Success factors
How will Supporting Positive Behaviours help me?
The information contained in this website will assist you to support positive behaviours in your school. This page contains more detailed information about some of the overarching concepts and ideas behind this resource. One of the key pieces of information on this page is a set of self-review questions. These will give you a starting point for thinking about behaviour in your school. Your answers may help you determine what kind of information, resource or assistance would be appropriate.
- What thinking underpins the Supporting Positive Behaviours Information?
- What is a whole school approach?
- How is effective teaching a core element of pro-social behaviour?
- How do I meet the needs of all my students?
- What happens to students in a non-supportive environment?
Self-review questions
- Where can I go for help or more information?
- What’s really happening at our school?
- What are our school’s values?
- Who or what determines our school culture?
- What would our students say about our school culture?
- What would our parents say about our school culture?
- Do all our students want to come to school?
- Do all our students feel safe at school?
- How do we know if our school has a positive and challenging learning environment?
- How does research and evidence inform my practice?
The students are looking for approval – bullying happens because they want approval from other students. You have to sell a stronger message than their peer group message – make them proud of their school and reinforce the message, and praise them for desired behaviour. Hora Hora School
I started acting up at school myself and then it got to the point where I was referred to a psychologist about my ‘lllness’. I left school, having not completed any formal qualifications because I felt so unsafe and the teachers would do nothing to help. (Student)
What thinking underpins Supporting Positive Behaviours – Information?
The Ministry is integrating learning of positive behaviours into all aspects of schools. One major area of support is through the development of the key competencies provided in the New Zealand Curriculum. The competencies are:
- managing self
- relating to others
- participating and contributing
- thinking
- using language, symbols and text.
When a child comes to school, they can’t read, so you teach them to read. When a child comes to school, they can’t write, so you teach them to write. But when a child comes to school you expect them to behave. Now, for some, that’s unrealistic. So behaviour, we believe, has to be taught and we do this by modelling and acknowledging appropriate behaviour, while correcting inappropriate behaviour proactively. Inglewood Primary School
Research shows that behaviour should be viewed as a whole school issue requiring a whole school solution. Supporting Positive Behaviours – Information promotes a whole school approach to help structure a positive and challenging learning environment throughout the school.
Principals are charged with managing complex institutions, in partnership with boards of trustees. Boards have a legal responsibility to provide a safe physical and emotional environment for students and staff. Principals and boards develop and instil the values that underpin their school’s philosophy and culture.
It is important to acknowledge that there are individual students whose behaviour is severe and challenging and requires individualised specialist support and management. These students may require an individualised programme and problem solving and, at times, may require referral to other services such as Ministry of Education, Special Education (GSE), Resource Teachers: Learning and Behaviour (RTLB), Student Support, etc.
What is a whole school approach?
The term ‘whole school approach’ is an internationally recognised term. It can help define an agreed values system that the whole school community endorses, including students, teachers, principals, boards of trustees, primary caregivers and the wider community. It assists in developing respectful communities.
It must be the whole school approach, otherwise it won’t work. The concept must be sold to the children as well as finding staff who are willing to run with it. Those staff not interested in it will leave. It is not just behaviour but relationships – and teacher attitudes. Hora Hora School
I want the whole school to be responsible for bullying. (Student)
The whole school approach aims to reassure the school community that issues and crisis situations will be dealt with consistently and fairly. A no-blame culture is fundamental to a whole school approach. Through modelling and supporting positive behaviours the school community can influence the school’s philosophy and culture. Students and staff remain accountable and understand the consequences of their actions.
For teachers, it is important to understand that their role is not one of power, but one of responsibility and that they can have a huge impact on the escalation or de-escalation of behaviours. We believe it is about looking in the mirror and looking to see what part we have played in escalation. The students have been on the planet between 5–13 years – we are the adults. Inglewood Primary School
The principal told the victim to ‘harden up’. (Student)
A positive school culture has a shared vision and is a commitment from the school community. Students feel they belong, enjoy supportive relationships and are engaged in learning. For a whole school approach to be effective, it must increase the level of engagement for all its students. An effective school culture is inclusive and puts students at the centre of the education process. Diversity among students enhances their participation in school.
There is a student radio that broadcasts to the local community with a 15km radius. Students are the DJs and tell good news to parents. Podcasts of the radio shows will be available on the website soon. Rhode Street School
The policies, practices and procedures provided by the whole school approach set up an ongoing, sustainable and long-term foundation. This foundation ensures that any programmes the school decides to use will be easily integrated and accepted into the school community.
It was essential that the community was aware of the system. Dannevirke High School
How is effective teaching a core element of pro-social behaviour?
Research identifies effective teaching as the most significant factor in raising student achievement within school. Consultation with the education sector and communities has consistently identified effective teaching as a high priority.
Effective teaching practices for all students are used and developed by teachers, who have appropriately high expectations of all students and who judge their success by the academic and social outcomes of all their students. Quality Teaching for Diverse Students in Schooling: Best Evidence Synthesis, June 2003
It is about making expectations and values absolutely explicit and a school wide focus. Dannevirke High School
Teaching is a complex and challenging profession. The crucial task for teachers is to simultaneously meet the learning needs of diverse students, so that all students succeed. Supporting all teachers to achieve this is a significant but essential challenge. Though research has identified characteristics of effective teaching, there is no single formula: the effectiveness of teaching is reflected in the learning.
The New Zealand Curriculum confirms that effective teachers foster positive relationships with both students and colleagues, and become active, visible members of the learning community.
Effective teachers foster positive relationships within a caring, inclusive, non-discriminatory and cohesive classroom environment. They also build positive relationships within the wider school community, working with parents and caregivers as key partners who have unique knowledge of their children and countless opportunities to advance their children’s learning.
The school needed to re-culture, regroup and build on teamwork. ‘At this school we look after each other’ became the new motto. ‘We are the best school in New Zealand’ was another important one, because we look after each other. Hora Hora School
Friends make you feel safe. Older students make you feel safe. Contacts with deans and teachers make you feel safe. Relationships are important with teachers. (Student)
How do I meet the needs of all my students?
Diversity encompasses many characteristics including ethnicity (and increasingly, multiple ethnic heritages), socio-economic background, home language, gender and sexuality, and students with disabilities. (See Guidelines for Generating BES)
Children from a young age need to learn about diversity, not be afraid of the unknown and difference so they don’t bully. (Student)
What happens to students in a non-supportive environment?
Students who experience peer abuse (bullying) within the school system generally suffer poorer health, lower levels of well-being, impairment in social functioning, anxiety and depression and, perhaps most serious of all, repeated thoughts of suicide. (Rigby Ken, Bullying in Schools and What To Do About It, p. 56).
Truancy and absentee rates are likely to be higher for these students.
Go hard, I am sick of this bullying crap. My baby brother committed suicide because of the disgusting nature of some kids. He was only 13. We need to get hard on bullies. (Student)