Our Class Treaty

For a number of days we discussed the idea of having a Treaty, or agreement, so we could all understand what we really wanted to happen in our learning community. We did lots of brain-storming, sifted and sorted our ideas and really looked at our school's Values. Finally, we came up with 4 articles for our treaty. 

We got inspiration from New Zealand's Treaty of Waitangi... except that, unlike NZ's founding document, our class treaty has a fourth article that says what the consequences are if we do not stick to the agreed treaty we have signed. 

Room 13’s Class Treaty

Article the First: Our Purpose

We, the members of Room 13, agree that the main purpose of coming to school is to learn; we want to use our brain, to be good role models, to help others and develop our leadership skills. We think that we can help each other by giving feedback and this will help our learning. We would like our learning to be fun. We think we need to develop our research skills and do lots of discovering.

Article the Second: Values

 We believe that the most important values in our learning community are tolerance, caring and respect. If we remember to use these values we will get really good at Relating to Others. If we can get on positively this will help our Learning.

Article the Third: Positive attitudes and effective learning­­

 We will know we are remembering these values if we: 

• are inclusive, 
• work to understand other people's beliefs and cultures, 
• listen carefully to other opinions and points of view; 
• take care of other people when they are hurt or sad, 
• help peers with their learning in a positive way
• remember to follow the rules for sharing, taking risks with our learning, and celebrating our achievements in learning.

Article the Fourth: Consequences

 We agree that everyone in Room 13 has the right to make an “I” statement if the classroom treaty is broken or ask for the assistance of a mediator. People who stop learning will need to reset their goals. If interruption affects learning, a first warning (yellow card) will be given to the time-waster. Persistent time-wasters will get a second (orange) or third (red) warning. If this happens, they will spend time in the Thinking Room with Mr B. and will need to fill out a thinking sheet to explain how they have interrupted learning and this sheet will go home to parents. Physical harm to others will result instantly in the red card warning.

If third warnings happen three times parents will be asked to come to a parent conference at school to discuss the disruption to learning. The loss of Golden Time on a Friday will happen if the agreed rules are broken.

We agree to review our class agreement and re-sign it at the beginning of each new term.

Signed this                10th            day February 2012        by all the learners in Room 13, EPS