Queen Anne High School update

Background
Queen Anne High School is one of four secondary schools in the town of Dunfermline in Scotland. It is a six year co-ed school with 1750 pupils serving the north of the town and outlying villages to the north and west.

As part of our ongoing review of discipline procedures and behaviour management policy it was felt that we could be doing more for the relatively few pupils whose behaviour was frequently presenting challenges. It was at this time that the Scottish Executive Education Department Pilot of Restorative Approaches was brought to our notice and we felt that there was much to be gained by taking part.

Planning and Staff Development
During the planning stage and partly as a result of a fact finding visit to Northern Ireland, it became clear that Restorative Approaches had great potential for improving staff – pupil and pupil-pupil relationships; indeed generally improving school ethos and in the longer term might reduce the need to resort to exclusion. It also became clear that this potential was more likely to be realised if the main focus were at what are described as low level interventions e.g. the classroom/corridor/social areas

Our strategy at Queen Anne was to “start small” and it was decided to pilot the approach with one first year class to begin with. Teachers of this class were invited, along with others, on a voluntary basis to take part in awareness raising/training sessions. We specifically targeted those who were directly involved, support staff who were indirectly involved and those who, from their practice, seemed naturally pre-disposed to Restorative Approaches. Our hope was that Restorative Approaches, as well as being directed at the pilot class, would by natural processes, “filter through” to other classes and other year groups.

The awareness raising/training sessions were delivered by an independent trainer, himself an ex-teacher and behaviour specialist who has some experience in this field. The initial uptake was encouraging, 45 members of staff took part over three sessions, including: senior managers, middle managers and unpromoted staff. The evaluations and feedback from these sessions were very positive and those who took part seemed to be encouraged by the approach.

Evaluation
One year on we are evaluating the pilot with the class; looking specifically at the numbers of recorded behaviour incidents in comparison to other classes in the same year groups. The validity of these results, when they become available, may be compromised given that there has been a timetable change involving different teachers, the class has also been split for some subjects and they follow a rota with different teachers in the sciences.

Pupil Feedback
The feedback from the pupils themselves is mixed: just under half the class feel that they are being treated more fairly now, just over half feel that there is greater mutual respect between teachers and pupils but two thirds of the class felt that they were not getting a chance to put their views across or felt that they were not being listened to. Over two thirds of the group reported increased self esteem and half feel that there has been an improvement in relationships within the group. Just under one third of the group report fewer formal discipline incidents. We await with interest details of the types of incidents and the numerical data.

Next Steps
Our plan for the immediate future is to train an “in house” trainer so that we can provide a more flexible programme of training to more staff in the school. The thrust of this training will be to equip staff with tried and tested practical strategies aimed at defusing and de-escalating difficult situations whilst maintaining positive relationships. Our intention is that these strategies will become more widely and consistently used.

At this early stage we have a small group of committed and enthusiastic staff. Hopefully as we demonstrate the successes of Restorative Approaches our number will grow. The ultimate goal is, of course, that Restorative Approaches will eventually become the norm.