Positive Learning Partnerships

At St Francis Xavier College, we understand that relationships are central to all we do, and we aim to work collaboratively with all members of our community.

Our Positive Learning Partnerships allow us to build stronger relationships between students and staff, positively impacting the teaching environment and creating better opportunities for growth and learning. This focus focuses both on the prevention of issues through proactive positive behaviours, and the restoration of relationships after challenging times.

We have three clear expectations that underpin and inform our approach to working with students and with families:

• Unconditional respect 
• A calm and just manner 
• Facing challenges together with optimism

Our Preventative Approach

Our approach to promoting Positive Learning Partnerships is built around developing a set of clear behavioural and social expectations within the school. These expectations are created with clear outlines on how they can be lived out by all members of the community, and the personal and social skills needed. Our College commitment is to developing routines and practices that promote positive behaviour, and using these to affirm and underpin our overall school culture.

In order to support the College’s Positive Learning Partnerships, we teach a variety of skills that promote respect, responsibility and resilience in our students:

Behavioural Skills: preparedness to learn; accessing learning; digital responsibility; and appropriateness in a work environment.

Emotional Skills: positivity; mindset; achievement; care for physical resources; and social-emotional intelligence.

Social Skills: reputation and representation; effective communication; self-regulation; and compassion.

Our Responsive Approach

Challenges are a natural part of human relationships and living in community. In these times, the College utilises a restorative approach which focuses on rebuilding and restoring healthy relationships. We explore how people are affected and work with members of the community to create positive and effective solutions. Our restorative approach helps to support the development of prosocial behaviours which enable healthy individual and interpersonal growth.

Our responsive approach involves students in the process of making amends and moving forwards when harm has been. It prompts them to recognise the nature and impact of wrongdoing so that they may move towards healing for themselves and their community.

The aims of our responsive approach are to:

• encourage and equip students to engage in self-directed positive and prosocial behaviours;
• recognise that quality relationships are fundamental to effective learning and living within a community;
• seek, celebrate and affirm the strengths of each person; and
• provide a link between Gospel values and lived experience of the structures, procedures and practices of our College context.

Our restorative approach views anti-social behaviours or relationship challenges as an opportunity for learning, with a focus on restoring relationships and building empathy and compassion. We separate the person from their actions, recognising that everyone makes mistakes, but we also encourage all members of our community to be accountable and take responsibility for their actions through active participation and reconciliation.