The WCED promotes positive behaviour
19 May 2021
The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) in conjunction with the Ottery Youth Care Centre (OYCC) hosted the Positive Behaviour Day on Monday, 17 May.
The WCED Positive Behaviour Programme is a multi-pronged strategy to promote positive and restorative behaviour approaches by creating caring school cultures through educator capacity building, learner and parent intervention programmes as well as awareness programmes to highlight the programme efforts.
The Positive Behaviour Day aimed to respond to bullying as a universal concern that undermines the functioning of schools as learning spaces. The Positive Behaviour Support Pathway, a programme in the WCED, addressed these issues through prevention, early identification, moderate support and high-level support.
The Head of Department, Brent Walters, who spoke at the live streamed event, said the WCED views bullying in a very serious light and applies a range of measures to deal with the issue. These include the “Abuse no More” policy which the WCED has implemented. This policy provides guidelines to schools on dealing with any form of abuse, including bullying. Walters also urged principals and School Governing Bodies to ensure that their Code of Conduct includes a social media policy.
The event was also attended by Caitlin Volkwyn, a Grade 9 learner from Bergvliet High School who performed “Call me by my name”, a song she wrote to take a stand against bullying.
Neville Goliath, head of the Positive Behaviour Programme, said their motto for the day “A change in behaviour begins with a change in the heart,” clearly resonated in the speeches of all the speakers. “The focus on Positive Behaviour as a response to bullying enables us to generate solutions for healing the wrongs caused by trauma-based violence.”
