Workshop on behaviour management serves up ‘21st-century solutions’

Twenty-three deans of discipline, guidance counsellors, senior teachers and principals representing 10 high schools from across Jamaica completed a one-day workshop on programme development for behaviour management, at the Hibiscus Lodge hotel in Ocho Rios last week.

The workshop was presented by Life Skills Publication and was designed to help participants understand the elements of a behaviour management programme and provide guidance in ensuring that all the elements align, to ensure vision attainment.

The participants explored the importance of key considerations when developing programmes for children and youth, and were offered certificates upon completion.

The 10 schools represented were Denbigh, Ewarton, Cornwall College, Green Island, Marcus Garvey Technical, Holy Childhood, Immaculate Conception, Irwin, Paul Bogle, and The Queen’s School.

Feedback from participants at the end was quite positive.

“I benefited tremendously because the workshop, the content and method of presentation, it was what we needed,” Robertino Gordon, dean of discipline at Cornwall College, told The Gleaner.

“We’re having a number of challenges with our students and behaviour management, and this workshop got into the rudiments of how we can develop a behaviour management programme that is specific to our clients, our students, all the stakeholders (0:49) and how we can have outcomes that we are looking for. We are satisfied,” Gordon added.

Similar sentiments were expressed by Opal Pyke-Leair, guidance counsellor at Immaculate Conception.

“It was very, very helpful because we haven’t got a formal behavioural programme,” Pyke-Leair said.

She added: “We have been doing stuff to improve behaviour in our school but learning how to structure the programme to get the best result, that was what happened for me today and so I look forward to going back and putting something in place. I’m totally satisfied with what was done today.”

Life Skills’ CEO and presenter, Anisa Wilson-Smith, said the participants were given relevant information to deal with issues affecting their institutions.

“What I offered them was what the 21st-century requires and it is using 21st-century skills to impact our children,” she pointed out.

She expanded: “We’re in the 21st century, our children, they are 21st-century children and so we need 21st-century solutions; that is what I offered them. There are three categories of 21st-century skills – you have the learning skills, you have the life skills, and you have the literacy skills. What I offered today was the life skills using the positive youth development approach. This is the approach that is going to positively impact our children to not only do well in school but to make a positive contribution to society and that is what we want.”