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Restorative Approach

What is it all about?  

Building and nurturing relationships is at the heart of a successful and happy school. The aim is to repair the harm done to relationships in the event of conflict and inappropriate behaviour.

Our Restorative Approach (RA) aims to support children to sort out everyday problems by talking honestly about what happened. The process encourages pupils to take responsibility for any wrong decisions they have made and help repair any harm caused by their actions.  Staff act as mediators in this process and support pupils.  This leaflet explains more about this approach and explains how you can support your child:

To develop the skills and abilities of individuals to manage their thoughts and feelings.

  • To build the ability of individuals to take responsibility for their own actions.
  • To aid individuals in developing the skills necessary to rebuild and repair relationships.

What is different about it?

This process is not an ‘easy option’ – these RA chats take time to do and are very powerful. Anyone involved has to be honest about what happened and be able to listen to all points of view.

Listening to how a behaviour has affected others helps everyone understand the impact it has had.

Restorative Questions

Everyone affected by a behaviour, a conflict situation or a problem is involved in a discussion using questions like the ones

below:

  • What happened?
  • What were you thinking at the time?
  • How were you feeling?
  • What have you thought about since?
  • Who has been affected by what happened?
  • In what way?
  • What do you think needs to be done to put things right?
  • How can we make sure that this doesn’t happen again?

Restorative approaches promote:

Mutual respect and appreciation

  • A belief in people’s ability to solve their own problems
  • Empathic listening
  • Giving people a chance to tell their story
  • Acceptance of others
  • An inclusive approach to problem solving

Using Restorative Approaches to deal with situations occurring at home:

Listen carefully to what your child has to say.

  • Use the Restorative Questions to work through any situations where harm has been caused.
  • Acknowledge your child’s thoughts and feelings.
  • Acknowledge that you may have been affected by what has happened.
  • Accept that others may see things in a different way.
  • Be willing to listen to different points of view.
  • Allow those involved to take responsibility for what they have done.
  • Accept that those directly involved should decide what needs to happen to repair the harm.

Individuals directly involved are best placed to resolve a conflict.

Individuals are therefore encouraged and helped to take responsibility for their actions and put things right. At Fishermoss School staff are trained as mediators in this process.