Make Your Day
Our goal is for Palomino to serve as a center of high academic and personal achievement for all students. Our foundation to achieve such a goal is to provide a consistently safe and positive environment.
Our Make Your Day program is intended to be proactive. The program gives all students the opportunity to learn in a positive atmosphere, to make choices, to evaluate and self-correct.
The Make Your Day program is based on the understanding that no one has the right to interfere with the learning or rights of others. Each student is to do what is expected and do it the best they can.
If a student is interfering with the learning or rights of others, they are permitted to take time away from the current activity in order to process the consequences of their current behavior, its effect on those around them and engage in problem solving to resolve the difficulty. In a few minutes, the student is allowed to return to designated activities if they indicate a willingness to participate appropriately. More time is allowed if a student needs additional time to reflect and/or to gather self-control. On occasion, a three way conference between the staff member, the student and the parent(s) is requested to give the student an opportunity to assess and take responsibility for their behavior, provide alternate choices for future situations and indicate a readiness to return to the classroom.
Throughout the day, each student is aware that the consequences of their behavior, both positive and negative, result from their choices and not from decisions made by the staff. Students who do not meet expectations are required, on a written form, to describe why they did not make their day. Students are expected to discuss their behaviors with their parents, ask their parents to sign the form and return it the next day. Communication with parents is critical for changing negative behavior and an important strength of this program.
Make Your Day is positively motivated. It constantly puts students in positions to succeed, not fail. If a student does not "make their day", they are simply provided with an opportunity to learn from a mistake or to modify their behavior. This is not a program about "good" or "bad;" this is a program about choice and taking responsibility for personal behavior. It allows a student to make a mistake
without feeling like he/she is a bad person. Students are provided with the opportunity to develop lifelong skills in taking responsibility, in making choices and in effective communication.
Your teacher or our principal will be happy to answer any questions you may have about Make Your Day. Thank you for your support and understanding of our efforts to create a safe and positive learning environment for your child at Palomino Primary.