The launch of the program included a surprise video for the students where the staff acted as students who didn’t behave correctly. 

The purpose of the video was to show students that they shouldn’t want to go to a school where children could get hurt. 

After the video the teachers went around asking students and parents whether they would want to go to a school like that. 

Vice principal Amanda Brown said the idea for the program came from the fact that the systems they had in place didn’t support everyone in the school. 

“This is a new part of our social curriculum and it allows all parts of the school to be acknowledged,” she said. 

The teachers then invited school mascot ‘Wangaroo’ onto the stage to promote a safe learning environment to the students. 

As another surprise for the students, the staff at Wallerawang public, put on three different short plays about being respectful, responsible and safe. 

“It has been a long process that we have gradually built up over the past 12 months,” she said. 

After the plays, the teachers had one more surprise for the students, as they sang a song about being respectful, responsible and safe. 

Ms Brown said the whole school had been supporting the new system. 

One way that the whole school is being acknowledged is through a new system called ‘gotchas’ where students are given little tickets for doing good things around the school. They then get put into a container and once a week a students name gets picked out and receives a free hot chocolate. 

“We also have big school acknowledgements, such as holding a disco, mufti days and movie nights,” she said. 

“We have a paw patrol where students go around and hand out gotchas to friends and other students doing the right thing.” 

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Sport shed monitors, teachers, canteen ladies and office ladies can also hand out gotchas for good behaviour.  

New signage has been put up around the school so that students can read what is expected of them in any school situation. 

“It is so students know what is expected of them because we don’t want to leave it to chance,” she said. 

Ms Brown said that the school hopes to put in place a big goal to work towards for the end of the year.