All students at Milgate participate in weekly wellbeing lessons in their classrooms. These lessons cover SWPBS, Respectful Relationships and explicit teaching of wellbeing strategies based on student need.
SWPBS is a process for creating safer and more effective schools. It is a systems approach to enhancing the capacity of schools to educate all children by developing research-based, school-wide, and classroom behaviour support systems. The process focuses on improving a school’s ability to teach and support positive behaviour for all students. Rather than a prescribed program, SWPBS provides systems for schools to design, implement, and evaluate effective school-wide, classroom, non-classroom, and student specific plans. SWPBS includes school-wide procedures and processes intended for all students and all staff in all settings. SWPBS is not a program or a curriculum. It is a team-based process for systemic problem solving, planning, and evaluation. It is an approach to creating a safe and productive learning environment where teachers can teach and all students can learn.
In the past, school-wide discipline has focused mainly on reacting to specific student misbehaviour by implementing punishment-based strategies.
Research has shown that the implementation of punishment, especially when it is used inconsistently and in the absence of other positive strategies is ineffective.
Introducing, modelling and reinforcing positive social behaviour is an important aspect of a student’s educational experience. Teaching behavioural expectations and rewarding students for following them is a much more positive approach than waiting for misbehaviour to occur before responding. The purpose of school-wide SWPBS is to establish a climate in which appropriate behaviour is the norm.
In 2019, the school community provided feedback that was used to create the matrix. Together they voted for the expectations they felt best suited Milgate. Below is the completed matrix. These can be seen around the school grounds and in classrooms, encouraging students to make positive choices and providing staff with a consistent language and expectations.
Mindfulness is practiced on a daily basis throughout the school. Students are exposed to many different mindfulness techniques during their time at Milgate PS. Mindfulness assists students to understand their emotions, focus on the present and decrease anxious feelings. Students also learn about the impact mindfulness has on their brains and how this assists them in the classroom and their daily lives. Students practice gratitudes on a daily basis. This allows students to focus on paying attention to the positive events throughout their day.