Background to Croydon Community School

At Croydon Community School we have a higher concentration of students who exhibit challenging behaviour than most schools, but it is exactly these young people that we aim to attract. When we gather information from their previous schools they are often described as the ‘class clown’ or as having a severe behaviour disorder. They are reported as having consistently disrupted their classes and interfered with the learning of others. From a different perspective, we recognise that they have become very adept at meeting their need for power and belonging by opposing significant adults such as teachers and parents, and thus winning the praise of at least some of their peers. In the life of a child who is not succeeding at school it is sometimes better to be thought of as ‘bad’ rather than ‘dumb’ and unfortunately these behaviours have often been reinforced on a daily basis in schools due to both the curriculum design/delivery and student management processes.

Most of these students have consistently achieved at a lower level than that expected by their teachers and parents and as a consequence (or perhaps as the cause) they have acquired gaps in their learning. By the time they reach an age where most of their peers are no longer amused by their behaviour they have significant difficulty in performing at an age-appropriate level. They have also secured a reputation that continues to alienate them from successful completion of their schooling. It is often at this point that these students seek to enrol at Croydon Community School.

Away from the classroom they may be observed as leaders within their social groups and /or sporting teams, but within the confines of the classroom they present as a constant and significant distraction to the learning of their peers and themselves, impacting negatively on the achievements of the class as a whole.

Martial Arts at Croydon Community School

In 2003 we commenced a martial arts based physical activity workshop during an extended elective block (‘Workshops’). The class was run by Steve Golding, Director of the Martial Arts Therapy (MAT) Team and the interest level amongst both boys and girls was extremely high. Students who showed no interest in other sports were drawn to this elective and as the numbers swelled we were able to witness some positive changes in student behaviour during the class.

This class continues to be extremely popular. It draws new students to the school and teaches valuable skills to young people who have previously lacked focus and impulse control. It also encourages physical activity in young people, including those who have not previously been interested in either competitive or non-competitive pursuits.

In semester one, 2004 we expanded into another program called, ‘The Way of the Warrior’ (W.O.W.) also run by the MAT Team. It is a physically active therapeutic program that combines the basics of behaviour management with the principles of traditional martial arts. It provided our 12-18 year–old students with a structured opportunity to develop self-control and self esteem and we found it to be equally effective with both boys and girls, particularly those who displayed a lack of impulse control. It was our aim to teach students skills that they would transfer from the martial arts classes to other classes as well as to their behaviour in the schoolyard, at home, and in community contexts.

W.O.W. is an eight-week program that focuses on teaching:

• How to identify various feelings
• Appropriate ways to respond to these feelings
• How to self-invest to achieve a positive future

W.O.W. does not teach children how to fight. There is no instruction in street fighting, throwing or weapons techniques. It does teach basic self-defence techniques such as palm blocks and evasions. The program was modified to suit the student cohort at Croydon Community School and assisted students to feel connected to themselves, their families and community. It provided them with opportunities to experience success.

The program works around four basic teachings:

• Be Strong
• Be Calm
• Be Kind
• Try Hard

In semester 2, 2004 we continued to develop ideas that would assist our most challenging students to stay on task in their core classes. To this end we employed Steve Golding, to join the staff team and work with us to develop a program that would assist students to stay positive in areas that have defeated their ego and self esteem year after year at school, such as literacy and numeracy classes. As a part of this we expanded the use of the four teachings across the curriculum and found that this common language was a relevant and rapid reminder to students when they lost focus.

The new program was implemented when some students in Year 9 were asked if they would like to assist in leading the W.O.W. program at other schools. The results were stunning! The improvement in the behaviour of this first group has been phenomenal. The boys were chosen initially because they were our most challenging students in our classrooms and around the school. However, since commencing the program they have worked in numerous primary and secondary schools, taking younger students through the program. They also work one to one with some of the most challenging Year 7 & 8 boys at Croydon Community School during their Core classes, quietly and positively encouraging them to complete the required learning activities, yet still keep up to date with their own class work.

We know that the program is readily adaptable to other schools because our students are already leading its implementation in other primary and secondary schools. (We have included letters of recommendation from three of these schools in the appendix). It has allowed us to work with numerous schools, in both the government and private sector, as experts. The Peer Educators are working with young boys who are marginalised by their behaviours, have no father present in the family home and/or no positively functioning male role model. They are teaching them how to stay safe and strong without ‘frightening back’ or hurting others around them.

To the best of our knowledge the Peer Educator Program has not previously been presented in schools other than those we are working with. The idea builds on successful strategies such as cross-age tutoring and peer support. It is different in that it has two specific foci:

• The W.O.W. program with its specific skills and knowledge
• One to one classroom support by older boys for younger boys

The positive impact on student learning outcomes has been significant. Students who were reluctant to take any risks in attempting academic work because of their history of repeated failures are now applying themselves to set tasks, and as a result they are learning effectively. Their interactions with adults at this school, the schools they visit, and with their parents are now centred on positive events. They smile, walk tall and hold themselves proudly, even in situations that are new and would previously have caused them unbearable stress. Their outlook for the future is positive and they have lifted their expectations for themselves and what they believe they will achieve.

The continued development of the program has alerted us to other potential evaluation strategies, such as:

• Vineland or similar formal assessment
• Measured decrease in at-risk behaviours such as substance use, graffiti, assaults.
• Suspension data
• Anecdotal evidence such as parent and teacher comment, self evaluation
• Measured increase in positive behaviours such as on-task time in classes;
• Improvement in literacy and numeracy levels
• Positive interactions with peers, adults and family members.

The Peer Educator Classroom Support Project aims to provide classroom support for young people who are struggling to maximise learning objectives. These issues may relate to significant emotional and behavioural challenges and/or learning difficulties.

The Peer Educator Support Project is a one to one program aimed at providing assistance within the existing school support structures. The support is provided by another young person who can model appropriate behavioural skills and with whom the identified student can positively relate. The aim is to assist the student to stay on task by:

• Providing positive feedback, praise and encouragement
• Role modelling
• Developing a positive friendship with an older student

The main focus of the program is to help students take part in real school life, through achievement in both learning and social relationships. The project ensures teachers are able to spend their time and energy focused on teaching and avoids over-burdening them with administrative tasks that are often generated by inappropriate classroom behaviour (writing incident reports, follow-up with student managers, notifying parents of incidents, supervising detentions, etc). It also ensures that learning opportunities are maximised for other class members.

The approach used:

The Peer Educator Classroom Support Project aims to provide classroom support to teachers with young people who are struggling to maximise learning objectives. These issues may relate to significant emotional and behavioural challenges and/or learning difficulties.

The main focus of the program is to help students take part in real school life, through both achievements in learning and by encouraging positive social relationships. The project ensures teachers are able to spend their time and energy focused on teaching and avoids over-burdening them with administrative tasks that are often generated by inappropriate classroom behaviour (writing incident reports, follow-up with student managers, notifying parents of incidents, supervising detentions, etc). The benefits experienced by individual students have been significant, as have the gains made by their peers because the focus of the classroom returns to learning outcomes rather than behavioural management.

The Peer Educator Classroom Support Project is a one to one program aimed at providing support within the existing school support structures. The support is provided by another young person who can model appropriate behavioural skills and with whom the identified student can positively relate. The aim is to assist the student to stay on task by:

• Providing positive feedback, praise and encouragement
• Role modelling
• Developing a positive friendship with an older student

It is distinct from the Integration Aide role in that the Peer Educators do not:

• Deliver differentiated or structured curricula materials (eg corrective reading)
• Deliver specific therapy programs or medical procedures
• Provide individual counselling

Peer Educators work alongside teachers and aides by providing social and emotional support and encouragement to the student. This then allows teachers/aides to provide curriculum-focused support and structured behavioural management plans.

Peer Educators at Croydon Community School are drawn from a range of age groups. Our original Peer Educators were adults in their 20s who had not made the most of the opportunities availed to them whilst at school. Maturation has quietened their behaviours somewhat but they had not been able to reclaim their time at school and had not attained tertiary qualifications or completed further accredited training. However, they had come to an awareness of how their behaviour at school has shaped their lives since leaving and were keen to help others avoid the same mistakes. They demonstrated an empathy and understanding of our young people who were facing the same struggle now.

As the program has developed the Peer Educators at Croydon Community School are now ‘older’ current students who were themselves paired with the original group of adults. This does not mean that they are all in their senior years. In fact, we have students in Years 9-12 working with Year 7-10s within our school, as well as assisting to deliver the ‘Way of the Warrior’ program (explained on the following page) at a growing number of primary and other secondary schools, including one Special School. At this point in time demand exceeds supply for Croydon Community School Peer Educators in other schools and discussions have commenced with Eastern Metropolitan Regional Office staff to establish ways to replicate the project and meet this shortfall.

The program makes the most of ‘resolution by stealth’. Students are identified by teachers for inclusion in the program based on their own excessive level of disruption and its interference with their individual achievement, as well as their class as a whole. They are invited to join a program that will require them to work with younger students for a set period of time and it is explained that they will be required to learn some specific skills to teach the younger students. These skills are in fact the ones they themselves need to practice to maximise their success at school and in later life but have not previously acquired.

We have deliberately aimed at making this an attractive and fun program, which is presented by people who are highly regarded by the students. As the program develops it is becoming self-sustaining because some of the presenters are students who have participated in all other stages of the program and are now extending their leadership skills even further. To date every student approached has become a willing participant and we have students asking to be part of the program. The explicit reward for their participation is the involvement as an identified and overt leader amongst a group of younger students. The embedded reward is a range of strategies that maximises their own success in the classroom without raising their personal behaviour as a concern.

In short, we now have students who enrolled at Croydon Community School because they could not fit into the behavioural demands of mainstream schools visiting these schools to deliver a program that assists disruptive students to understand their behaviour and self-manage it! Some of them are even returning to their previous school and relishing the opportunity to show their old teachers how far they’ve come.

Relationship to the Blueprint for Government Schools:

Flagship 1. Student Learning

The Peer Educator Project and the Way of the Warrior Program can be adopted by teachers, students and the wider education community through inclusion within the Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning as Personal Development units. There is also potential for inclusion as Work Related Skills units if we are successful in establishing accreditation through tertiary institutions as we see a real potential for this program as a future employment opportunity for young people. As experienced educators we see that the demand for this program will continue into the foreseeable future, particularly as more and more students display inappropriate behaviours and retention rates increase.

Principles of Learning and Teaching

Croydon Community School was a pilot participant in the PoLT development during 2004, during which time the Peer Educator program was being developed. The inclusion of the Peer Educator program in schools assists in students connecting positively with their teachers, peers and the learning activities, therefore significantly increasing the success experienced at school.

Knowledge Bank

There are currently no examples of a program similar to this one published within the Knowledge Bank materials. When documentation is completed we will submit it for inclusion in this web-based resource.

Victorian Essential Learning Standards
Information included in the newly released details relating to the Victorian Essential Learning Standards states that the new structure will result in,
“Greater recognition of the personal and social skills which students require….
The community expects our children to be:

• Community members who contribute socially, economically and culturally to society
• Responsible individuals capable of relating to family, friends and colleagues
• Informed citizens who understand and contribute to civil and community relations at a local, national and global level.”
  And:
  “Students will leave school with the capacity to:
• manage themselves as individuals and in relation to others
• understand the world in which they live
• act effectively in that world.”

The Peer Educator Project will assist schools and teachers in meeting these goals with even the most at-risk young people. We believe that there is strong potential to develop the W.O.W. program and Peer Educator Project to be taught by accredited teachers within the Physical, Personal and Social Learning Strand of the Victorian Essential Learning structure.

Flagship 2. Student Resource Package

Funding required for the program in its early stages at Croydon Community School was provided by a School Focus Youth Service (SFYS) grant. It is now sustained through a further SFYS grant to expand the program, as well as from the Advance Program, and Managed Individual Pathways funding. However, the program achieves outstanding results that are maintained over an extended period of time at minimal cost. As a school we have saved substantial amounts because there has been a significant decrease in costly property damage and graffiti. The wider community has also gained because of the significant decrease in anti-social behaviours such as substance use, property damage and physical assaults by these young people that occurred during their time away from school.

A further opportunity for the inclusion of Peer Educators and the W.O.W. program is for students who are funded under the Program for Students with Disabilities. At Croydon Community School we have implemented the program to meet the high needs of students currently funded under the Severe Behaviour category and found it to be most effective, achieving results that have been sustained beyond individual involvement in the program.

The sustainability of the program at Croydon Community School depends on our ability to resource it from within the SRP. This will also be the case for other schools who want to maintain the program over an extended period of time. We have been able to achieve this goal, despite the reality that we attract students with particularly high needs, yet the only additional funds we receive relate to the characteristics of the student and family cohort.