Auchmuty High School update 12/12/05
AUCHMUTY HIGH SCHOOL
Background
The school became involved in the Fife Restorative Practices Pilot in Session 2004 – 2005. It was felt at the time that the school had the capacity to embrace this new initiative for the following reasons:
• A whole school approach to promote positive behaviour had been introduced.
• An anti-bullying Befriender Project had existed in the school for many years and there were developments in Peer Mediation through the Time2Talk project.
• An evaluation of our new behaviour management system did reveal that the system despite having evident strengths did not seem to modify pupil behaviour. Punishments continued to be issued to the same pupils for the same reasons and the rate of exclusions continued to increase.
There had to be a better way.
The Pilot Project
It is our belief that effective learning is based on positive relationships between learners and between learners and teachers. When harm is done to these relationships it is important that an opportunity is afforded for the harm to be repaired. Our project aims to develop an atmosphere of mutual respect in our school.
What do we hope to achieve?
• A reduction in punishment exercises and referrals for indiscipline
• Improved pupil and staff attendance
• A decline in the exclusion rate in the school
• Improved staff/pupil and pupil/pupil relationships with a strong emphasis on respect.
How do we hope to achieve this?
We wish to make explicit the good practice which undoubtedly exists in the school and share it with others. To this effect all Support for Learning staff have been trained in restorative practices along with volunteers keen to be involved.
We wish all staff to be aware of restorative approaches and at its most basic level use these approaches in their day to day classroom practice. A whole staff training event is planned to look at learning and teacher styles, use of restorative language and restorative meetings. We wish to offer pupils about to be excluded and those returning to school from exclusion the opportunity to take part in a restorative meeting/conference. To this end the Principal Teacher of Behaviour Support has been trained by SACRO in restorative conferencing.
We wish to develop and extend our Peer Mediation project and have this year provided specialised training for our Sixth year mediators. A few words from some of our mediators:
“I have found peer mediation to be a very rewarding experience with many challenges. The feeling of self-satisfaction and knowing that you have helped someone solve their problems is certainly fulfilling”.
“My experiences of peer mediating has helped me to understand and empathise with the conflicts people face. The skills learned are invaluable and has been successful in building my confidence as well as learning to keep detached in difficult situations”.
“Peer Mediating was a whole new experience for me. When I first started my training I didn’t really know what to expect from it. However, now that I have had some experience I now know that it is very rewarding. Being able to help the younger members of the school leaves you with such a happy feeling. I would recommend become a peer mediator to anyone.
“Peer mediation training not only helped us deal with how to be a peer mediator but it also helped in situations we might face later in life”
“Peer mediation has been a great experience. I have learned a lot about helping people with their problems and how to deal with many situations”.
We wish to incorporate these strategies into our Behaviour Management Policy and Procedures and publicise and discuss with parents.
How will we know if we have been successful?
Our project is being evaluated by a team of educational researchers who have taken baseline information at the start of the project and will be providing regular reports on our progress.
As they say “Rome was not built in a day” and it is likely that it will take some years for the change in culture we hope to bring out.
F. E. Shearer, Acting Head Teacher, Nov 2005
