Sacred Heart Primary School is a mainstream primary school and a part of Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS).
The school currently supports 180 students from Foundation through to Year 6. Enrolments are expected to continue to rise, with plans to add another class in 2026.
There are a high number of students with additional learning needs.
Leaders at Sacred Heart Primary School chose Team Teach to help them further develop a safe, consistent, and respectful approach to behaviour support.
Sandy explains, “We were looking for a flexible framework that would complement our existing PBL approach, that placed an emphasis on proactive de-escalation strategies and restorative practices.”
Staff felt that the Team Teach ethos and principles equipped them with practical strategies to build strong, trusting relationships, ensure dignity and understanding for every student, and foster a positive, cohesive whole-school culture of behaviour support.
Staff at Sacred Heart Primary School were already using the PBL tiered approach to behaviour support.
Post-COVID, staff noticed a change in the student demographic and identified changing behavioural and regulation needs within the student body.
Leaders were keen to increase staff buy-in around their approach to behaviour support to ensure consistency at every level and to increase staff wellbeing.
The school supports children from a diverse demographic, with students from both suburban and rural areas, all of whom had widely divergent experiences during COVID lockdowns.
The aim was to create a sustainable, shared approach to behaviour support that aligned with the PBL framework and that could be understood and used by everyone at Sacred Heart Primary School.
Central to the school’s strategic vision was embedding Team Teach and PBL principles, to create a future-focused, inclusive school that could meet individual students’ needs.
As Sandy explains, “Three staff members undertook Team Teach Intermediate Trainer training, enabling us to disseminate Level 1 training to the entire teaching, non-teaching, and support staff body. Having in-house trainers has facilitated a sustainable, consistent, and responsive approach to support.”
Calm spaces were set up in classrooms, and staff collaborated to create structured de-escalation and response protocols.
Sandy highlights the positive impact that Team Teach training has had on the entire school community:
Sandy and the team at Sacred Heart Primary School are a leading example of effective, inclusive behaviour support.
They are continuing to refine and embed PBL and Team Teach strategies through ongoing training, including for new staff who have recently joined, and by developing resources using the wide range of content available from Team Teach.
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