Restorative practice in the classroom
Restorative practice is a whole-school teaching and learning approach that encourages behaviour that is supportive and respectful behaviour. It recognises that a variety of factors influence behaviour and seeks to address the underlying influences through empathy, relationship-building, communication, social and emotional learning and finding ways to respectfully hold one another accountable.
Overview of restorative practice
Restorative practice focuses on building, maintaining and restoring positive relationships, particularly when incidents that involve interpersonal conflict or wrongdoing occur. Restorative practices are high in accountability and high in support as they draw out what harm has been caused and about being able to repair that harm.
Teachers have an opportunity to model restorative strategies for students in the classroom. Have a think about your own classroom practices.
Think about the following:
- what do you do to actively ensure students in your class feel welcome and that they belong?
- how does your classroom environment impact how students communicate with each other and with you?
- how do you interact with the students in your class and how do you interact with colleagues?
- how do you respond when you have a conflict with one of your students?
- how do you respond when you see a conflict arising between students in the classroom?
- what process do you use to resolve conflict or disagreement in your classroom?
- how were students involved in the development of this process?
Restorative questions
The method of asking restorative questions which are designed to elicit feelings, emotions and personal reflections is called affective questioning. Affective questions seek to connect individuals more deeply with personal and relational aspects of school life. They aim to help people express their feelings, understand the emotional impact of their actions on themselves and others, and foster empathy.
Restorative questions are:
- free from blame
- open-ended
- free from a pre-determined resolution
- inclusive – everyone involved can answer them; everyone can express their feelings and needs
- focused on people and the impact of the behaviour (not the rules which may have breached)
- past, present and future focused.
- an invitation for those responsible to make things right.
These questions can be adapted in many ways to cultivate connection, uncover the cause of the problem, discover how people feel and what they need, and support them to repair harm.
- What happened?
- What were you thinking at the time?
- What have you thought about since?
- Who has been affected by what you have done? In what way?
- What do you think you need to do to make things right?
- If the same thing happens again, how could you behave differently?
- What support do you need? Who can you go to for support?
- What did you think when you realised what had happened?
- What impact has this incident had on you and others?
- What has been the hardest thing for you?
- What do you think needs to happen to make things right?
- Who can you go to for support?
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