Health Promoting Schools

Risdon Vale Primary School - A Case Study.

School Profile

Risdon Vale Primary School serves the outer Hobart suburb of Risdon Vale, which has been seen traditionally to be an area marked by social and economic disadvantage. In recent years, levels of private home ownership have increased and as a result, a real sense of pride and self worth exists in the broader community. The school practices a supportive school environment that is based on responsibility, mutual respect and shared decision-making. This has been the main thrust of our Health Promoting School strategy — the emphasis on emotional and social health, which in turn impacts on physical health, through reduction of stress and frustration, a lesser incidence of physical and verbal harassment and increased self esteem. We are proud of the way our children choose to use non-violent methods to solve their problems and we hope the skills they learn during their early years of schooling will continue to be used throughout their lives.

In order to address student learning outcomes in a more positive manner, teaching staff worked hard to re-develop teaching / learning conditions that reflected a more positive and preventative approach. An outcome of such work was to put in place measures/strategies to reduce instances of unacceptable physical and verbal behaviour. While this behaviour in the main may have been seen to be generally restricted to the playground, it was believed that student learning could be further enhanced if such work was also reflected in the classroom teaching programs.

The Program

A decision was made to help to put in place an inclusive program that addressed issues such as aggression, self-esteem and self-confidence. A supportive environment was necessary but before this could occur the culture of the school needed to change to one where co-operation, willingness and respect for others facilitated teaching and learning.

The program developed was called the Empathy Program and became part of the school’s supportive school environment. Because of the success of the program, it became clear that students needed to develop skills in the problem solving and conflict resolution areas, so we devised a program to give children these skills. In the Mediation Program, upper primary children, selected by their peers and teachers, are trained in a problem-solving technique in which each child takes responsibility for solving problems in a non-aggressive manner. The training consists of up to eight hours in six to eight short training sessions. In these sessions the children are taught skills such as active listening, giving ‘I’ messages, picking up non-verbal cues, managing their emotions and a formal mediation and conflict resolution process.

The Target Group

Initially the target group was the school - some 300 students and its wider community. Persons affected by this program are all those within our area of influence who may tend towards aggression and violence when faced with conflict, be it with others or coming from within — the bullies and the bullied - students, their peers and their parents. As with society in general, it was felt that aspects of negative behaviour of this kind was reflected within our community.

The program prevents or reduces violence, by providing students with non-violent options, helping them to understand their anger and aggression and teaching them skills to channel it in different ways. It provides positive role models in this kind of behaviour as all staff at the school practice non-aggressive conflict resolution. It teaches potential victims assertiveness skills, which they learn to use through verbal and non-verbal communication. It provides support for victims and perpetrators, always seeking to emphasise solving problems and changing behaviour, rather than punishment.

Achievements and Outcomes

Then program has bought about a remarkable and very positive change in the school’s environment. The caring supportive atmosphere is almost a tangible thing and often commented upon by visitors to the school. The mediators are a reassuring sight in the playground and most children use them as a preferred option when faced with conflict. From this we could say that the primary aim of the program has been achieved. The records kept by the mediators enable us to monitor the program to ensure that it remains relevant and viable.

Obviously, the level of change and benefits happen slowly and are difficult to measure statistically. However, factors such as levels of absenteeism, teacher stress, number of physical fights occurrences of suspension and exclusion, can all be used to determine the success of a program of this type.

Recognition

Recognition of our long running success was given in 1998, when the school was invited to send a speaker to the 4^th National Mediation Conference in Melbourne.

Further recognition of the success of our program came in December last year, when we were presented with an Australian Violence Prevention Award. We were the most highly recognised school in the awards, Australia wide, in 1998.

The Future

We have worked over the years with approximately fifty schools (Private, State and Catholic) and community organisations that wished to adapt our programs for their own use. We have always been happy to share our knowledge and expertise and I believe that we have made a positive difference in the environment of many schools and will hopefully continue to do so in the future.

In that time, over six hundred children have been part of the program, with nearly two hundred receiving the specialised training needed to become student mediators. The program is well known in the community, with parents of many of the mediators taking an active interest in their work. Some of the children who first learned these skills are parents themselves now and using the positive life skills they learned at school to successfully parent their own children. Our ultimate aim is for children to internalise the skills that they learn with us, so that they can take them out into the wider world and use them to deal with conflict in their every day lives, both in the present and in the future.

Anne Mitchell
November 1999

The 1999 Student Mediators

 

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