At Caulfield Primary School, Wellbeing is a central layer of our Framework for Improving Student Outcomes (FISO 2.0) and the school prioritises the explicit teaching of social and emotional skills to ensure that students have a positive experience at school and build lifelong skills that can support them as they move through primary school, into secondary school and beyond. We acknowledge that having students feel safe, secure and with trusting relationships allows us to build a supporting learning environment that directly impacts on our students’ capacity to achieve their academic potential in our bilingual learning environment.
Multi Tiered System of Support (MTSS)
Caulfield Primary School looks to effectively engage with research and incorporate this into an MTSS approach to wellbeing and engagement. A multi-tiered system of supports for supporting student learning and wellbeing incorporates:
School Wide Positive Behaviour Support
School-wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) is a globally recognised, evidence-based framework that helps schools create safe, positive, and inclusive environments where students and staff can thrive.
SWPBS supports the Education State priorities and the Victorian Teaching and Learning Model 2.0 by helping schools build consistent, whole-school systems that promote positive behaviour, wellbeing, and inclusion—creating the right conditions for effective teaching, learning, and leadership across the school. Caulfield Primary School is committed to incorporating this approach into our classrooms as a whole school framework applicable in both English and Japanese. It is underpinned by the Seven Essential Features of Universal Prevention Tier 1 including:
At Caulfield Primary School, our School Wide Positive Behaviour Support Team meet regularly and include members of our teaching team, assistant principal, principal and wellbeing and inclusion leader. This team also engages with frequent meetings with our School Wide Positive Behaviour Support Coach, an expert from the Department of Education that provides layered support throughout our implementation project.
Chill and Mattari
Our wellbeing program extends to lunch break, in recognition that unstructured play for some students can be difficult, that establishing social connections and making friends might need some guidance or support and with understanding that sometimes we all need a calm, orderly space away from the pace and flow of a school lunch break.
Our ‘Chill and Mattari’ approach is coordinated by our Wellbeing and Inclusion Leader and members of our wellbeing team. It provides some scaffolded support to students that might need some time in a more structured and calm environment over lunch break and is available twice a week for a portion of the lunch break.
Wellbeing Team
Our Wellbeing Team at Caulfield Primary School consists of staff and families working together to support the needs of all students. The group meets throughout the term, looks to promote and embed consistent evidence-based approaches to wellbeing. This group is led by our assistant principal and works closely with Department of Education approaches.
Smiling Mind
The school utilises Smiling Mind as a whole school approach to restorative wellbeing and mental health in our classrooms. Smiling Mind is an evidence-based mindfulness and meditation program. It's designed for all ages from Prep – Year 6 and aims to promote lifelong mental health and wellbeing. Classrooms use this to provide a preventative approach to wellbeing, supporting students to engage in mindfulness, breathwork and providing them a proactive opportunity to engage with their own reflection and a wraparound holistic approach to wellbeing. In addition to this, Smiling Mind is available as an App and can be downloaded at home to provide a consistent partnership between home and school in wellbeing approaches.
Respectful Relationships
Caulfield Primary School adopts a whole-school approach to Respectful Relationships, recognising that schools are:
Weekly lessons are structured and delivered in our bilingual environment establishing engaging ways to help children understand and practice key concepts such as empathy, kindness, and effective communication in both English and Japanese. Our school looks to celebrate the diversity of our school community and continue to promote the school as an inclusive learning environment that celebrates our students, families and staff.
Zone of Regulation
Zones of Regulation focus on the concept of self-regulation and allowing our students to build coping mechanisms and self-awareness in the event that students are less regulated. Zones of Regulation is a systematic, cognitive behaviour approach used to support self-regulation amongst our students. It encourages students to self report their presentation into one of our four zones:
Red: A student may beheighted and experiencing intense emotions perhaps attributed to feelings of anger, devastation, or rage.
Yellow: A student identifying in the Yellow Zone may identify feelings of stress, frustration, anxiety, excitement, silliness or nervousness.
Green: The Green Zone is considered as the calm state, our students may be happy, focused, content and ready to learn.
Blue: A student identifying in the blue zone may feel sad, tired, sick or bored. They may have low states of alertness.
Behaviour Guidelines – Code of Conduct
In the event that an escalation of support is needed, the school adopts a consistent approach to student behaviours. Whilst always looking to promote positive behaviour, the student behaviour guidelines and code of conduct ensure that students are aware of consistent and fair outcomes where an incident occurs in the school.
Caulfield Primary School is committed to working with students to explore feelings, behaviours and work towards restoring relationships between students. Behaviours be it, positive or negative are seen as a means of communication and supporting students to have oversight of expected and desirable behaviours in the school provides a fair and consistent approach from Prep – Year 6.
Wellbeing and Inclusion Leader
Caulfield Primary School employs a leading teacher to lead the wellbeing and inclusion role in our school, providing an overarching influence in our classrooms and throughout our school. The wellbeing and inclusion leader works closely with the assistant principal as the school approaches preventative and proactive wellbeing and inclusion approaches, underpinned by research and evidence.
Speech Pathologist
Our school employs a speech pathologist to work in our school, recognising that oral language is a derivative of mental health and wellbeing. Oral language skills are intricately linked with mental health, with difficulties in speaking and understanding language often co-occurring with mental health challenges. The school supports pragmatic and social language as a means of supporting the mental health and wellbeing of our students. This process is managed by a referral system that is supported by our classroom teachers and assistant principal.
