From Reactive Behaviour Reports to a Proactive Daily Habit: Shortland Public School's Journey with Life Skills GO
Shortland Public School is a government primary school of around 250 students, with 10 mainstream classes and seven inclusive education classes, including three classes for students with additional needs, two autism classes and two multi-categorical classes. Around 35 per cent of students identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, and around 20 per cent are learning English as an additional language, across a community with a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds. Life Skills GO is now embedded across the whole school, from mainstream classrooms completing the check-in as part of marking the roll, to inclusive education settings where it forms part of a morning circle discussion, capturing student voice, belonging, wellbeing and readiness to learn in real time so staff can better understand what sits beneath changes in attendance, behaviour, engagement and learning.
By surfacing patterns to classroom teachers, the learning support team and school leadership at the right time, Life Skills GO may help Shortland Public School move from a reactive approach, responding once an incident has already happened, toward a more proactive one that can get in front of a concern earlier. It gives staff a way to check whether what a family or a student is describing matches what the check-in data shows, and it can help connect check-in patterns with attendance and behaviour information so the right conversation happens sooner.
Who Is Shortland Public School?
A government primary school of around 250 students, with 10 mainstream classes and seven inclusive education classes, including three classes for students with additional needs, two autism classes and two multi-categorical classes. Around 35 per cent of students identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, and around 20 per cent are learning English as an additional language.
Shortland's community spans a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds, from families experiencing significant social disadvantage through to families who are not. Assistant Principal Daniel Plain describes it as a rich mix of students and families and a broad context to work in, and has been at the school for around six years, within a teaching career of around 20 years across schools with varied socioeconomic profiles.
Shortland took a holistic approach to wellbeing across the whole school, drawing on frameworks including Bruce Perry's Neurosequential Model, the hand-brain model and zones of regulation. A consistent, whole-school approach matters more than any single program. Sustainability and not adding to teachers' workload were both treated as non-negotiable from the outset.
A Complex, Diverse School Community
With three classes for students with additional needs, two autism classes and two multi-categorical classes alongside its ten mainstream classrooms, Shortland is what Daniel describes as "quite a complex little school site." That complexity shapes how the check-in is used day to day, from a simple tap on an interactive whiteboard in a mainstream classroom to a guided discussion inside a morning circle in an inclusive education setting.
This is a story about what a consistent, whole-school habit makes possible across a genuinely diverse school community.
"We took a holistic approach to wellbeing across the whole school. We looked at the framework, we did a lot of work with Bruce Perry's NME program, we looked at the hand-brain model as well, and zones of regulation is another component of all that."
Before Life Skills GO: Wellbeing Measured by Behaviour, Attendance and Teacher Observation
Shortland's traditional methods of measuring wellbeing were behaviour, attendance and teacher observation. For a leader with around 20 years in the classroom, the gaps in that approach were clear.
Nothing Concrete to Hold On To
Individual classrooms ran their own approaches to noticing how students were doing, including peg charts and other visual systems on the zones of regulation. These required a teacher to respond in the moment, were not uniform across the school and were not recorded anywhere that leadership, a parent or a future teacher could see later.
Today, that same information sits in one dashboard that leadership, the learning support team and classroom teachers can all check, share with a parent, or bring up months later to show how a student has been checking in over time.
Observation Is Subjective
A range of different wellbeing methods were running in individual rooms with no shared standard across the school. Without a uniform way of capturing student voice, it was difficult for leadership to see where kids were at as needed, and easy for a student's real experience to be missed if it did not show up in behaviour.
No Way to See a Trend
Traditionally, Shortland's approach to wellbeing and behaviour management was reactive rather than proactive. Something would happen, and staff would respond and do all the things they had learned to do, rather than being able to see a pattern building before it turned into an incident.
Building Buy-In: One Streamlined Approach, Not Another Program
The question Shortland kept coming back to when looking for something more was not just what to measure, but whether staff would actually keep using it. Sustainability and workload, not just the tool itself, drove the decision.
Shortland had already invested heavily in a wellbeing framework, drawing on Bruce Perry's Neurosequential Model, the hand-brain model and zones of regulation. What it needed was a way to make that framework uniform across every classroom, without adding to what was already a busy day for teachers.
Daniel Plain is candid that many wellbeing programs schools bring in do not last. Everyone says, oh, not another program, because a program will often run for a few years before it is thrown out and something else picked up in its place, and the school starts all over again. Sustainability, and not adding to teachers' workload, were treated as non-negotiable from the outset.
Life Skills GO's integration with the roll, and with the school's attendance systems, removed a layer of extra work rather than adding one. It also solved a problem that had nothing to do with the check-in itself: where does this information actually go, and who can see it later.
Lead with sustainability
Choose an approach the school can commit to for years, not a program that will be dropped after a term or two.
Protect teacher workload
Make sure the new habit does not add administration or take away teaching and learning time.
Make the record visible and shareable
Move from information trapped on a peg chart in one room to data that leadership, families and future teachers can all see.
Integrate it with what the school already runs, such as marking the roll and recording attendance
Removing a separate administrative step for staff was a key part of what helped sell the approach when it was first adopted.
Doing this also meant the check-in could later be linked with attendance and behaviour information, so patterns across those different sources could be considered together rather than looked at one at a time.
Staff were not asked to become data analysts. The aim was a system that could do the heavy lifting so staff could focus on what a pattern meant for a student, not on how to pull the report.
Explain why to students, not only to staff
Being explicit with students about why the check-in happens, and what it can be used for, helped it become a normal part of the day rather than an add-on.
Let classes tailor how they use it
A mainstream class may tap the board and move straight into the day. An inclusive education class may use it as the start of a guided morning circle discussion.
"You put something on a peg chart, that's great, but what, where, who sees that data? How do I show a parent that data or bring that up later on? So that was probably another sort of component for us that really helped to sell it, in terms of when we first adopted it."
Embedding It: Three Check-Ins a Day, Not a Big Launch
Shortland's embeddedness did not come from a single rollout. It came from a gold-standard target of three check-ins a day, a couple of false starts, and staff and students gradually making it part of the everyday rhythm of the school.
Shortland initially decided that three check-ins a day would be the gold standard: as students arrived and the roll was marked, then again at recess, then again at lunch.
The original plan was to use an iPad as students came into the room, but departmental firewalls and other technical issues made that tricky in practice. The school moved the check-in onto the interactive whiteboard instead, which became the lasting home for the habit.
"What's sort of become, you know, where originally it was very much, oh, I don't want, you know, kids and privacy, and who's gonna touch what, the other kids just do it. It's not a thought process. Teachers just have it up on the board." Daniel Plain, Assistant Principal
The expectation is simple: students check in as they come in from a break. There are normal exceptions, such as students out at sport or on excursion, and that is treated as ordinary school life, not a problem to fix.
Staff professional learning covers what the check-in is, and what staff can see and use in the data, without expecting every teacher to trawl through every child's check-in each day. If a class has not checked in for a couple of days, Daniel simply checks in with the teacher to see if they need help.
First year out teachers and a teacher who moved to Shortland after 20 years elsewhere have all picked it up within a couple of weeks.
Every Student Known: Years of Change
The shift at Shortland is best seen over time. What began as scattered classroom methods with no shared record has become a daily, whole-school habit where student voice sits alongside attendance and behaviour data.
Before
- We measured wellbeing through behaviour, attendance and teacher observation.
- We had no way to see how a student was arriving at school or their readiness to learn.
- Individual classrooms ran their own methods, such as peg charts, with no uniform approach across the school.
- If a student put something on a peg chart, there was no clear way to show a parent that information or bring it up later.
- We were mostly reactive: something would happen, and we would respond.
- Playground incidents often broke out with no warning we could act on beforehand.
- We relied on outward behaviour to notice a struggling student, so a quietly tired or worried child could be missed.
- Wellbeing information stopped at the classroom door and did not connect to attendance data.
- New and casual teachers had no consistent system to pick up when they started at the school.
- Parent conversations relied on a student's account and a teacher's memory, with little to check either against.
The Shift
- A daily check-in completed as part of marking the roll, on the interactive whiteboard, up to three times a day
- Inclusive education classes build the check-in into a morning circle discussion, while mainstream classes tap in and move on
- Emotion options tailored by class, including simplified icons such as rainbows, clouds and faces for classes with nonverbal students
- A dashboard staff can check quickly, without needing to trawl every child's check-in every day
- Patterns brought to teachers, families and parent information nights when they may be relevant
- New starting teachers and casuals onboarded through staff professional learning
After
- Wellbeing is now embedded across mainstream and inclusive education classes alike.
- Staff can see how students are arriving at school and their readiness to learn.
- A single, uniform approach runs across every classroom, from Kindergarten through to the school's oldest students.
- Check-in data can be shown to a parent, or brought back up months later, in a way a peg chart never could.
- Staff can work in a more proactive space, getting in front of an issue rather than only reacting once it has escalated.
- Dashboard data has helped staff identify who was involved in a playground incident, sometimes on the same day it happened.
- Quiet or masking students, such as a child who checks in happy while telling a different story at home, can now be identified and followed up.
- Check-in data can be linked with attendance data to help explain patterns, such as a family's Thursday morning routine.
- New teachers, including a teacher with 20 years' experience elsewhere, have picked up the habit within a couple of weeks.
- Parent conversations can be grounded in what a student has actually been telling the school, alongside what the family is describing at home.
"Even though we still have lots of kids who are checking in tired or angry at different points, overall if you look at our data, the majority of our kids on the majority of our days are checking in happy. It's only a very small percentage of our kids that are checking in those ways, but by being able to use the system, it can be a positive reinforcement, not just the negative."
What They Can See Now That They Couldn't Before
The change shows up at every level of the school: in how a child is supported, how a teacher runs a room, how the learning support team approaches a case, and how leadership works with families. Here is what Life Skills GO made visible for Shortland.
For Students
Before: a student's day-to-day experience was largely invisible unless it showed up in behaviour or a parent raised it directly.
Now:
- A simple, low-friction way to check in that has become no different to any other classroom routine
- Icons and formats tailored to the class, including simplified options for students with fewer verbal skills
- A channel for a child to be heard even when nothing needs to be fixed
- A missed check-in that a staff member will notice and put right rather than let slide
For Teachers
Before: individual teachers ran their own methods, such as peg charts, that required constant in-the-moment attention and were not shared beyond the room.
Now:
- A shared, whole-school system rather than a patchwork of individual classroom tools
- Confidence to notice a pattern, such as several students checking in tired on a Monday, without needing to chase every individual result
- A habit so embedded that new teachers, including one with 20 years' experience elsewhere, pick it up within weeks
- Clearer support for identifying gaps in a student's own understanding of their emotions, not just their behaviour
For the Learning and Support Team
Before: a family's account and a teacher's observation were often the only two threads to pull on when trying to understand what was going on for a student.
Now:
- Check-in data that can be shown to a parent in a meeting to ground the conversation in what the student has actually been reporting
- Patterns across days of the week that can be checked against a family's routine
- A way to test whether a student's account at home matches what they have been checking in at school
- Evidence that has, in practice, led directly to setting up a targeted support group for a group of students
For Leadership & Parents
Before: a parent conversation about wellbeing largely relied on what a student had told their family, with little else to weigh it against.
Now:
- Whole-class patterns, such as several students checking in tired on a Monday, raised at parent information nights
- Conversations with families about home routines, sleep and technology use grounded in what the check-in data actually shows
- A stronger home-school relationship, because families see the school noticing something before being asked to
- A newly released report that brings check-in, attendance and behaviour information together, which leadership is starting to use to understand why a particular day of the week is the school's worst for attendance
Giving Every Student a Voice
Across 10 mainstream and seven inclusive education classes, Shortland's check-in flexes to meet children with a very wide range of communication needs, from a full palette of emotions in a mainstream Stage 3 class to a handful of simple visuals in an autism classroom.
Accessible for Every Level of Need
Shortland's autism classes, which include a number of nonverbal students, use simplified visuals such as rainbows, clouds and faces rather than the full emotions palette used in mainstream classrooms. Staff are still only just beginning to explore how far this tailoring can go, including how many emotion options best suit each class.
The Girl Who Missed Her Check-In
A young girl with autism in a mainstream class was running late to school one day. She had a meltdown, not because she was late, but because she had missed the chance to tap the board and check in. Staff now know that trigger, and simply bring the check-in up on the board for her when she arrives.
Checking In Angry With a Smile on His Face
A little boy's default emotion tended to be anger, and he would check in angry even while smiling. That highlighted that the issue was not the emotion he was feeling, it was his understanding of what those emotions actually were. His class went back to basics, digging into what each emotion looks like, feels like and sounds like, which Daniel describes as "that name it to tame it sort of thing."
Not Even a Thought Process
Students in a Stage 3 class that has used the check-in for years now walk in, tap the board and move on, no differently to any other classroom routine. First year out teachers and a teacher who moved to Shortland after 20 years elsewhere have picked up the habit within a couple of weeks.
A Shared Language With Families
When several students in a Stage 3 class all checked in tired on a Monday, staff brought that pattern to a parent information night and asked what Sunday night routines looked like. It sparked conversations with several families about technology use and bedtimes, and reinforced the relationship between home and school.
"I Just Want You to Know"
Not every check-in needs a response. As Daniel puts it, sometimes a student is not asking staff to fix anything, they simply want someone to know how they are feeling, and to know that it is okay.
"Sometimes it's not just to tell people this is how I feel. I don't need you to do anything, I just want you to know that I'm angry, and that's okay."
What We Learned: Key Takeaways
What Daniel would tell any school starting out with Life Skills GO.
Explain the Why to Get the Buy-In
Frame the change around sustainability and supporting students, not around collecting more data. Staff who have seen programs come and go respond to consistency and purpose, not another initiative.
Build It Into What You Already Do
Embedding the check-in into marking the roll removed a separate administrative step, rather than adding one, and helped make the habit stick.
Expect Some Trial and Error
Shortland's first attempt, using an iPad, ran into departmental firewall issues. Moving to the interactive whiteboard is what made the habit sustainable.
Teach the Emotions Before You Expect the Data
A student who checks in the same way regardless of how they feel may not lack an emotion, they may lack an understanding of what that emotion actually is. Go back to basics on what it looks, feels and sounds like.
Look at the Pattern, Do Not Chase Every Check-In
Staff do not need to trawl through every student's check-in every day. Notice the pattern, such as a class checking in tired on a Monday, and act on that instead.
It Is Not Just a Data Tool
The deeper value is a channel for a child to be heard, and a shared way for staff and families to understand what may be behind a student's day. The whole-school data is the byproduct of children who can thrive.
A Reflection From Daniel
"The greatest joy is when you see a student that maybe you've taught over the last few years, and I can think of numerous that come to mind, whether they come visit from high school or you might see them out and about in the community, and just hear them come and say hello, tell you what they're doing. You've made that little impact in their life, and hopefully set them up to pass that on to somebody else."
Put the Reports Into the Meetings You Already Hold
At Shortland, the value of Life Skills GO was never in the check-in itself. The value came from what happened next: a dashboard checked in a spare few minutes, a data snip brought into a parent meeting, a pattern raised at a parent information night.
Check-in information surfaces on a dashboard that leadership and the learning support team can check quickly rather than needing to build or run a report from scratch. It has been used in parent meetings, in learning support team discussions where family members have been shown data snips directly, and in staff professional learning sessions. A newly released report brings check-in, attendance and behaviour information together, which leadership has started using to look at why a particular day of the week may be the school's worst for attendance.
Staff are not expected to become data analysts or to build spreadsheets to understand what is happening across the school. The system is designed to do that aggregation for them, surfacing role-relevant information so staff can focus on what a pattern may mean for a student, a class or a family, and what to do about it.
Bring Student Voice, Wellbeing and School Data Together All in One Place
Book a personalised conversation with a Life Skills GO education specialist. We will guide you through a short, interactive demonstration and show how the platform supports early identification, student voice, engagement and belonging, partnerships with families and carers, proactive intervention, staff decision-making and continuous whole-school improvement.
You will also have the opportunity to ask questions, explore how Life Skills GO could support your school's priorities and determine whether it is the right fit for your community.
Life Skills GO supports schools and systems of every size, sector and context, including metropolitan, regional and remote schools, government, Catholic, independent and specialist settings, and support classes.
Take These Ideas Further
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Sessions on moving from reactive to proactive wellbeing practice, relevant to the themes Shortland Public School raised in its own story.
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