BETTER BEHAVIOUR CENTRES

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (14:35): My question is to the Minister for Education. Can the minister update the house on the government's progress in establishing better behaviour centres to help improve student behaviour in our public schools?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Minister for Education, Minister for Early Childhood Development, Minister for Science and Information Economy) (14:35): I thank the honourable member for his question. I know he has always—

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: —had a very powerful interest in the contribution of public schools in his electorate. He has shown me around a number of them, and I am very grateful for that. At the last state election the government committed to establish six new better behaviour centres to help manage destructive behaviour in our schools. Four of these new centres are to be established in the metropolitan area and the remaining two in the country high school area. Each centre will support students referred through other local schools.

This is an important initiative because we need to grapple with aggressive and disrespectful behaviour that is brought into schools which can put quite a strain on our teachers and disrupt the learning of others students. Earlier this year I was able to advise the house that the first two of the six new better behaviour centres—located at Salisbury Downs Primary School and Murray Bridge High School—were up and running. Today I am pleased to advise the house that a further two better behaviour centres have opened at Woodville Primary School and Huntfield Heights Primary School.

Students are already attending these better behaviour centres and getting the support they need to build their social skills. They are participating in intensive literacy and numeracy programs, which will help them be successful in mainstream schooling. We do know that some of the behaviour is caused by students who feel that school is a humiliation. So, giving them the support they need to be successful at school can be an important part of managing their behaviour.

The approach taken in each of the primary school centres we are establishing is a new one. It focuses on identifying those children who have begun to show signs of bad behaviour and then supporting classroom teachers and families to bring about a change in that behaviour before it becomes a pattern. We are tackling it at primary school before it becomes a really big issue in high school.

Students in these centres combine two days a week at the centre, with three days a week in mainstream schooling; so we maintain that connection with their home school. In the centre students learn techniques to manage their anger and relate better to other students, and then they get to practise these in their usual classroom.

Staff from the behaviour centre work in schools one day a week to support classroom teachers, and a family counsellor helps parents provide for a home environment that underpins improvements in behaviour. It is not an easy thing to manage, as any parent would know, children who misbehave. It has its own set of skills that go with it, and some parents need some additional help with that.

The feedback that we are getting about this new approach is incredibly positive. Families whose children attend the Salisbury Downs centre, which opened earlier this year, have reported that their children are using different language at home and they are more aware of managing their own anger and using socially appropriate behaviour. Families are also appreciative of the support for managing siblings' behaviour and for connecting them with other community services.

Locations for the final two of the six new behaviour units have now been identified, and next year we will establish centres at Elizabeth East Primary School and Port Lincoln High School. When established, the six new centres will mean that we will be able to educate more than 440 students, helping them to get back on track, and also avoiding the disruption of other students.

These new centres add to our existing three learning centres that we mentioned earlier, the three campuses at Bowden Brompton Community School and four campuses at Beafield, which are already operating. Together they form part of a comprehensive approach to improving student behaviour.