Summer 2007

Teachers and Teaching

Building relationships in schools

Schools need to adapt and respond to the needs of their students. Therese Sheedy shows how new dialogue and process means that students can be accountable for their own behaviour by recognising the impact it has on others.

Restorative Practices (RP) in schools refers to a range of practices designed to encourage children and young people to understand that misconduct, or rule breaking, is not violating the school but is fundamentally a violation against people and their relationships with each other. Restorative Justice seeks to hold the ‘offender’ accountable for their wrongdoing and to meet the needs of the affected ‘victims’ and communities. The International Institute for Restorative Practices Mission Statement (2005) defines Restorative Practices as ‘the science of restoring and developing social capital, social discipline, emotional well-being and civic participation through participatory learning and decision making’. No longer are we doing punishment ‘to’ students we are now building social capital ‘with’ students and we do this by having high expectations while offering high levels of support.

Developing from the experience of the justice system, the history of RP in educational settings in Australia began in 1994 when conferencing was first used in the Maroochydore area in southern Queensland. The success of this approach has created an increasing number of schools along the eastern states following suit. Consequently, Government, Catholic and Independent schools at both the primary and secondary levels have started to embrace this model as a means of teaching students how they can take responsibility for their actions, but mostly, that the school will support them in making amends, or in the Catholic system, seeking reconciliation.

In 2005, following the National Safe Schools Framework and using the support of Australian Government Quality Teaching Programme funding, the Catholic Education Office within the Diocese of Ballarat focused on supporting schools as they addressed bullying and harassment. Primary and secondary schools throughout the Diocese were invited to send core teams to participate in a three-day training program that was repeated in each region over three years. Student Services Staff from the Catholic Education Office were also trained to offer further support back at the school level.

Implementation

Several important variables can determine the success of the introduction of RP in a school. These include, but are not restricted to, training, child development, supportive prevention strategies and local learning and teaching principles and standards.

Training: Ideally training will be framed within the context of the school’s own charter or vision and mission statements and, in the Catholic system, is aligned with the Catholic Education Commission’s Pastoral Care Policy. There would be an opportunity for all staff to explore their own values around discipline and behaviour management. This is particularly important to encourage an uptake momentum, where staff can see that this approach matches their own beliefs, knowledge and practices and basically fits with their own ethos. It is also essential that the leadership team in the school, including the principal, be trained alongside the teaching staff and where possible includes the administration staff as well. This ensures the driver for change through accountability and ownership at all levels.

Child development context: Understanding child and adolescent development increases the fit between what we are trying to teach students and what they are capable of learning. By examining the differing needs of children during the primary years as well as the stages of adolescent development throughout the secondary years of schooling, we can better align what students are capable of learning with the RP approach.

Many teachers believe that children and young people ‘should’ know the difference between right and wrong and that that basic social principle be taught at home. While this may be true, children and adolescents are continually trying to make sense of their social world and school is a big component of that world. It is likely that young people will be happier, more cooperative, and more likely to move towards positive behaviours when the adults in their world use authority with respect and understanding.

A major component of child development is for the child to assess when he/she has power and control and what that will mean to relationships with others. Our role as adults is to model how power and control can be used fairly, and how they can be ‘heard’ when things go wrong.

Prevention strategies: Using circles and circle activities we encourage exchanging views, expressing feelings and establish a culture of norms for classroom and school behaviour. Setting up classrooms that promote social and emotional development and emotional literacy is critical to creating a restorative school community. Circles can be used for checking in, peace making and problem solving and greatly support the concept of circles used in the restorative process. Also the use of Circle Time in classrooms helps create an environment where students understand that they have an important voice and that others will listen to them. They also develop an understanding that others too have a voice and that they can understand more about others by listening and getting to know them better.

State Learning and Teaching principles and standards: Understanding that RP sits firmly within State or Territory teaching standards and principles supports teachers in the knowledge that this approach is consistent with current practice and that this is not yet another program or just another thing that needs to be added into the already crowded curriculum and demanding teaching day.

In Victoria, the newly implemented Victorian Essential Learning Standards includes a development in physical, personal and social learning strand, which focuses on interpersonal development, personal learning and civics and citizenship. RP contributes to meeting those expectations. The Victorian Department of Education has specified six principles of Learning and Teaching in years P–12. These include the expectation that the teacher is responsible for building positive relationships with and valuing each student. This is done through teacher modelling and classroom strategies promoting cooperation and mutual support. Principle 3 encourages teachers to provide a range of strategies to respond to students’ social needs. Principle 6 expects that student learning will connect strongly with their current and future lives, where links are made between the classroom and the broader community. Once again RP can support the implementation of these principles.

Becoming a restorative school

Becoming a restorative school will naturally take time. Organisational and structural change occurs as a process. Naturally the first question is often ‘how does this approach align with our existing discipline or behaviour management policy and strategy?’ It is expected that schools implementing this approach use the first 12–18 months to focus on gaining commitment from staff and begin to identify opportunities to use restorative language. This can be a difficult time as teachers may struggle with their well-established methods of responding; and identifying that ‘this was an opportunity for a restorative chat’ may occur after an incident has been dealt with. This is when conversations need to continue to encourage RP as a conscious response.

After using circles for developing social/emotional capacity, the second year can focus on an alignment of teaching and learning strategies as well as behaviour management or discipline policy and procedures. We would see an increase in skill development as teachers continue to keep RP on the agenda at staff, team and leadership meetings. This would be a time to evaluate the implementation process and to examine what have been the successes, what have been the challenges, such as time to implement, student responses, parent reactions. How has the dialogue between teachers and students changed? By the third year the aim is to have RP implemented at all levels and an involvement and commitment at a whole school community level. After the fifth year it is envisaged that behaviour change is embedded for both students and teachers. While students will always push the boundaries, especially those appropriate to their developmental stage, we would expect to see a cultural shift in responding to conflict and behaviour across the school. Restorative schools based on reparation and restoration rather than retribution report fewer violations of behaviour, fewer detentions, fewer yard incidents, fewer suspensions and increases in student self-management, self-responsibility and attendance.

The emerging restorative school is one where everyone is accountable to those they have harmed. Emotional literacy and social curriculum is explicit in the teaching and learning practice and is set as a priority. Everyone is taught to value and acknowledge their own emotions, articulate their needs and contribute to resolving conflict. In a restorative school both the classroom and the whole school becomes a truly safe, supportive learning environment.

For more information visit:

www.iirp.org/

www.thorsborne.com.au/

www.aic.gov.au/

www.transformingconflict.com/

References

Roffey, S (2006). Circle Time for Emotional Literacy, Paul Chapman Publishing, London.

Thorsborne, M & Vinegrad, D (2006). Restorative Practices in Classrooms: Rethinking Behaviour Management, Inyahead Press, Queenscliff, Victoria.

Therese Sheedy is a psychologist working as a counsellor at Loreto College in Ballarat and part-time in private consultancy.

The author owns the copyright in this article. For information related to the reuse of this work in any form please contact the publisher denise.quinn@curriculum.edu.au