1. Student engagement and school connectedness underpin effective student learning. Schools in Gippsland are engaging and inclusive, responding to individual student needs, accommodating different learning profiles and rates of learning and intervening early to address those needs.
2. Schools in Gippsland engage all families/carers as equal partners in the education of children and young people. Parents/carers can expect schools to be welcoming of their participation and support them in engaging with their child’s learning. It is a key responsibility of families/carers to take an active interest in their child’s educational progress and support the school in maintaining a safe and respectful learning environment for all students.
3. Regular school attendance is vital to a child’s learning. While student attendance at school is a legal obligation of parents/carers, schools in Gippsland, in partnership with families, students and the wider community, will actively support full student attendance and retention until the completion of Year 12 or its equivalent.
4. Schools in Gippsland implement preventative and early intervention strategies to support positive behaviours. They recognise that strong relationships between students and staff are a critical component of this.
5. When concerns arise about a student’s behaviour, or when a student is displaying chronic patterns of problem behaviour, schools will respond using a staged approach, diagnosing the cause of such behaviour and implementing strategies to address those causes.
6. Schools in Gippsland will maintain a safe and respectful learning environment for all students. Key to this is establishing clear expectations of behaviour that all staff, students, families and the wider community understand and accept. Consequences for failing to adhere to these expectations are context specific but a staged approach will be adopted.
7. Consistent with point 6 suspensions will only be applied when all other measures have been implemented without success or where an immediate suspension is the only appropriate course of action given the student’s behaviour and the safety of other school community members. Suspended students are often the least likely to have the personal or family capacity/resources to help themselves out of their difficulties.
8. Expulsion from school is the most serious consequence open to a principal. It will only be taken as a last resort. Students are expelled from a school but not from the network of educational providers. Every student has a right to a place in a school or training organisation or an alternative educational location/setting. Networks will therefore ensure that any expelled student has a pathway to another school, training provider or alternative education/ location as part of the expulsion process.
9. There are a very small percentage of students whose behaviour is so extreme and whose needs are so great that schools and networks are unable to meet these needs within their resources. In these instances the region will work with the network to help identify alternate programs to support these students.
Schools and principals within the Gippsland region will honour these beliefs and understandings and hold colleagues accountable to them.
The protocols can be downloaded here: Gippsland Region Local Protocol for the Suspension and Expulsion of Students as a Result of Discipline Procedures as outlined in the "Student Engagement Policy Guidelines 2009.