The Restorative Journey

The Restorative Journey

Background

IMPACT is a pupil referral unit serving the community of Sefton- this is an area from Bootle upto and including Southport. Sefton is a diverse council area with areas of extreme poverty to the north and south of the geographical area as seen here.

I started work here in September. I have enjoyed the change because previously I had worked in a mainstream secondary school as Assistant Headteacher. As part of this, I had been involved in a national pilot for Restorative Practices that was based at the Academy of St. Francis of Assisi.

On commencing my employment at IMPACT, I was struck by how restorative colleagues were in the way they communicated with students and the positive relationships that were formed. I was also struck by the opportunity this starting point gave us in building excellent relationships with students.

The Research

As part of our preparation for our journey, I first wanted to see restorative practices in practice in PRU environment. Meadow Park School has been following restorative practices for 5 years and is therefore further ahead in their journey. They spoke with passion on how it had enabled them to support their students, and demonstrated how they use restorative practices to reintegrate learners back into class. I thank them for the time they shared.

The next stop was the International Institute for Restorative Practice. A really useful source of background material on what  restorative practice is, with loads of really useful information to get people working together.

In terms of resources to help with implementation, the San Francisco Unified School District have an excellent site where they outline the way restorative practices are used across their school district. What this is especially useful for, is the way they look at restorative practice being primarily a teaching and learning tool as opposed to one where it is used purely for behavioural purposes. They also have videos and an excellent implementation guide.

Finally, we have been in contact with Restorative Thinking. They are the organisation supporting the national pilot in Liverpool schools and specialise in supporting schools and organisations with their restorative journey. As part of this our Headteacher attended a seminar held in December.

The Plan

As a leadership team we are committed to restorative practice as we believe that it will help us to consolidate our "Good" OFSTED report and allow us to get better.

We will introduce the first elements at a INSET day on the 4th January.

At a second session we will form a working party to develop RP within IMPACT.

Once established we will identify cohorts of students and parents to work with.

We will also work at eventually establishing behaviour and teaching and learning policies that are created with Restorative Practice in mind.