Learning and Implementing School Wide PBS

This year my school has mandated that we move to a school wide PBS (positive behavior support) system. I really like the concept behind PBS, but admittedly I do have some reservations. There is a lot that goes into PBS and it has been challenging to implement a system that I am not yet fully trained on. So far I have introduced our school wide expectations (Be responsible, Be respectful, and Give your best effort), school-wide procedures and reward system. I am seeing good results with my students, and would probably see better results if I could remember to keep blue tickets with me.

Here is how I introduced the system to my students:

I started the discussion by talking about why we have rules and expectations (We have rules and expectations so everyone at our school can do their best learning). Then we did a group brainstorm about rules and expectations the students already knew. 

I then told the students that this year at our school there were three words, called expectations, that would help up us all do our best learning. Everyone, including teachers, will be working this year to meet these expectations. 

I introduced the the words responsible, respectful,and best effort. Then I gave a simple, kid friendly definition of each of them. I put up a synonymous word or phrase to help students remember the difference between the words (see below). 

Next we did a sort of procedures that would help make sure we are being responsible, respectful, and giving our best effort everywhere in the school. I modeled with classroom rules and then the students were broken up into groups to do sorts for the other areas of the school (bus, playground, cafeteria, restroom, arrival/ dismissal). 

After students presented their sorts to the class, I put the sorts up on a bulletin board under our key words (expectations). 

To end the lesson I had the students create a tri-fold and give an example of how they can show each expectation. 

Throughout this upcoming week I will be doing a series of character building activities and read alouds. At some point in each activity we will come back to our key expectations and talk about how our we (or the characters in our books) are/ are not demonstrating our expectations. I am looking forward to some great discussion with my students!