Strategies for 'Safe Schools are Effective Schools'

Safe and Effective Schools

The eight characteristics of Effective Schools provide a useful framework in which schools can develop a whole-school approach that embeds student safety and wellbeing throughout all components of a school's work.

Professional Leadership

Safe and effective schools start with school leaders who are committed to a shared and well-developed vision of a safe, caring, respectful, supportive and inclusive school community which send clear messages that bullying in all forms is unacceptable.

Safe schools are most effectively developed when leadership teams have a vision for a strategic whole-school approach in which student wellbeing is a high priority and there is a focus on prevention as well as management.

Staff collaboration is facilitated through a leadership approach which empowers staff to initiate and take responsibility for safe school initiatives with both staff and students.

Leaders should be aware of their duty of care towards students, and mindful that an effective and well executed policy, and vision for the prevention and management of bullying, is fundamental in ensuring the safety and wellbeing of students in their care.

Effective and consistent whole-school behaviour management structures and systems are an essential component of a safe and effective school.

Leaders should be alert and proactive in developing strategies to manage bullying situations.

Focus on Teaching and Learning

In a safe and effective school, teachers have access to appropriate professional development opportunities to develop and refresh skills that enable them to work collaboratively in creating and maintaining safe, caring, respectful and supportive school cultures.

In a safe and effective school a significant number of teachers have been given the opportunity to develop skills in non-punitive approaches to intervening in bullying incidents.

Safe and effective schools provide opportunities for staff and students to learn from community programs outside the regular school curriculum to enhance their knowledge, awareness and strategies to deal with bullying.

Purposeful Teaching

A safe and effective school employs relationship-based pedagogy such as cooperative learning and problem-based learning. It contributes to student achievement and positive peer relationships.

Shared Vision and Goals

The prevention and management of bullying is more readily achieved in a safe, caring, respectful and supportive school culture which promotes positive relationships and pro-social values.

A safe and effective school has an anti-bullying policy developed in collaboration with all staff, students and parents. This inevitably takes time, however, the process of collaboration is just as important as the policy.

Having clear, well defined and agreed expectations of acceptable types of staff and student behaviour is a starting point that allows all members of the school community to have a shared understanding of what unacceptable or bullying behaviour is.

In a safe and effective school, teachers intervene firmly and swiftly to manage any bullying situation they become aware of.

Safe and effective schools work in partnership with parents to reduce and manage bullying.

Structured lunchtime activities, a range of easily accessible equipment and a variety of safe spaces are an important part of a safe school environment, as is vigilant yard supervision.

An approach which 'blames the victim' for the bullying situation in which they find themselves is unfair, incorrect and unhelpful. Safe and effective schools support all students to feel safe and emphasise the important role of the teacher in managing bullying situations.

Extra-curricular activities such as peer tutoring or mentoring within a school, can contribute to the promotion of positive peer relationships through same-age and cross-age student interactions.

In a safe and effective school students adopt pro-social values and behave in a respectful, caring and inclusive manner because they perceive that their teachers model such values and behaviours in their day-to-day interactions.

High Expectations

In a safe and effective school, diversity is valued and everyone is treated with respect, fairness and dignity.

Safe and effective schools clearly communicate to all members of the school community that everyone has the right to feel physically and psychologically safe and that ensuring this safety is everyone's responsibility.

Accountability

Safe and effective schools regularly self-monitor the level of bullying in the school and review and refine their anti-bullying policy and their positive and pro-social whole-school initiatives.

Safe and effective schools monitor the school environment on a day-to-day basis, and have feedback mechanisms in place to ensure policies and processes are effective.

Safe and effective schools provide a variety of ways in which students can communicate to teachers that they need support because they are being bullied.

Effective schools critically evaluate any prevention and management programs that they are considering implementing to ensure that they are theoretically sound, unbiased and evidence-based in terms of content, pedagogy and delivery. They ask key questions about the credibility of the program, whether it is soundly based, and whether the program may have a religious or political bias.

Learning Communities

In safe and effective schools staff collaborate to implement whole-school programs and procedures to strengthen the quality of relationships between people, build empathy and work cooperatively.

Safe and effective schools work in partnership with parents to reduce and manage bullying and develop safe, caring, respectful and supportive school environments.

In a safe and effective school there are structures based on peer support, authentic student leadership and student-ownership.

Stimulating and Secure Learning Environments

Safe and effective schools have a strong and consistent whole-school behaviour management system in place.

Safe and effective schools promote and embed anti-bullying in the philosophy of the school.

Safe and effective schools have strong transition programs at different stages of schooling, to ensure that students develop a readiness to enter their new environment, to reduce anxiety and to increase resilience.