Restorative Practices

This week, staff engaged in a learning development session with Margaret Thorsborne who is widely recognised as an international expert on Restorative Practices. The purpose of this session was to look at the latest research and developments in Restorative Practice and to focus on ‘Restorative for the Classroom Teacher’. Margaret has worked with Pacific on an ongoing basis and will return in November to run a session for the student wellbeing team.

Restorative Practices are a key component of Pacific’s wellbeing philosophy. Our aim with ‘People the Focus’ is to develop strong teaching and learning relationships. The stronger the relationship, the easier it is to resolve differences. The restorative process is a way of building, maintaining, restoring and sustaining relationships and is dependent upon a social climate that is reparative rather than punitive.

The restorative conversations can take many forms, however the key principles and essence of the conversation remain the same.

• What – the story of what happened.
• Affect – explore the harm (who do you think has been affected in what ways?).
• Repair – what needs to be done to put things right?
• Move – how can we make sure this does not happen again?

Our aim with relationships is to build them, maintain them, restore them and sustain them.