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Foster Primary School is proud to be a School Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) school. SWPBS is a broad range of systemic and individualised strategies for achieving social, emotional and learning outcomes, whilst also working to prevent problem behaviours. SWPBS is a framework that brings together our school community to create and maintain a positive, Respectful, Safe and Caring Learning environment for everyone.
Our staff and students strive together to practise our whole school values of Be Respectful, Be a Learner, Be Safe and Be Caring. We model, explicitly teach, promote and acknowledge the use of our values within our classrooms as a whole school community.
We first began our SWPBS journey in 2018. Our whole school community was involved in suggesting and choosing our values. Staff and students collaborated together to select the positive expectations that we would focus on. These had direct links with data collected by students and staff.
At the end of 2019, we applied for Bronze Recognition and were very excited to receive this award early 2020.
This year (2021) Foster PS were very excited when they were acknowledged by Andrew Eastcott, Area Executive Director Inner Gippsland and Todd McBeth Director, Inclusive Education. We achieved Tiered Fidelity Inventory (TFI) and Self-Assessment Survey (SAS) scores for 2020 above 70%. Successfully achieving these measures in SWPBS is an indicator that improved student outcomes will be realised from the establishment of a more positive, effective learning environment. Given the challenges experienced by schools in 2020 because of Covid-19, this is a major achievement of which the SWPBS leadership team and the whole staff can be very proud.
Our matrixes were developed by students and staff to identify the expected behaviours at Foster Primary School that we wanted to focus on. The matrix includes the specific behaviours expected by students for each value in different settings across the school.
These behaviours are displayed in the school, taught to students and acknowledged in the classrooms, our assemblies, in the newsletter/social media pages and discussed and referred to on a daily basis.
For more information, please refer to our Behaviour Management Policy and other relevant policies.
We have many whole school tangible systems in place at Foster Primary School to acknowledge and reinforce expected behaviours.
House points are given for small individual positive acknowledgements throughout the week. These are collected and counted by our house captains and announced at our weekly assembly. These points are then collated as term winners and then finally a yearly winner. We have a trophy and coloured ribbon to celebrate each of these occasions.
We also have Thumbs Up cards. We have classroom thumbs up cards as well as playground and beyond thumbs up cards. All staff and Koala Crew Leaders (Student Peer Support) are able to give out thumbs up cards. These cards are awarded to students who are demonstrating our values and following our whole school expectations on our matrixes in and out of the classroom. Thumbs Up cards are then put into the appropriate Thumbs Up box at the office. We have a weekly draw at assembly where a student from each box is randomly selected and wins a stationery prize. All weekly thumbs up cards are then also acknowledged through our school newsletter. All thumbs up cards are then given back to classroom teachers and are put on display and/or stuck into students’ own Thumbs Up book where they can later take home to show their families.
Also as part of our whole school acknowledgement system are our “You Learn it, You Earn it” certificates. All classrooms have systems in place so that students have to earn their way to the certificate. Students can get their name tags moved up for displaying our school values, following our whole school expectations, demonstrating growth in their learning as well as other positive choices students may make. These certificates are then awarded at Assembly and acknowledged in our school newsletter.
