiety, frustration or excitement.
Extremely heightened states of alertness or very intense feelings, such as anger, rage, panic or elation
