Our mission is to create a culture at Australian schools, where teachers and students feel safe, respected, appreciated, liked and happy – which is an ideal learning environment.
"Jeff Horn" Amayda Program
School Culture – The Biggest Challenge Today for School Principals
Currently, the key concerns reported by Queensland school principals are:
Student Behaviour & Incident Reporting Overwhelm
- Managing student behaviour and incident data entry (especially in OneSchool) is the top workload burden – accounting for 50% of non-teaching time.
- Principals are also under pressure from the Department to reduce suspensions, often facing review or justification of disciplinary decisions.
Threats, Violence, and Safe Workplaces
- In 2023 (based on a survey of 2,300 school leaders) 62% of principals experienced threats, and 54% faced physical violence, with 38% reporting being bullied by students, parents or others.
- Between July 2023 and July 2024, over 2,400 WorkCover claims were lodged by Qld principals and teachers due to physical or psychological harm – including violence, assault, and trauma.
School Bullying on the Rise
- Over 76,000 bullying incidents were reported last year in Qld schools, with cyberbullying up 41% since 2013.
- Regional and Indigenous students are disproportionately affected, and bullying peaks around Year 7.
Introducing the “Jeff Horn” Amayda Program (“Program”)
The Program is the gold standard in conflict, bullying prevention/management and culture enhancement, for the following reasons:
- A holistic, practical, cost-effective and sustainable solution that is research-driven and evidence-based, carefully considering all risk and protective factors to improve and maintain behaviour.
- Comprehensive, age-relevant, interactive and engaging content structured over 5 levels from Prep to Year 12.
- Fits within the Australian Curriculum and enhances existing programs, such as PBL, RRE and PAUSE.
- Endorsed and funded by the state government.
- All content is easy to learn, easy to remember and easy to apply.
- Works on continually improving the culture at schools, which is critical, as without changing the environment, results are not sustainable.
- Adopts an “all-in” approach, engaging all students, teachers, school staff and parents at each school.
- Includes conflict resolution and behavioural management training for all teachers to improve the safety of teachers, as well as reduce behavioural management issues in the classroom.
- Seven-year track record and decades of experience by the founders in developing and implementing self-protection and personal improvement programs.
- High-impact program followed by continual 24/7/365 support through our Mentor App (launching 2026), which is targeted to students, teachers and parents for their entire school career.
- Supports both the aggressor and the target – driven by a “best outcome for everyone” philosophy, focused on prevention, de-escalation and diffusion, with the aim that “no one gets hurt”, physically or mentally.
- Uses the Amayda Program’s unique 4As framework of Avoidance, Awareness, Assessment and Application, which both students and teachers can use to prevent and resolve a wide range of conflict and bullying situations.
- Students are taught and guided by the qualities of Respect, Courage, Resilience and Integrity, which align with school values.
- Provides practical solutions to a wide range of conflict and bullying situations (verbal, physical, social, cyber), but does not teach strikes, as violence begets violence, which is culture-damaging and escalates rather than de-escalates conflict.
- A unique leadership program with Amayda Leadership badges (provided by Bullyproof Australia) and code of ethics to engage school seniors to assist with improving school culture.
- Easy delivery of lessons by teachers through the Teachers’ Portal.
- Quantifiable results through our secure, scalable and stable technology platform, which enables schools to monitor the effectiveness of the program.
- Continual support by Bullyproof Australia.
- All lessons are rated by the teachers, so the program continually evolves based on feedback and evidence/results.
Why the Amayda Program Works
The Amayda Program is backed by rigorous research from our academics and clinical psychologist, including the effects of neurodiversity, multi-culturalism and dysfunctional households on behaviour and school culture. Our experienced research team carefully considers all the risk and protective factors to determine the best way to achieve meaningful and sustainable improvements in behaviour and school culture. It’s all about teaching and implementing key concepts until they become behavioural habits. Both students and teachers want to know, “Why should I do this? What’s in it for me?” It takes time and consistent effort to improve behavioural issues. Confidence, respect, courage, resilience and integrity – it all comes from knowledge. Our focus is in providing the answers to teachers and students and continually supporting them throughout their schooling careers.
Investing in School Culture
Teachers are spending a massive amount of time managing behaviour issues, with reports ranging from 18% to 50% of teaching time being wasted in managing behavioural issues. To become more efficient, schools must invest in school culture. We recommend schools put every student in the school through the program in the first year, which only takes 5 hours at primary school and 10 hours at secondary school (5 hours for Grades 11 and 12). For ongoing years, the school only needs to do Years 1, 3 and 5 at primary school and years 7 and 11 at secondary school. Some of the many benefits are:
Improved Student Behaviour and Culture: Practical strategies for students to manage their thoughts, feelings, behaviour, relationships and conflict. Doing this alone prevents most bullying. Students also learn how to manage verbal, cyber and physical bullying situations. The skills taught enable students to diffuse and de-escalate situations, reduce aggression, improve self-regulation, and increase student respect.
Enhanced Academic Engagement and Achievement: A culture shift toward a safer, more respectful classroom and school leads to improved learning outcomes.
Leadership Program – Harnessing Seniors to Improve Culture: Our unique leadership program encourages seniors to assist the school in improving the culture at the school.
Teacher Support Improves Wellbeing: Practical teacher training strategies reduce burnout, anxiety, and fear of confrontation. The practical skills taught to teachers help them to prevent and manage a wide range of conflict situations.
Positive Parent Involvement: Strengthened home-school partnerships using targeted messaging to parents from our in-house clinical psychologist and trained mentors through our Mentor App.
Reduced Bullying and Youth Crime Risk: Early identification and support for at-risk students.
Evidence-Based Results: Schools can continually measure the improvement in culture, behaviour, and attendance using the exclusive Culture Rating tool on the School Admin portal.
The results of the Program so far
Since 2018, the Program has been delivered to over 80 schools across Queensland, positively empowering the lives of more than 30,000 school students and 1,800 schoolteachers, including a 2-year pilot program in North Qld, funded by the Qld Government. Bullyproof implemented the Program to 40 Qld secondary schools, both government and non-government, in both metropolitan and regional centres. To measure the effectiveness of the Program, we conduct surveys from students before the Program, after the Program and at regular intervals thereafter. We also collect the following information from schools for each of the three years prior to commencement of the program and then at regular intervals after completion of the program:
- behaviour incidents
- suspensions
- exclusions
- absent days
Further, we have conducted extensive surveys of students that have completed the Program and report that:
- 98% of participants feel more confident about handling bullying situations;
- 94% of participants feel that the verbal negotiation and de-escalation strategies would work to help resolve bullying situations; and
- 74% of participants feel so confident, that if a bullying situation happened around them, they would be able to intervene to diffuse it, therefore becoming a bullying prevention ambassador for the school.
- Over 1,800 teachers have now also completed the Program, with 83.7% confirming that the training was good or excellent.
What the Program Includes and How it’s Delivered
After the agreement to implement the Program has been completed by the principal, a commencement date is chosen by the school and an onboarding session completed (usually about a month before the commencement date) via Microsoft Teams, where teachers and classes are added to the portal and the onboarding process is discussed. We allow an hour for this session. It is up to the school as to how many staff attend this meeting, however, it is normal for the principal, deputy, office manager, etc., to attend.
After the onboarding session, all teachers at the school are invited by email to complete the online course “Introduction to the Amayda Program”, which provides a clear understanding of behavioural problems and mental health, as well as the unique approach adopted by the Program to address these social problems. On completion, they receive a certificate of completion equal to 90 minutes of professional development. The teachers then complete 1 hour of practical face-to-face training in conflict resolution at their school by a trained Bullyproof mentor (on a day or days that is convenient to the school – we offer 3 sessions for each school, being; a) the hour before school starts, b) lunch hour, or, c) the hour after school (each teacher can choose which session they prefer), which is followed by access to the Teachers’ Portal, providing all lesson plans, PowerPoints, videos and other materials to deliver the Program to students. For secondary schools, we do an additional 3 hours of face-to-face training for the teachers who will deliver the program to the students. If primary schools choose to use a small number of teachers to teach the program, we can provide additional training for them between the general teacher sessions.
The Program is delivered by schoolteachers at school during school hours and consists of 5 age-relevant, interactive and engaging levels, being:
Lower Primary (Years Prep–2) – 10 × 30-minute lessons
Middle Primary (Years 3–4) – 10 × 30-minute lessons
Upper Primary (Years 5–6) – 10 × 30-minute lessons
Junior Secondary (Years 7–10) – 10 × 60-minute lessons
Senior Secondary (Years 11–12) – 5 × 60-minute lessons
Culture Pack
The Teachers’ Portal also provides other valuable resources, such as the Culture Pack, which is a series of wall posters and handouts to help the teacher to implement the concepts into their classroom culture.
Mentor App
The Program is followed by continual 24/7/365 support until the completion of Grade 12 via the Mentor App and Bullyproof mentors.
Easy delivery of lessons via Teachers’ Portal
The delivery method of the lessons is through our online Teachers’ Portal. Each level is based on the age of the participants, with each level revising and building on the previous level(s). Lessons are:
- Interactive, engaging, age-relevant lessons that start with simple concepts and steadily expand to improve behaviour, attachment to teacher, emotional regulation concepts and much more;
- Various short, animated videos (primary school) to convey important concepts in an engaging manner;
- Particular exercises to improve strength and fitness to help students perform the skills they will learn in the Program, as well as breathing exercises for emotional regulation;
- Various short videos by experts (secondary school) explaining and demonstrating how to prevent and manage various verbal, physical and cyberbullying situations;
- A range of physical and mental skills to help participants solve various bullying situations on their own or with the support of bystanders, e.g., how to stand, how to move, create and maintain a safe distance, use voice commands, negotiate effectively, escape holds, and more. All skills taught are age relevant and easy to learn, easy to remember and easy to apply;
- Role plays of various conflict and bullying situations to further develop and refine the mental and physical skills taught in the Program, as well as teaching students how to work on their own or as a team to resolve conflict and bullying situations;
- Short videos on improving mental wellbeing by our clinical psychologist.
Amayda Leadership Program
We provide our high-quality leadership badges, code of ethics and structure for our unique Amayda Leadership Program for seniors (Grade 6 – silver level and Grades 11–12 – gold level). This program is designed to harness one of the most valuable resources at schools – the senior students, who are usually the oldest, biggest and most influential students at the school. We work with schools to structure and develop a seniors’ school project for maximum impact.
What Does the Program Cost Your School?
Bullyproof Australia currently have a QLD government funding agreement in place to deliver the Program to 200 schools over a four-year period. There are only 50 grants available for commencement in 2026, which will be allocated to the first 50 successful applicants. For successful schools, the school contribution for the Program for the first year is fully covered by Bullyproof Australia. After the first year, schools can cancel at any time on thirty days’ written notice. For ongoing years, the school contribution is currently $10 per student per year (based on starting enrolments for each year), which is only a portion of the cost of the program, with the balance of the cost currently being absorbed by Bullyproof Australia. It is up to each school as to whether they pass the $10 per student cost on to the parents. Bullyproof Australia continually seeks funding from government and corporate sponsors to maintain school contributions as low as possible. To qualify for the funding, schools must commit to implementing the Program correctly to all students in the year of implementation and providing the necessary data to Bullyproof to evaluate the Program, as requested by the government.
How Does the Program Align with the Australian Curriculum?
Identities and change
Interacting with others
Making healthy and safe choices.
The Next Step to Apply for the Amayda Program Grant for Your School
There is additional information on the following pages, including details on levels and lesson topics, samples of the content delivery portal for two levels of the program, a sample lesson plan, testimonials and some additional information on the philosophy behind the Program.
We find it’s normal for principals to have questions about the Program, so as they can discuss the program with their leadership team and other stakeholders. To answer all questions, we recommend booking a free Info Session with one of our staff by clicking the Book a Free 30-Minute Information Session link below, which will enable you to select a convenient Microsoft Teams meeting time. You’re also welcome to call us on 1300 881 650 or email us at: info@bullyproofaustralia.org.au