By Victoria Stone-Meadows
Lynbrook Primary School will be one of 126 schools across the state to lead the way in implementing the Victorian Government’s respectful relationships program.
The program was developed on the back of recommendations from the Royal Commission into Family Violence, and aims to address violence, bullying, and stereotyping at home and in schools.
The leading schools throughout the state will help other schools implement the program as it rolls out to all schools in the state this year as part of the Victorian education curriculum.
Lynbrook Primary School principal Russell Gascoigne said he was excited to be one of the first schools to roll out the new program as the school already had a strong focus on equality and respect among students and staff.
“Our school is part of the white ribbon foundation, and we hold that very closely to our school values,” he said.
“We want to reduce any incidents of family violence or incidents of harassment or bullying in both the classroom and the workplace, so we saw this as a logical progression from that involvement with White Ribbon Foundation.”
Mr Gascoigne said the program would be run across all year levels in the school and would help students understand what violence and discrimination looked like and how to deal with it.
“We are looking at developing the program in school, so that we can look at providing students with knowledge and understanding and compassion for others that may be different for them,” he said.
“We also want to show students how they can try to react in situations and what resources are available to them if an untoward situation presents itself.”
The program will also teach students about harmful stereotypes and how they impact on interactions at home, at school and later in life at work.
“Our approach to this will be to also improve student attitudes to gender equity,” Mr Gascoigne said.
“It goes a bit further than family violence and that type of thing; we are looking at all types of discrimination and inequality across all areas.”
“It will focus on student aspirations, even at early age, such as employment, sporting participation, and any kind of stereotyping in regard to responsibilities of individuals.”
“It’s about removing harmful gender roles and the demonstrated behaviour of placing people in different categories.”
Cranbourne MP Jude Perera congratulated the school on adopting the program and said the program would help end the attitudes that contributed to high rates of family violence.
“Respectful relationships will help end the cycle of family violence by challenging the stereotypes that underpin it,” he said.
“As one of the 126 leading schools, Lynbrook Primary School will help us make respectful relationships the success we need this vital initiative to be.”
The new program is expected to start at the school in early March and coincide with the beginning of the upcoming school term.
