School Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) is an evidence-based framework that assists our College in improving social, emotional, behavioural and academic outcomes for students in our care. The overarching goal is to create a positive school environment which allows for greater well-being and academic outcomes. Students and staff both benefit from the increased respectful and positive behaviours at our College.
Students and Families in our school community are all very familiar with the various rewards systems in place, including:
- The ‘Token Economy’ – students are rewarded with tokens which they can save and purchase items from the SWPBS Rewards Cabinet.
- Academic & Behaviour Points System – teachers record academic and behavioural successes on Compass for parents/carers to see, and these have attached points which students are rewarded for accruing.
- ‘Student of the Week’ – these awards are celebrated at recognition assemblies each term.
- HERO Awards – special celebrations for students who show that over the course of the year they are ‘Here Everyday, Ready to Learn and On-time’ (HERO)!
The SWPBS Essential Features
The key essential features of the framework are:
- That the expectations of our College community are systematically taught to students.
- That the demonstration of expected behaviour is rewarded and positive behaviours encouraged.
- That undesired behaviours have consistent and logical, educative consequences.
- That all of these features are enacted consistently school-wide.
All of these features guide our efforts to continuously improve our SWPBS framework at BMC.
In addition to positive reinforcements, students are provided with fortnightly ‘mini-lessons’ at the start of each week which remind students of the expectations of the school community, and teach the social and emotional skills required to make our school culture a truly positive, learning-focused one.
When mistakes are made, students are provided with correction in the form of logical consequences which aim to restore that which was damaged – be that a relationship, a physical object, or a learning opportunity. Working in collaboration with parents and carers, BMC aims to create an environment in which doing the right thing is the easy choice.
All of our College community expectations are listed clearly on our SWPBS Behaviour Matrix.