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Trinity Bay State High School, Cairns, Qld
What Staff and Students Say. Trinity Bay has joined with 14 feeder local primary schools to:
- Enhance a healthy transition to high school
- Enhance Trinity Bay's capacity to promote social and emotional well being for incoming students
Aussie Optimism will be offered to incoming students from 14 local feeder primary schools to start 2006. Teachers from the 14 feeder primary schools will be trained in the last semester of 2005 to deliver Aussie Optimism to year 6 and 7 students in preparation for their 2006 and 2007 year 8 entry to Trinity Bay secondary School.
The sessions will be run in conjunction with the Trinity Bay and feeder schools. Induction program which informs incoming students about Trinity Bay?s personal health policy and programs such as RAP-A.
Students will therefore continue their emotional literacy and share common mental health promoting language across primary and secondary school.
Benefits noted for incoming students over the past three years are:
- Teachers from feeder schools report that departing students say they feel happy about entering the new school.
- Teachers from feeder schools report that departing students can identify appropriate strategies to put in place at the new school if they are feeling uncomfortable.
RAP-A appealed to the Trinity Bay, Head of Department, Health and Physical Education because he could see the benefits for all year 8 students.
The school, in 2003 and 2004 had used RAP-A with selected students but wanted to extend its use to all year 8 students because of the observed positive benefits for students, such as enabling students to develop strategies to resolve conflict before it escalated to inappropriate behaviour.
The school has a SPEAK UP SPEAK OUT program and policy to address bullying and harassment.
Trinity Bay, Cairns, is a large school (year 8-12), spread over a rambling campus. Incoming students are drawn from around 14 local schools. The year 8 student population is made up of 38% Indigenous, 32% Caucasian, 30% culturally linguistically diverse. An increasing number of students are enrolling as private, fee paying students from China and Korea. The school is enrolling an increasing number of refugee children.
RAP-A is built into the year 8 curriculum as part of the health education programs. It is conducted over 8 sessions (double lessons of one hour) in the first semester of the school year. The program will continue past MMPlus funding support and is embedded in the health promoting curriculum infrastructure
The program has been operating universally for the past year with the following benefits for year 8's noted by teachers:
- Increased opportunity for targeted support at the year 8 level by assisting screening for high support needs students after semester one in year 8
- Students actively engaged in learning pro social skills through RAP-A
The RAP ? A sessions allow students to raise personal concerns in a safe environment and develop strategies to address personal concerns. For most students the group sessions are a sound basis for building the capacity to bounce back in adverse times. Some students require further and more intensive support.
The Screening process works in the following way:
Regular discussion and review by all year 8 teachers. At the end of first semester all teachers who have year 8 students are interviewed by the year 8 coordinator, the Guidance office and the School based health nurse using a set of prompt questions. Teachers who have interacted with students during RAP-P sessions have developed additional insight into student issues.
The criteria to identify the need for extra support are:
- Lack of organisational skills
- Irregular attendance or prolonged absence
- Unusual and unexpected behaviour
- Chronic misbehaviour (eg. continued harassment and bullying)
- Continued low mood
- unwillingness to join in with fellow students
- does not seem to understand or follow lessons
and other appropriate criteria.
Case management
Students identified during the screening process are further discussed with the school nurse, Guidance office and Head of Department (Health and PE) in a case allocation meeting. A decision is made with the student and the parents to implement in- school strategies such as change of class, mentoring, additional learning support or referral to outside agencies. One-on-one assistance and other strategies identified as part of the Individual year 8 learning plan for each student continues as appropriate.
Continued support past year 8
Those students in year 8 and 9 who are displaying aggressive behaviour and could benefit from involvement in the Anti-bullying theatre production "Brainstorm production" are referred to this group.
The program "Rock and Water" is also made available to all year 9 boys.
Escape Fast is provided for year 10 students to reinforce personal safety, conflict resolution and goal setting.
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