"In this school - you know how you can be a small fish in a big pond - well it's not like that here. Everyone is treated equally.
And given all the same opportunities."

...Year 11 student

Our school of 420 students is in a large rural farming community, which has for a very long time approached education conservatively. We have combated internal and external negative attitudes through increased participation, empowerment and positive change.

Where It Began... Many of our students placed little value on formal education and entered local rural industries when they finished school. This led to negative attitudes and counterproductive behaviours and practices in our school community.

We suffered low staff morale in the face of our students' poor attitudes. Staff reported increasing noncooperative behaviour including bullying, harassment and violence. This led in turn, and not surprisingly, to a low community perception of the school.

Getting Started... Our administration team built networks with university staff with renowned expertise in school improvement and change. From this grew the IDEAS (Innovative Designs for Enhancing Achievements in Schools) framework.

How We Went About It... We saw that the key to facing our school's challenges lay in increased participation by the school's members. We worked at empowering the voices of the whole school so that we could deal with our problems and change practices and improve relationships. Through this, we hoped to provide better student outcomes.
We addressed improving the whole school in several ways.

• Schools Improvement and Innovations Forum encourages all members of the school community to identify issues and suggest alternative solutions.
• A behaviour management refocus and review addressed student behaviour and concerns and explored the development of future effective and positive management.
• Our Parade for the Positives is a monthly full school community assembly, which highlights the positives.
• Year coordinators were appointed to support communication and student discussion at each year level.
• The Student Council allowed greater student participation in school decision making.
  
  

What We Are Learning... We have been able to effect positive change across the school culture and students have reacted positively to these changes. We know that our changes are working because of these indicators.

• School opinion surveys show high levels of staff morale, positive community regard for the school, and student perception of the school.
• Increasing Year 8 student enrolments - students who may otherwise have enrolled in private schools.
• Fewer students are reported for behaviour management issues, particularly bullying.
• Student participation is increasing - more sporting teams, greater number of students involved in cultural events and debating, increased number of boys participating in cultural activities.
  
  

What's Next... To maintain the momentum already generated within the school community, we are constantly looking for ways of creating better social and educational outcomes for students.

Words of wisdom …
All essential is the creation of a culture of open, transparent and intellectual dialogue between all stakeholders. Ideas can then be generated that create new meanings and sensitivities.
This journey must be based on reliable data.

"We've taken a collaborative approach involving staff, students and parents. The result is a significant proportion of people in
the school working in harmony."

...Teacher

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