The New Zealand Curriculum recognises that children are not just at school to learn subject specific concepts and information, and that they also need support to develop a range of skills and understandings that traverse all aspects of life and all learning areas.  There are 6 Key Competencies and 8 Values listed in our world renowned curriculum that teachers actively seek to infuse into all parts of the school day.  

Values - Excellence; Innovation, inquiry, and curiosity; diversity; equity; Community and participation; Ecological sustainability; Integrity; Respect.

Key Competencies - Thinking; Relating to others; Using language, symbols, and texts; Managing Self; Participating and contributing.

Positive Behaviour for Learning (PB4L) provides us with a framework to examine and refine the systems we implement and the approaches we take to providing learning programmes for our students.  We do not assume that students know what we want them to do or how to do it, so we teach weekly lessons to ensure that everybody knows what they are expected to do in any given situation.  This week, for example, students will all participate in lessons about our expectations for behaviour during assemblies and in the Big Space.

Our PB4L lessons relate directly to the curriculum values of respect, and community and participation, and to the Key Competencies of managing self, relating to others, and participating and contributing.  The PB4L lessons taught at Ridgway School also directly relate to our school values of respect, resilience, resourcefulness, and responsibility.  

It’s not just through our PB4L lessons that we seek to enable our students to enjoy success, teachers include a focus on one or more of the key competencies in every unit of work and as time goes on we are talking more frequently with our students about how they are demonstrating these.

Our number one aim is to ensure the success of every student in the school.  We want our students to not only be successful while they are with us, but also to be successful when they leave us.  Enabling our students to be successful, requires that we provide the learning experiences that will help them to develop the values, key competencies and knowledge set out in the NZ curriculum.  Our Positive Behaviour for Learning focus, helps us to teach our students how to act (or behave), so that they can learn.  

Kathryn