• The PAThS program has been implemented at Wirrabirra from Kindergarten to year 3 since the year 2000 and as a whole school approach from the beginning of 2004.


• Teachers have attended in-school professional development sessions run by the District PAThS representative and school PAThS co-ordinator to increase knowledge and understanding of curriculum content.


• Teachers who have not attended PAThS professional development days, run by district office, will be attending sessions offered throughout the year.


• The co-ordinator liaises with Phillipa Malloy from district office through communications via telephone, email and term meetings to discuss; the progress of whole school curriculum implementation, new lesson ideas and resources that has been developed by individual teachers and is networked to other participating schools.

Lessons and resources from the curriculum are implemented across all year levels from kindergarten to year 7, the main components include;

• PAThS person for the day;


• Calming down strategies (The turtle response from K-3 & Control Signals Poster from K-7);
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• Feeling faces and


• Problem solving strategies.


• A whole school approach facilitates consistency of these main components and promotes the effectiveness of prevention and intervention therefore promoting the development of social and emotional knowledge, concepts, skills and behaviours.
  
  
• The PAThS program is being integrated this year with the instructional strategies and co-operative learning focus.


• Each term every class has to focus on a specific social skill where teachers’ explicitly teach students’ what each skill looks like, feels like and sounds like.


• For Term 1 the social skill classes are focusing on is active listening which can be broken down into eye contact, turn taking and showing interest. Each class presents each social skill in a poster format which is displayed in the class and becomes the social goal for every learning experience/activity.


• For every term following there is a different social skill to focus on using the same process. Term 2 is encouraging others, Term 3 is expressing your opinion and Term 4 is group decision making.

• Links very closely with the school code of conduct;
  
• Addresses curriculum outcomes of values and inclusivity;
  
• Helps students who have difficulty with self control;
  
• Promotes a positive self esteem and increases confidence;
  
• Develops affective understanding;
  
• Provides a structure to deal with social problem solving;
  
• Positively enhances the way peers relate to each other;
  
• Provides a consistent behaviour management program which has decreased the incident of inappropriate behaviours during recess and lunch time duties and during class sessions;
  
• Increases teacher networking and open communications;
  
• Provides teachers with a systematic and developmental procedure for enhancing social competence;
  
• Caters for a mixture of children, including those “in need” and as well as children who are not “at risk.”
  
• PAThS links home and school consistency and provides information sessions that cover the main components within the curriculum to provide parents with an increased understanding of how the program is run at school and offers strategies to assist parents with positive strategies to deal with inappropriate behaviours at home and promote social and emotional development. After conducting a session in first term about self-control the parents responded very positively to the strategies that were used within the school and how they can be incorporated at home.

By Lisa Croft

Every fortnight each class works together to provide solutions to a generic problem that relates to real life situations. Please encourage discussion with your child about the problem so they can share solutions with their class. The best solutions to the posed problem will receive a class reward.

This fortnight's problem is:
What could you do in a whole group teasing situation when one child is the victim?

When discussing the solutions talk about the feelings of all participants involved and if other students may feel pressured to join in, what their role could be to solve the problem.