POLICY OBJECTIVE:
To ensure that PSS staff have an adequate awareness and understanding of their duty of care obligations and responsibilities to provide adequate supervision to students.
To ensure that PSS staff conducts themselves at all times consistently with these legal obligations and responsibilities.
POLICY STATEMENT:
Principal and teachers have a special duty of care in relation to their students to take steps that are reasonable in the circumstances to protect students from risks of injury that should reasonably have been foreseen. This duty includes the duty to provide an adequate system of supervision.
The duty is not to prevent injury in all circumstances. It is a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent injury which is known or foreseeable. The question of what are reasonable steps will depend on the individual circumstances of the case, and consideration of the following factors:
- The probability that the harm would occur if care was not taken
- The likely seriousness of the harm
- The burden of taking precautions to avoid the risk of harm.
- The social utility of the activity that creates the risk of harm
The duty may, in some circumstances, extend outside school hours and outside the school premises. This will depend on whether the relationship between staff and student extends to the individual circumstances, whether the risk was known or foreseeable, and whether there were any reasonable steps that could be taken to prevent the injury from occurring.
The duty is no-delegable, meaning that it could not be assigned to another party.
SUPERVISION POLICY:
The Vice Principal is responsible for ensuring that there is an adequate system of supervision in place during school hours, before and after school, and on school excursions and camps.
Teachers and other school staff are responsible for following reasonable and lawful instructions from the principal, including instructions to provide supervision to students at specific dates, times and places.
Before School & After School
Students must be supervised for a minimum of 20 minutes before and after school. This supervision may include some or all of the following:
- Monitoring of entry or exit points and/or designated pick up and drop off areas.
- Supervision of the arrival and departure of school contract buses.
- Yard supervision.
At PSS supervision at the beginning of the school day will commence at 6:30am. This supervision will include a teacher on active duty on the asphalt area of the school and all classroom teachers in classrooms.
Supervision at the end of the school day will be provided until 1:45pm. This supervision will include a teacher on yard duty on the asphalt area of the school and a teacher supervising student and parent in parking area.
If a parent, guardian drops off or otherwise arranges for a student to be on the school premises before supervision commence at the beginning of the day, the principal will, as soon as practicable, follow up with the parent, guardian to
- Advise of the supervision arrangements before school.
- Request that the parent, guardian or carer make alternate arrangement
If a parent, guardian has failed to collect the student after school, the next step may include some or all of the following:
- Attempting to contact the parents, guardian.
- Attempting to contact the emergency contacts.
- Placing the student in the out of school hours care program (if appropriate
CLASSROOM:
The classroom teacher has ultimate responsibility for the supervision of all students in their care.
This duty cannot be delegated to external education providers’ parents or trainee teachers.
In addition, no student should be left unsupervised outside the classroom as withdrawal consequences for misbehavior. Withdrawal from the classroom is only to occur in accordance with the school’s policy.
If a teacher needs to leave the classroom unattended at any time during a lesson, he or she should contact their buddy teacher or the PTI for assistance. The teacher should then wait until alternate supervision is being provided prior to leaving the classroom.
Recess and Lunch times
The Principal is responsible for ensuring that students are adequately supervised during recess and lunch. This involves designating areas in the yard, and developing a roster for staff to supervise students in the designated area for the time indicated in the roster.
At PSS the Vice Principal is responsible for preparing and communicating the yard duty roster. The designated yard duty areas for lunch breaks are as follows.
- A- Which include supervision of the senior playground and ensuring students do not go into out of bounds areas behind the school.
- B- Including the canteen area and student’s toilet at the end of each Wing.
- C- PIaying area inside the premises for junior classes.
Teachers who are rostered for duty must remain in the designated area until the end of the break period, or until replaced a relieving teacher, whichever is applicable. During yard duty, supervising teachers should be guided by the following:
- In all yard duty area teachers are expected to methodically move around the area rather than remain static in the one position. This increases the ability to appropriately monitor student activity.
- Be alert and vigilant.
- Intervene if potentially dangerous behavior is observed in the yard.
- Enforce behavior standards and implement logical consequences for breaches of safety rules.
- Ensure that students who require first aid assistance receive it as soon as possible.
Late Arrival & Early Departure
The Principal will ensure that the school has a procedure in place for the safe collection and drop off Of students at school during school hours (e.g., late arrival or an early departure). This will include a record of the date and time, the reason for the late arrival or early departure, and the person who has authorized the late arrival or early departure.
Late arrival at PSS
- Children who arrive between 7:10am and 7:30am collect a Late Pass from the office and go to class.
- Children who arrive after 7:30am collect a Late Pass from the office and have their names and time of arrival recorded in the late book.
- The Principal, Class team or attendance officer will contact families of children who are consistently or frequently late.
In relation to early departure from school, the procedure will also include:
- Persons collecting students prior to the end of the school day must attend the office and complete an early leave form which must be presented to the classroom teacher prior to the child leaving.
- Students will only be permitted to leave the school premises under the supervision of a parent or another person authorized by parents to collect the student.
- If the person collecting the student is unknown to school staff and not listed as a contact on the child’s enrolment form, school staff will request photo identification to verify the person’s identity and check he/she is authorized on the child’s enrolment form to collect the child.
Visitors
The Principal will ensure that there is a procedure to monitor all visitors in the school. As a minimum this procedure must require all visitors arriving and departing the school premises during school hours to use a visitor’s book to record their name, their signature, the date and time, and the purpose of the visit.
At PSS the procedure is as follows:
- All visitors report to the office.
- All visitors must sign in and wear a visitor’s tag.
- All visitors must sign out when leaving the school.
ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES:
The Principal will
- Regularly communicate the duty of care and supervision obligations and responsibilities to all staff
- Regularly communicate the supervision arrangements to parents.
- Determine the level of student supervision to be provided to students in all of the circumstances.
- Allocate specific responsibilities to staff members to provide the supervision that is required.
- Communicate the specific supervision responsibilities allocated to staff members.
- Regularly review the level of student supervision provided to students and make adjustments as and when deemed appropriate.
- Regularly review the duty of care and supervision policy to ensure that it is consistent with the school policy and advisory guide, and continues to meet the duty of care obligations and responsibilities for all students.
Teachers and other staff will:
- Comply with the lawful and reasonable directions of the Principal.
- Comply with all department and school policies.
- Perform supervisory duties as required.
Parents, guardians and carers will
- Make appropriate arrangements for the transport, care and supervise students travelling to and from school.
- Make appropriate arrangements for the care and supervision of students outside the times of supervision before and after school.
- Comply with late arrival and early departure policies and other school-based policies.
PROCEDURE FOR IMPLEMENTATION:
The principal will communicate this policy to all staff using the following mechanism:
- A copy of this policy will be provided to each member of staff in the staff handbook at the first staff meeting at the commencement of the school year.
- New staff will be informed of this policy as part of the school’s induction program.
- School staff will be directed to familiarize themselves with all relevant sections of the school policy and advisory guide.
This policy will be included in the school policy handbook.
EVALUATION:
The policy will be reviewed annually or more often if necessary due to changes in legislation, policy or local circumstances.