WaiCol behaviour scheme lifts school

EXCITING DAY: Puja Molechan takes in swathes of LEAD cards as students trade them for rewards after displaying outstanding behaviour throughout the term. PHOTOS/SUPPLIED

Wairarapa College students who best captured school values during the term have been rewarded for their outstanding behaviour.

Since the start of the year, team leader Charmaine Nelson and coach Pam Redpath have led a staff-selected team of teachers on Ministry of Education-funded behaviour-management initiative - PB4L (positive behaviour for learning) which will run for the next three years, according to the college website.

Students, teachers and school trustees involved with the PB4L project had between them established five key values for the programme after exploring "what a value was, what they admired in other people and what was important to them".

The groups had settled on a set of words comprised in an acronym, Learning with Purpose, Engaging with Pride, Acting with Respect and Daring to Succeed (LEAD), and the initiative was presented to the school.

"These values have been used to outline as an acronym our agreed understanding of what is expected in all parts of school life."

Teacher Suzanne Oliver said students "clutching a rainbow-coloured fan of cards descend upon the waiting PB4L team" for the LEAD Card Trade In Day once a term.

Teachers and prefects presented the cards to deserving students during the term, she said, and these could be traded for privileges including canteen food, iTunes vouchers, canteen front-of-the-line privileges and "for a fair number of cards, even morning tea with the principal".

PB4L team member Shanti Patel Cornish said it gave "students a great incentive to show the LEAD values and get recognised for that".

The scheme and related initiatives had helped encourage and increase positive behaviour and acceptance of school values, she said.

"It also helps teachers reward students who are always on task and sometimes slip under the radar. Students flood in on Trade In Day and are always excited to see what they can be rewarded with."

Fellow team member Isabella Sinnema said inclusion in the PB4L team was "a great way to improve or change things around the college".