Launching Place

The Launching Place Primary School ‘SWaT’ program encourages students to Switch off, Walk Away and Tell an Adult. Tell us about Launching Place Primary School

Launching Place Primary School is situated in the Yarra Valley, and can be accessed along the Warburton Highway, approximately 62 km east of Melbourne. The school's current enrolment of 251 is drawn from the wider local area with many children travelling from neighbouring townships by car and bus. Our five core values are:

Excellence. Respect. Responsibility. Resilience. Honesty.

We strive for our students to become motivated and independent learners and we promote social responsibility, resilience, perseverance and independence to capably prepare our students for an ever changing world. What is the ‘SWaT’ program?

Our SWaT project dealt primarily with the problem of cyberbullying. SWaT had four distinct phases:

• Collection of baseline data.

• Awareness through education (teacher/ student/ parent).

• Empowering students through digital resources.

• Sharing our message with the community. What are the aims of SWaT?

The project aimed to address the growing problem of cyberbullying, through empowering all stakeholders to join together to develop proactive and positive behaviours. How was SWaT developed?

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Case Study | © 2014 | Department of Education and Early Childhood Development The project was carried out in phases over a 12-week period. We ensured that understanding was established before the next phase was undertaken. Has the program been a success?

The project has had an overwhelming effect on all students. It has empowered them to stand up for themselves and realise that it’s not ok to be a bystander. Regular information has been filtered to the community through a parent forum and most importantly, via newsletters and ‘celebration days’.

There has been a definite change in attitude and incidences of bullying of all types, not just cyberbullying. We believe that through raising the awareness of bullying in all of its forms, students, staff and families are able to more closely recognise, understand and deal with cyberbullying.

The project went well over the allocated 12 x 60 minutes. Students were often so engaged in their learning that we did not want to stop. This was not a huge problem, but due to the enormity of the issue of cyberbullying, we suggest allocating more time to ‘unpacking’ the term.

The grant gave us the impetus to tackle the problem of cyberbullying, with a direct link to what we were doing with eSmart (Allanah and Madeleine Foundation). Having a team to drive the program (including our school chaplain) ensured that the program kept momentum. Reflections at staff meetings also ensured the program’s success. What is the future of SWaT?

The project will continue to be implemented and we are working out ways that it can be filtered down through to grade 3 and 4. What were the costs of implementing the program?

The project was funded through our Bully Stoppers grant. We also received funding to undergo our SKIPS training/ program which filtered over to help implement our SWaT project. Contact

Debra Hobbis-Hartley (03) 5964 7783 [email protected]

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