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Restorative Justice

Queensberry AP understands that conflict and challenging behaviour are a natural occurrence in any young person’s life and follows the belief that all incidents are an opportunity to learn and develop. Restorative Justice can offer a powerful approach to promoting harmonious relationships in schools and can lead to the successful resolution of conflict and harm. Having successfully developed and implemented successful restorative policies in other schools Nic and Paul have further developed the Queensberry AP “ENGAGE” policy and will use this to underpin the behaviour management systems within the provision.

 

Wrong decisions will happen – We encourage reflection and responsibility to encourage learning from mistakes; through restorative justice we promote an understanding of the impact of behaviours.

 

ENGAGE is based on the 5 key themes of Restorative Approaches:

 

  • Everybody has unique and equally valued perspectives

  • Thoughts influence emotions and emotions influence behaviour

  • Empathy and consideration for others

  • Identifying needs before identifying strategies

  • Collective responsibility for the choices made and their outcomes

 

In essence ENGAGE stands for:

 

  • Equality and fairness

  • Nurture respect

  • Grow expectations

  • Agree a way forward

  • Get positive results

  • Encourage improvement

 

Aims:

 

  • To promote consistency, clear boundaries and honesty to encourage positive behaviour

  • To encourage students to take responsibility for their own behaviour and help them seek resolutions for conflict, bullying, friendship issues and disruptive behaviour in their mainstream school

  • To provide an environment where students can discuss their actions and contribute to the resolutions

 

Benefits

 

Talking to the students in an open manner encourages them to:

 

  • Reflect - truth telling skills, responsibility, accountability, empathy

  • Impact - learn about the impact of their actions on others, real consequences

  • Seek Change - be able to make amends, show remorse, change behaviour

  • Encouragement – actively seek support in implementing a positive change

 

The use of Restorative Approaches in schools has been proven to:

 

  • Reduce Exclusions

  • Raise attendance

  • Improve GCSE Results

  • Reduce the number of young people not entering education, employment or training

  • Increase confidence amongst staff in handling bullying and conflict

  • Encourage a calmer and safer school environment

  • Improve the sense of responsibility amongst young people for their behaviour

 

ENGAGE Expectations:

 

The ENGAGE expectations are designed to maintain a positive environment in which all students and staff can work cohesively to maximise behaviour and learning. The twelve expectations are as follows:

 

Classroom sessions:

 

  • Be a positive role model

  • Listen when others are speaking

  • Respect others

  • Maintain an excellent attendance record and arrive on time to sessions

  • Respect our building and eat within designated areas

  • Be responsible for your own learning

 

Practical sessions:

 

  • Show resilience by always giving 100% to sessions

  • Build positive relationships by supporting and encouraging others

  • Create an environment of mutual respect and inclusivity

  • Arrive to sessions fully prepared wearing correct clothing

  • Take responsibility for own behaviour and follow instructions given

  • Be accepting of the outcomes

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To see how powerful Restorative Justice can be please see the video below:

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