Restorative Practices

RESTORATIVE PRACTICES

Restorative Practice is a strategy that seeks to repair relationships that have been damaged, including those damaged through bullying. It does this by bringing about a sense of remorse and restorative actions on the part of the offender and forgiveness by the victim.

The rationale behind this approach is that when offenders reflect upon their harm to victims:

1. They become remorseful and act restoratively
2. Staff can focus on the unacceptable behaviour rather than moral character
3. This can lead to healthier interpersonal relationships among students, and more effective learning.

At Anglesea Primary School we follow a predetermined script when dealing with conflict between students. This script guides the parties to come to an agreement about what actions must be undertaken to restore the relationship. The offender is guided to consider the effect of their actions upon others and the victim is given the opportunity to explain the impact the offender’s behaviour has had on them. The victim also has a say in the consequences handed to the offender, which quite often, is simply to ask for an apology.  Restorative Practice includes the following four key elements:

• Focus upon harm and relationships, not on blame and punishment.
• Working with one another.
• Importance of fair process.
• Key restorative questions:
• What happened?
• What were you thinking of at the time?
• What have you thought about since?
• Who has been affected by what you have done?
• In what way?
• What do you think you need to do to make things right?

By incorporating these key elements in the process of Restorative Practice the students build a powerful basis for experiencing and building healthy dialogue with each other.