Campus 3

This campus is much smaller than the other two campuses it consists of year levels seven to nine. The school consists of five main buildings. A year seven, year eight, year nine, main building which houses the library and office and finally a large building for arts. The school is only two and a half years old as it opened in 2009. “The state-of-the-art design see students work in self-contained year level learning communities, which are open plan with flexible spaces that can be quickly and easily adapted for different types of learning activities. For example, some students can be reading quietly in one area while other students are working as a group on computers in another area. The spaces give students the chance to learn in ways that best suit their needs and allows for innovative and shared teaching. Clever design techniques, such as different ceiling heights, are used to keep noise levels to a minimum.”

Campus three has a warning and exiting system for their behavior management program. The students who are misbehaving, acting inappropriately or distracting others are put and talked through these three stages of warnings and actions:

Stage One: The students are told that what they are doing is wrong or inappropriate and are asked to regain focus and participate in the classroom activities and that if they don’t then they will be asked to move. This stage is aimed at “warning” them and is their first warning. It is hoped that after being warned they start to behave correctly.

Stage Two: The student misbehaving after being warned in stage one is now asked to move to a different seating arrangement within the classroom they are also told that if they misbehave again they will be “exited”. This stage is important as it is the last stage before the final stage. In this stage students know that this is really the last warning and if they misbehave they will be exited. They are warned of this in this stage teachers say “if you continue to misbehave now that you have been moved you will exited” Students are clearly told what will happen so that when and if they are taken to stage three they will have no excuse but to abide because of the previous warnings. They cannot say they didn’t know what would happen because the outcome was made clear in this stage.

Stage Three: The student’s actions are out weighing the positives of having them remain within the classroom. The student is told that he/she has been exited and is given a exit form which states that they have been identified as not ready for learning. If possible another teacher will take the student to another class in a different building. The new teacher is told what happened and the student is to sit quietly and fill in the form. The form is made up 16 questions with Strongly Agree to disagree questions, seven yes or no questions with ratings and four short answer questions. The form is aimed at getting the students to really think deeper into their behavior and what they are doing that is correct or incorrect. It also has a part for the teacher to write and reflect.

The Follow up: After the class the student, the teacher involved and the coordinator of the level sit down when they can it is useful if it can be arranged as soon as possible. They discuss the student’s answers and behavior in the classroom and try to work out some sort of arrangement which would be appropriate to the students actions for example they may be given a detention. The student also has a say and can contribute to the conversation as much as he or she wishes.

This system is put in place every day and the teachers and students have found it very helpful to teaching the students and getting acceptable and suitable behavior in the classroom from all of the students. The method of controlling classroom behavior and managing students is used in all year levels and all subjects. It is implemented daily when needed and teachers are all aware that they may receive another student throughout the day that will be filling in the form if he or she has misbehaved in their classroom. It is a clever system to which all the teachers work together to continue and hopefully improve students attitudes to learning and better their classroom behavior.