Student Behaviour in Public Schools Procedures

Co-design is a community led design process working together and jointly with community members and service providers to develop approaches that are responsive to local needs.

There are typically six phases in a co-design approach:

• build relationships including finding out who can participate
• develop a shared understanding with all participants
• agree on purpose and objectives
• generate ideas
• implement agreed ideas
• review and evaluate.

Standing together against violence articulates actions and expectations for principals, all school staff and their communities to make schools safe places for teaching and learning.

Through the Aboriginal Cultural Standards Framework schools are supported to use place-based approaches that are developed in collaboration with their local Aboriginal communities to strengthen the participation and engagement of Aboriginal students.

Positive behaviours can be taught to develop a student’s competence and capacity to:

• recognise and regulate their own emotions
• develop empathy for others and understand relationships
• establish and build positive connections with adults and peers
• make responsible decisions
• work effectively with others
• cope with challenging situations.

3.2 Develop, implement and monitor a whole school approach to behaviour

• leads the development, implementation and monitoring of a whole school approach to behaviour that:
  • identifies and communicates the rights and responsibilities of all students and staff to engage in building positive behaviour
  • incorporates restorative principles, systems and approaches
  • provides multi-tiered systems of support that are responsive to student needs
  • builds staff capability through training and support to understand and enact their responsibility in building positive behaviour
  • provides students with complex needs with intensive behaviour support.

  3.2.1 Identify and communicate the rights and responsibilities of all students and staff

  • engages members of the school community in identifying, documenting and understanding their rights and responsibilities, consistent with school values and expectations of behaviour
  • promotes a school culture where students:
    • are welcomed, safe, and experience a sense of belonging
    • feel their unique strengths and talents are understood, valued and nurtured
    • have a voice in decisions that affect them
    • learn to take responsibility for their actions and behaviour
    • feel a strong sense of purpose as learners and connection with the wider school community
    • are not discriminated against on the basis of behaviour as a manifestation of disability.

    Guidance

    Sections 63(b) and (c) of the School Education Act 1999 describe the principal’s functions regarding ensuring the safety and welfare of students.

    Section 119 of the Act and Regulation 69 of the School Education Regulations 2000 define steps that can be taken to maintain the good order of school premises.

    The School Culture Survey (staff only) gives principals a tool to:

    • assess the culture of their school
    • identify what conditions and aspects of their school’s culture are needed for optimal quality teaching.

    Standing together against violence articulates actions and expectations for principals, all school staff and their communities to make schools safe places for teaching and learning.

    The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 provides protection against discrimination based on disability (including imputed disability).

    The Disability Standards for Education 2005 seeks to make certain that students with disability can access and participate in education on the same basis as their peers. The standards make more explicit the obligations of education providers and the rights of people with disabilities in relation to education and training, including requirement to consult with students and their families; make reasonable judgements and eliminate harassment and victimisation.

    The Safe and Friendly Schools Framework (staff only)
    The Safe and Friendly Schools Framework and self-assessment tool supports schools to embed the child safe principles in schools.

    The National Principles for Child Safe Organisations provide a nationally consistent approach to embedding child safe cultures within organisations that engage with children. The Principles collectively show that a child safe organisation is one that creates a culture, adopts strategies and takes action to promote child wellbeing and prevent harm to children and young people.

    3.2.2 Incorporate restorative principles, systems and approaches

    • applies procedural fairness to decision making, ensuring responses to behaviour are fair and proportionate
    • prioritises the safety and wellbeing of all members of the school community
    • provides opportunity for student and family voice
    • uses collaborative problem solving for responding to behaviours of shared concern
    • promotes personal responsibility and accountability for behaviour across the school community
    • implements responses to behaviours of concern that are solution focussed and which seek to repair damaged relationships.

    Guidance

    Restorative approaches contribute to:

    • building a culture of positive behaviour
    • the safety of all members of that community.
    • are a way of being, thinking, interacting, teaching and learning – with building and restoring relationships at the centre of decisions and actions
    • create a sense of community in the school environment
    • meet the needs of students
    • view conflict as learning opportunity at all levels
    • focus on the need to repair harm that has occurred
    • develop empathy and
    • reinforce self-regulation.

    The Aboriginal Cultural Standards Framework should guide what approaches are used to support and/or repair damaged relationships with Aboriginal students and/or their families.

    Education Regional Offices support schools, as required, to repair and strengthen relationships with the student and their family.

    Statewide Services provides resources and professional learning for restorative approaches.

    3.2.3 Provide multi-tiered systems of support

    • uses a range of qualitative and quantitative school-level and system data to identify behaviour support needs that are responsive to students
    • develops universal, targeted, and intensive supports for students based on these needs to support a safe and orderly learning environment
    • engages with parents and key stakeholders in the provision of behaviour support for individual students
    • plans and implements reasonable adjustments to support and teach positive behaviours for all students, including students with complex needs
    • seeks available regional and system-level specialist services and supports as required.

    Guidance

    A multi-tiered system of support that holistically considers student needs and provides tiered and interconnected interventions so students receive the appropriate level of support. MTSS enable schools to view student behaviour through multiple lenses and assist them to identify, plan, resource and monitor student achievement, engagement and wellbeing, and connect services and support when responding to the needs of students and schools.

    Within MTSS, response to intervention (RTI) approaches may be used. A positive behaviour support RTI comprises of three tiers:

    The school promotes positive behaviours for all students and maintains safe, respectful learning environments with preventive, whole-school systems and practices, including Good Standing. All students are engaged in a social behaviour curriculum.

    The school develops a supplementary range of response strategies to support students displaying emerging, low-level behaviours of concern.

    Individualised support is provided alongside effective case management for students with complex behaviour support needs.

    
    Student behaviour data should be regularly reviewed to identify and respond to emerging trends and to confirm that school level behaviour support approaches are not disproportionately impacting on particular student cohorts – e.g. Aboriginal students or students with disability.

    The Nationally Consistent Collection of Data (NCCD) is an annual collection of data that identifies students with disability receiving adjustments and the level of adjustments provided, including behaviour support adjustments.

    3.2.4 Build staff capability through training and support

    • provides staff with access to training and professional learning to:
      • effectively implement a whole school approach to student behaviour
      • engage in reflective practice to enhance the learning outcomes for students with complex behaviour support needs.
      • create inclusive, welcoming, safe and orderly school learning environments
      • de-escalate unsafe and/or aggressive behaviour
      • engage in reflective, educative and restorative processes as part of building and maintaining a whole-school culture of positive behaviour.

      Guidance

      Statewide Services also provides access to training and professional learning services to assist teachers to:

      • implement instructional and behaviour support strategies that engage students in productive learning
      • understand and respond to the contextual challenges that impact on the behavioural responses of some students, for example trauma, mental health, undiagnosed learning difficulties and/or disability
      • use available behaviour supports for students with complex needs.

      3.2.5 Provide behaviour support to students with complex needs

      • uses a multi-tiered system of support to identify and plan for students with behaviour support needs
      • uses available resources to establish case management processes for identified students, including:
        • understanding the factors impacting on behaviour and identifying the student needs and the desired behaviour/s
        • understanding the function of student behaviour
        • developing a documented plan through engaging with and seeking input from parents, and other relevant stakeholders
        • document processes for implementing, monitoring, and reviewing the plan
        • collect and use data to develop, review and refine the plan
        • minimising the use of restrictive practices and prohibiting the use of protective isolation in confined spaces.

        Guidance

        Education Regional Offices assist schools, as required, to connect with relevant agencies to make services and support for students with complex and diverse learning needs support accessible and coordinated.

        Statewide Services provides specialist services and, where necessary, alternative learning arrangements for individual students with the most complex and challenging behavioural support needs.

        The following needs to be considered when determining the interventions and developing the collaborative documented plan to respond to and address the needs of individual students:

        • understanding the function that the behaviour has for the student (students may seek or avoid social interaction or attention; sensory experiences, feelings or emotions; tangibles, objects, activities or experiences) and teaching alternative behaviours
        • culturally responsive approaches that take into account the social, cultural and historical contexts that impact the student
        • knowledge of the student’s cultural and linguistic background. Family and community connections can be used to inform decision making and intervention
        • the presence of multiple risk factors – for example, those students who:
          • have experienced cumulative harm resulting from trauma/child maltreatment
          • have a disability
          • have been suspended from school on two or more occasions for the same type of behaviour in a school year
          • are at risk of being excluded.

          Restrictive practices that should be minimised include the use of physical restraint, use of medication as a chemical restraint, and/or use of devices such as harnesses to mechanically control behaviour. Protective isolation in confined spaces is prohibited in Western Australian public schools.

          The Aboriginal Cultural Standards Framework should guide what approaches are included in a documented plan for an Aboriginal student and how they are implemented.

          A section 24 arrangement (staff only) is used for primary or secondary students who are temporarily attending another school or undertaking an alternative arrangement for short term programs provided by another school or training organisation away from the student’s current school. This includes where a student is accessing an education program to change behaviour and/or restore positive behaviour.

          • The formal arrangement in writing between a principal and parent of a student under the age of 18, or student who has turned 18, allows the student to participate in an educational program delivered by a third party.
          • This is not required for VET for school students.

          Section 24 arrangements (staff only) may include courses that provide students opportunity to learn and access effective support programs to change the behaviour. This may include TAFE, a private Registered Training Organisation (RTO), a Community Based Course, the At-Risk-School-Aged Students programs, engagement with School of Special Educational Needs: Sensory and Medical/Mental Health or temporary attendance at another school.

          When considering their response to a breach of school discipline, principals need to be satisfied that the breach of school discipline was not a symptom or manifestation of the student’s disability. Relevant legislation Disability Discrimination Act 1992 [Cth] Disability Standards for Education 2005 [Cth] Equal Opportunity Act 1984 [WA].

          Students with the most complex needs may need a coordinated approach through a request for assistance to access multiple services through Statewide Services.

          3.3 Retain Records

          The principal retains behaviour records in accordance with the School Education Regulations 2000 and management and archiving of records at the school (staff only), including all documentation regarding:

          • consultation
          • intervention strategies
          • case management plans including risk mitigation strategies.

          4. Definitions

          Behaviours of concern

          Any behaviour which is considered challenging, complex or unsafe towards other students and/or themselves and/or their environment that requires more persistent or intensive responses. This can include behaviour which is a manifestation of disability.

          Behaviour as a manifestation of disability

          Under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 it is recognised that a person with a disability may display disruptive behaviours characteristic of the person’s disability and the person should not be punished for behaviours that are a result of the person’s disability.

          Bullying is an ongoing misuse of power in relationships through repeated verbal, physical and/or social behaviour that intends to cause physical, social and/or psychological harm.

          Case management

          Case management is a collaborative process that provides opportunity for all stakeholders to assess, plan, implement, coordinate, monitor, and evaluate the options and support required to meet a student’s needs.

          Co-design is a community led design process working together and jointly with community members and service providers to develop approaches that are responsive to local needs.

          There are typically six phases in a co-design approach:

          • build relationships including finding out who can participate
          • develop a shared understanding with all participants
          • agree on purpose and objectives
          • generate ideas
          • implement agreed ideas
          • review and evaluate.
          Collaborative problem solving

          Collaborative problem-solving is the capacity to effectively engage in a process whereby two or more stakeholders attempt to solve a problem by sharing the understanding and effort required to come to a solution and pooling their knowledge, skills, and efforts to reach that solution. The process is grounded in a culture of care and concern for all and includes a shared understanding of the problem, a vision of the future without the problem, identification of indicators of change, prototyping and implementing strategies to resolve the problem, monitoring and reviewing progress and finally embedding new strategies into existing systems and practice.

          Complex needs

          Students with complex needs are those who require a high level of coordinated personalised support due to multiple challenges, for example, mental health, disability, poverty, homelessness.

          Cultural responsiveness

          The ability to understand, interact and communicate effectively and sensitively with people from a cultural background that is different from one’s own. It is characterised by respect for culture, ongoing self-reflection, expansion of knowledge and commitment to improving practices and relationships, and is responsive to the diverse needs, backgrounds, experiences and knowledge of all students. In the Western Australian context, this is first and foremost for Aboriginal students.

          Disability a) total or partial loss of the person’s bodily or mental functions or b) total or partial loss of a part of the body or c) the presence in the body of organisms causing disease or illness or d) the presence in the body of organisms capable of causing disease or illness or e) the malfunction, malformation or disfigurement of a part of the person’s body or

          f) a disorder or malfunction that results in the person learning differently from a person without the disorder or malfunction or

          g) a disorder, illness or disease that affects a person’s thought processes, perception of reality, emotions or judgment or that results in disturbed behaviour;

          and includes a disability that: h) presently exists or i) previously existed but no longer exist or j) may exist in the future (including because of a genetic predisposition to that disability) or k) is imputed to a person. Disability discrimination

          Discrimination occurs when a student with disability is treated less fairly than people without a disability. Discrimination does not have to be intentional to be unlawful.

          Recognising the benefits of the differences and strengths children and young people bring to their environment, their characteristics, backgrounds and perspectives to better understand and meet their needs.

          Documented plan

          Documented plan (staff only) is the umbrella term describing a range of ways of catering for the identified education needs of an individual student and/or a small group of students with similar education needs. Documented plans may take a variety of forms.

          Inclusive approaches

          Inclusive approaches provide students with equitable educational opportunities through provision of teaching and learning adjustments to support student success.

          Intensive support

          Intensive support is individualised and provided alongside effective case management for students with complex behaviour support needs.

          Multi-tiered system of support

          A multi-tiered system of support that holistically considers student needs and provides tiered and interconnected interventions so students receive the appropriate level of support.

          This includes intensive support that is individualised and provided alongside effective case management for students with complex behaviour support needs.

          In relation to a child, means a person who at law has responsibility for the long-term care, welfare and development of the child; or the day-to-day, welfare and development of the child.

          Positive Behaviour

          A student’s competence and capacity to, in context of the school community expectations and values:

          • establish and build positive connections with adults and peers
          • develop empathy for others and understand relationships
          • recognise and regulate their own emotions
          • make responsible decisions
          • work effectively with others
          • cope with challenging situations constructively.
          Procedural fairness

          Procedural fairness is concerned with the procedures used by a decision maker, rather than the actual outcome reached. It requires a fair and proper procedure be used when making a decision including principles of voice, neutrality, respect and trust.

          Resilience

          Resilience is the capacity to adapt successfully to identified challenges, strains and stressors.

          Restorative approaches

          Restorative approaches are a way of thinking and interacting that puts relationships at the centre of all actions and decisions. Restorative approaches are empathic, responsive to need, view conflict as opportunities to learn and grow, and build accountability for actions and processes to repair harm.

          Restrictive practice

          Restrictive practice is an approach or intervention that is applied in circumstances where a student’s emotional or behavioural state prevents other strategies to maintain the good order of the learning environment: the use of physical restraint; use of medication as a chemical restraint; and/or use of devices such as harnesses to mechanically control behaviour. Protective isolation, where a person is confined to a physical space and prevented from leaving, is also a restricted practice and is prohibited for use in Western Australian public schools.

          School Community

          Local people, groups and organisations in and around schools in remote, regional and metropolitan areas. This includes, but not limited to students, families, principals, teachers and other schools staff, community leaders, local government agencies and not-for-profit organisations.

          A person who is currently employed by the Department of Education under the School Education Act 1999 or the Public Sector Management Act 1994.

          A person who is enrolled at a Western Australian public school.

          Student engagement

          Student engagement is multi-dimensional and combines observable indicators such as achievement, behaviour and attendance, with internal emotional and cognitive states (feelings and thoughts). Student engagement is viewed and responded to in a holistic way.

          Whole school approach

          A whole school approach involves addressing the needs of students, staff and other members of the school community through a collective and collaborative approach to improving student learning, behaviour and wellbeing, and the conditions that support these.