Curriculum
Restorative Practices at St Matthew’s
Since the beginning of the year, the staff at St Matthew’s have been working on changes to our Behaviour Management Policy. We have decided to let go of some of the elements of our previous approach and replace them with strategies that are in line with Restorative Practices. Restorative Practice is a whole school teaching and learning approach that encourages behaviour that is supportive and respectful. It puts the onus on individuals to be truly accountable for their behaviour and to repair any harm caused to others as a result of their actions.
A restorative approach focuses on building, maintaining and restoring positive relationships, particularly when incidents that involve interpersonal conflict or wrongdoing occur.
The rationale behind this approach is that when offenders reflect upon their harm to victims:
- They become remorseful and act restoratively.
- Practitioners can focus on the unacceptable behaviour of offenders rather than their moral character.
- This can lead to healthier interpersonal relationships among members of the school community and more effective learning.
The Restorative culture within our school offers a transformative view of the human person. It focuses on the behaviour and its impact rather than on the person, moving away from models that use shame and punishment to externally control behaviour. Grounded in experiences of relationships and community, students learn to understand their own behaviour and its impact on others, and they develop the skills needed for resolving conflict and building healthy relationships. As a community, we have a responsibility to provide the educational and supportive framework to maximise all children’s wellbeing and their capacity for positive mental health and flourishing relationships. Restorative Practices are a series of processes premised on the innate dignity of each person.
For this reason, when we make a phone call home to inform parents about behaviour issues that have occurred throughout the day, we will only discuss your child. If your child has been harmed, we call to inform you that we are aware of the issue and are following our Restorative Practices protocol. We cannot and will not talk to you about the other student or students involved. If your child has harmed another student we will call to inform you that we have followed the process with your child and that the issue has been resolved. We will no longer be sending home Communication Notes. We will continue to closely monitor and track behaviour issues within the school so that we are able to ascertain if problems that occur are happening on a regular basis.
We will only call if the behaviour is of an ongoing nature or something serious (intentional physical harm) has occurred. We are seeking to build resilience and self-efficacy among the students at St Matthew’s. When little bumps in the road occur, quite often, children simply need time to reflect on their behaviour and move on. Placing too much emphasis and attention on a single act or poor choice causes children undue stress and does more harm than good.
We will share the more formal elements of our approach to Restorative Practices at St Matthew’s in the new year. Restorative Practices can also work for you at home. You may want to use the restorative questions to help your child move through disagreements or behavioural issues.. We have developed the following reflection for you to use at home if you wish. We will also use this at school when appropriate.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1_5fcavqSzElQv6OxvsXag3xwFQoANFhAk4Qfpve114c/edit?usp=sharing
Before the end of the year, we will send home a parent survey. We invite you to take part in this survey to enable us to further improve our practice.
Rachel Powell
Curriculum Coordinator
rachel.powell@cg.catholic.edu.au