The Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL) framework is being rolled out in 41 schools.

PBL focuses on teaching behavioural skills through explicit instruction. Through this approach, PBL is both preventative and responsive to the needs of children and young people.

Behaviour support educators, part of Student Support Services work in partnership with preschool and school staff, and families, to develop and implement evidence-based behavioural interventions that include proactive and situational management strategies that can be adapted for learning and home contexts.

Additional resources are available to support behaviour support educators to work together with school staff, students and parents or carers, particularly where there are complex and unsafe behaviours.

The School Mental Health Service provides mental health practitioners based in secondary schools to support young people with mild to moderate and emerging mental health concerns. The service is currently operating in 47 schools across metropolitan and regional areas.

Student wellbeing leaders are qualified teachers who broaden their professional knowledge and develop expertise about student wellbeing and mental health. Based in schools, student wellbeing leaders can support students with:

• encouraging attendance, positive behaviour and learning at school
• strategies to support positive relationships
• advice and referral to therapeutic and other support services beyond the school.

An Autism Inclusion Teacher has been appointed in every public primary school (including reception to year 12 schools). Autism inclusion teachers will build their own teaching expertise and influence the practice of others to drive improved practice.

The National Student Wellbeing Program (formerly National School Chaplaincy Program) provides student wellbeing officers and pastoral care workers who work in collaboration with school communities to support the wellbeing of school students.

The new External Wellbeing Programs Directory provides schools with a list of evidence-informed mental health and wellbeing programs available from external providers. It makes it easier for schools to identify, procure and implement a wellbeing program that meets the needs of their school community.

Schools make local decisions about the wellbeing and mental health programs that best align with student needs. Guidance is available to help schools determine if a program not listed on the directory will meet their needs.

There’s also a listing of all mental health and wellbeing services, programs and training provided by the department that schools can use to be better informed on what is available.

Respectful relationships are taught through:

• the Health and Physical Education learning area of the Australian Curriculum
• the Keeping Safe: Child Protection Curriculum (KS:CPC).

Included in health and physical education curriculum are opportunities for students to:

• develop skills, knowledge, and understanding to strengthen their sense of self, and build and manage satisfying, respectful relationships
• build on personal and community strengths and assets to enhance safety and wellbeing.

The Australian Curriculum is being updated to increase information about respectful relationships and consent.

The KS:CPC is a respectful relationships and child safety curriculum for children and young people from preschool to year 12. It’s taught to every year level in all public preschools and schools.

Learning about respectful relationships is at the foundation of the KS:CPC. The curriculum is set up so that what students are taught is appropriate for their age and developmental stage.

A professional development conference is held every year for student wellbeing leaders.

In 2023 the conference featured expert local and national speakers on mental health, wellbeing and trauma informed practice to build participants’ skills and knowledge to better support students.

The conference also included a session on restorative practices to build knowledge that participants can take back to schools.

In 2024 the conference will focus on wellbeing and inclusion for priority groups and vulnerable cohorts, including a full day on supporting positive behaviour to promote inclusion and enhance wellbeing.

Department for Education staff can find out more about Stronger Connections on EDi (staff login required).

As an immediate action from the Minister’s roundtable, new online learning modules for school staff are being developed. The first of these modules on understanding and preventing children and young people’s violent behaviour is now live on Plink, with two further modules in development for release later this year. These will focus on:

• responding to violent incidents
• restorative interventions and conferencing.

More information about these modules will be provided as they're developed.

In response to feedback provided at the 2022 Minister’s roundtable on violence in schools, funding  was provided to schools to engage training or support for restorative practices. This funding was provided for:

• an at risk and prevention application at the whole school level
• more intensive conferencing level when a violent incident has occurred.

Restorative practices focus on repairing and rebuilding relationships after conflict has occurred to foster a supportive and safe school community.

Schools can use the funding to implement training, support or conferencing, based on their school’s need. This includes:

• Restorative Practices Masterclass – building on foundations of trauma informed practices
• staff training provided by experienced external providers
• consultancy and support by experienced external providers.

Direct one-off funding was allocated across 30 eligible schools – both regional and metropolitan. Schools were selected on their need and received between $10,000 to $20,000, with country loading where appropriate.

For more information or support on restorative practices contact Education.BehaviourPolicy@sa.gov.au

The Federal Government has announced a once-off Student Wellbeing Boost for 2023, providing every school across Australia with additional funding to support their students’ mental health and wellbeing. The funding can be used to implement student wellbeing and mental health initiatives and address impacts on student wellbeing caused by disruptions to schools due to COVID-19.

Funding was distributed proportionately based on student need and factors such as size and location.

The National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence (NDA) is an annual event that supports schools to work with their school communities to find practical and lasting solutions to bullying and violence. The department provided funding to over 400 eligible South Australian government schools and preschools to celebrate the 2023 National Day of Action and more than $200,000 in project funding to 46 schools to support bullying prevention projects.

The NDA will now be held annually on the third Friday of August. This year it will be on Friday 16 August 2024.

Parents in Education (PIE) funding is available to better engage parents. The focus for 2024 is violence prevention through strengthening family and school partnerships.

The Minister for Education, Training and Skills held a roundtable on violence prevention in schools, which brought together representatives from across the education sector to explore new strategies to tackle violence within the South Australian education system.

Read the roundtable summary report (PDF 224 KB) for key themes, recommendations and priority actions from the roundtable.

Insights from the roundtable have already informed development of new initiatives, including providing new funding for restorative practices training and support, which was a key theme discussed at the roundtable.

A series of student forums and a student summit were held in 2023. This provided the opportunity to hear from young people from a range of backgrounds across the state sharing their insights on the issue of violence in schools.

Hearing contemporary lived experience and personal perspectives of students about school-based violence, and the views of students on how best to respond to and prevent school-based violence, has been critical to finalising recommendations arising from discussions and submissions from the roundtable.

The themes and suggested actions have informed the development of the safe and supportive learning environments plan of action (PDF 187 KB) .

The policy outlines how department staff support safe and positive behaviour for children and young people in our learning environments.

Recognising that behaviours span a continuum, the purpose of the behaviour support policy (PDF 165 KB) is to:

• ensure effective, consistent and fair behaviour support
• help children and young people to be safely included and participate in learning in a positive way that respects other students and staff
• develop the personal and social capability of children and young people to understand and exercise their rights and responsibilities so they can fully contribute to their learning environments, and to the wider community.

The toolkit is designed to help staff to:

• identify behaviours of concern
• assess the likely purpose of behaviour
• understand the factors that may contribute to behaviour
• work collaboratively with others to develop behaviour support plans
• provide positive behaviour support
• review and monitor interventions.

Behaviour support toolkit on EDi (staff login required).

Staff must follow the behaviour support policy when responding to bullying.

All schools must have a local bullying prevention policy. It must:

• be publicly accessible
• use the National Definition of Bullying, endorsed by the Education Council
• describe the strategies used by the school to prevent bullying
• explain how students and their parents or carers can report bullying
• state how the school will respond to reports of bullying
• be in use across the school.

The department continues to work with the other schooling sectors to promote the bullying prevention resources and tools developed under the Bullying Prevention Strategy for use in all South Australian schools.

This procedure guides school leaders in the targeted use of suspensions, exclusions and expulsions to support safe and positive behaviour in schools. It was reviewed in 2023 to make sure it is clear and appropriate for the current context. Training in the application of the revised procedure and improved advice for families about the use of exclusionary discipline is underway.

The revised suspension, exclusion and expulsion of students procedure took effect on 29 January 2024 (week 1, term 1).

The new policy guiding the use of mobile phones and personal devices at school was introduced at the beginning of 2023. The policy has now been implemented in all government schools.

All students in government secondary schools must keep personal devices ‘off and away’ between the start and end of each school day, and while they are attending school activities, such as camps and excursions.

There are provisions for exemptions to be made for students in specific circumstances.

Schools must complete a local policy template. Local policy decisions are to be made about where the students keep their devices and whether teachers will be able to approve temporary exemptions. Consequences for student non-compliance with the policy must be in line with the school’s local behaviour support policy.

The wellbeing educator toolkit (staff login required) is a series of resilience teaching ideas and activities including mindfulness, managing emotions, safety, coping with stress, healthy habits, hopefulness and empathy.