
Building a Restorative School

As part of our WELLBEING initiatives this year Abbeyleix South National School is working on building a school environment with a restorative culture.
Restorative Practices are a set of skills that help develop good relationships between all members of the school community. Restorative practices have its roots in restorative justice that emphasizes repairing the harm done to people and relationships rather than only punishing offenders.
Restorative Practice is about building positive relationships across the school environment.
This demands a respectful awareness of the dignity of each individual, preventing the escalation of conflict and handling conflict and wrongdoing in a creative and healthy manner.
Restorative practice is a proactive way of working WITH people, not doing things TO them, not doing things FOR them and NOT being neglectful and doing nothing at all (Wachtel and McCold, 2001, p.117). They seek to increase the opportunities for dialogue at every level.
Relationships matter for effective teaching and learning – all the evidence on how the brain works suggests that the safer and happier a person is the more receptive they are to new ideas. Stress and fear shrinks the brain and reduces the ability to process new information. When young people have positive connections with their fellow students and their teachers, they feel safer. Relationships matter when things go wrong especially; learning how to accept responsibility, experiencing being held accountable for one’s own choices, and learning how to put things right with those who share the problem, give young people invaluable skills for life. Isolation and bullying can only thrive in environments where there is no care and connection, where there is no sense of community and belonging.

Restorative Practice and THE GIRAFFE
You may see some giraffes appear in school.
The Giraffe is known as the restorative animal as it has the biggest heart of all the land animals so it speaks from its heart, promoting empathy.
It also has the longest neck so it can see everyone’s perspective which is a key component of empathy-building and bridge towards conflict resolution.
When things go wrong as they sometimes do, when being restorative we try to channel our inner giraffes and think relationally.
We seek to model and use restorative language, questions and intentions as a compass to work together and find a solution; we aim to fix harm that may have happened, and to honour, build or repair relationships/friendships as best we can.

School staff have and will continue to engage in training in Restorative Practice approaches.

Parents/guardians may find using this approach helpful at home with students, using the below questions to address incidents or behaviour:

