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2. What are Restorative Practices?
RP in an educational context are defined as restoring good relationships when there has been conflict or harm and developing school ethos, policies and procedures to reduce the possibility of such conflict and harm arising. It is an approach that acknowledges that school education is complex with increasingly wider demands being placed on schools in a diverse and changing world and where the work of teachers and support staff is challenging and stressful.
The underpinning principles of RP emphasise the importance of:
- fostering positive social relationships in a school community of mutual engagement;
- taking responsibility and accountability for one's own actions and their impact on others;
- respecting other people, their views and feelings;
- empathy with the feelings of others affected by own actions;
- fairness;
- commitment to equitable process;
- active involvement of everyone in school with decisions about their own lives;
- issues of conflict and difficulty being retained by the participants, rather than the behaviour pathologised; and
- a willingness to create opportunities for reflective change in pupils and staff.
To deliver its aim of restoring good relationships when there has been conflict and harm and to
promote a strong positive ethos in schools, RP employ a variety of strategies or
practices 1. These include:
- restorative ethos building;
- curriculum focus on relationships/conflict prevention;
- restorative language and scripts;
- restorative enquiry;
- restorative conversations;
- mediation, shuttle mediation and peer mediation;
- circles - checking in and problem-solving circles;
- restorative meetings, informal conferences, classroom conferences and mini-conferences; and
- formal conferences.
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