Tulliallan Primary School update

The Pilot
We are one of eight Fife schools involved with Edinburgh University in a pilot project evaluating the development of restorative approaches in schools. This is year 4 of developing and sustaining restorative approaches within Tulliallan school and nursery. We were invited to join the pilot because of the development work that we were undertaking. The external evaluation will continue until the Autumn of 2006.

What Does Our Restorative School Look Like?
• Staff and pupils acting towards each other in a helpful and non-judgemental way
• working to understand the impact of actions on others
• fair processes that allow everyone to learn from any harm that may have been done
• responses to difficult behaviour which have positive outcomes for everyone

What Are The Ingredients Of Our Restorative School?
Quality Improvment: Learning and teaching is at the heart of everything we do. Pupil support staff, teachers, parents and pupils are involved in decision making in the school and the pupil’s voice is heard and acted upon. Through a clear programme for improvement everybody knows what the priorities for the school are. Everyone is working towards these shared goals.

Shared Laguage: The staff and children are developing a shared language when dealing with challenging behaviour or issues. Self-regulatory language is used from Nursery to P7 by staff in the form of simple scripts which help reduce confrontation and enable children and staff to voice their thoughts in a non threatening environment. The children are taught problem solving skills to help them deal with conflict.

PSD Programme: We have a PSD programme developing problem solving and thinking skills which is taught weekly by the teacher who covers the reduction in class contact time; also through the health education programme and reinforced again at weekly assemblies. Peer working and support are encouraged at Tulliallan.

Celebrating Success and Difference: There is no ‘put down’, effort is rewarded and success celebrated through classroom systems; our golden book and golden stars which involve children being presented with certificates at the weekly assemblies for being helpful, good work, etc. Our motto for last year was ‘It’s okay to be different’ and the content of assemblies dealt with a range of issues relating to a wide variety of difference. This session our motto is ‘right thinking, right speaking, right doing’, the content of assemblies is built around this motto and children regularly discuss what this motto means in practice.

Anti-Bullying: There is a programme of zero tolerance to bullying type behaviour and the children know that this kind of behaviour will be dealt with and that it is unacceptable. Every known incident is dealt with thoroughly and carefully followed up. Our Care and welfare policy covers all aspects of looking after our children well. Our pupils support staff effectively work with the children enhancing learning and teaching.

Pupil Participation: Pupils are empowered in that we have a Pupil Council which meets weekly; we have Playground Pals in Primary 4-7; all P6 pupils are trained as mediators. There is now a career structure where children can apply for the jobs and are interviewed to become playground pals and mediators. Playground Pals are trained in dealing with low level conflict. Meetings are held regularly with the Pals and the Mediators when issues are discussed and solutions are found. The children are very clear about their role and know when they need to call an adult. Our Educational Psychologist has also been involved in developing the mediation work.

Rewards: Children are rewarded for good behaviour / play through a system of playground tokens which enables them to ‘shop’ for new playground tokens.

Friendship Scheme: The P7 pupils are part of a ‘Friends’ scheme with P1 and spend time at the beginning of the session helping to settle the P1 children into school routines. P7 friends have lunch with the P1s when they start attending school on a full time basis as well as supporting them in the playground. This support continues throughout P1. Playground Pals and P7 Friends are often used to help younger children who are having difficulties behaving in the playground.

Buddies: There is also the Buddies scheme where older children are partnered with and support younger children. We have buddy afternoons every month when the different age groups get together and have fun learning together. The playground and classroom are good learning environments and are fun places to be most of the time.

Sustaining And Further Developing The Work
As part of the work on restorative approaches Primary 1 will pilot the Fife initiative 'Being Cool in School'. P2 and P3 are following an adapted ‘Being cool in School’ programme this session as it was not available when they were in P1. Primary 7 will also take part in the 'Being Cool in School' project. Watch this space and find out about what makes a 'cool' school. P5 are taking part in the ‘Let’s Stop Bullying’ programme starting in January.

There is no one thing which if adopted ensures a restorative school. As you can see from the list of ‘ingredients’ there are many factors which need to be in place for the school to be able to fully take on board restorative approaches.

Why Develop Restorative Approaches?
Some indicators of success:

• ethos is excellent and noticeable to all who visit us
• a calmness across the school which is remarked upon by visitors
• behaviour is very good by the majority of pupils
• high level of pupil self-regulation
• very few incidents carried into class from the playground
• a greatly reduced number of recorded incidents
• very positive feedback from parents
• reduction in difficulties reported by parents / carers
• less difficulties in the community reported or spilling into school
• reduction in exclusions (0 so far this session)
• reduction in pupils who need behaviour support (0 new referrals this session)
• pupils and staff work well together, are nice and helpful to each other
• children are keen to learn and do well
• through meaningful discussion big deals are reduced to little deals
• raised attainment and achievement
• an attitude from all of ‘can do’.

'Our aspiration is to enable all children to develop their capacities as successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors to society.' 'A Curriculum for Excellence: The Curriculum Review Group' (2004).

Find out more about Tulliallan Primary School and Nursery via:

Tulliallan Primary School and Nursery
Headteacher: Mrs E MacGregor
Kirk Street, Kincardine, Fife, FK10 4PT
e mail: tulliallanps.enquiries@fife.gov.uk
web site: http://www.fife-education.org.uk/europe/tulliallan/