Inverness High School - update

Restorative Practice in Inverness High School
Inverness High school is using a Restorative Practise Approach in behaviour management as one of Highland Council’s pilot schools. A number of staff have received training in this method, four Support staff and two Faculty Principal Teachers.

Past Practice
In general, Guidance staff in this school already used a form of restorative practice in their approach to counselling situations. i.e. Mini-conferencing. Pupils were often asked during interview if they would consider meeting up with the perpetrator in a manner that would help resolve a problem for both parties. This type of approach often resulted in a more positive outcome in the long run, not only for the two parties involved but for numerous people on the periphery of the incident.

Many of the issues that arose however were not educational. A large quantity stemmed from complex family situations and long running neighbourhood disputes. The “school part” of the problem seemed able to be resolved but staff felt the school was being used to mediate in the out of school situations. Was this necessarily our role here?

Positive Behaviour
Within Inverness High School we currently have a positive behaviour policy based on a rewards system. What we need to do is to integrate restorative approaches formally into that system. In addition, the school is aware that the majority of staff, although having been given information on restorative practice, still need to know exactly how this fits into a behaviour policy framework.

These issues will shortly be addressed when two of our staff attend the training for trainers days in January 06. This training will enable us to run more in-service for all staff. The management team will also look at the place of restorative practice within our school.

Next Steps
From my own perspective, if we are to do restorative intervention any justice, what would improve the outcomes of a restorative approach would be the availability of trained staff on hand to deal with situations as they arise. Ultimately, it is a time consuming process. (Eg. often it is difficult to get a time together that all parties can meet. It is also difficult to get a neutral person to chair the interview. Mediation is more difficult to employ.)

What I would like to experience is a member of staff with a remit largely for restorative intervention. Within my own school there are easily enough instances of situations that could be dealt with using this approach. However, sadly due to lack of time and personnel, on occasion a more traditional approach to indiscipline tends to be taken.

Restorative practice is sound and has a far reaching effect on the youngsters in terms of changing their behaviour. What our particular school needs to address is how to effectively use this within the existing educational setting.