If you’re interested to learn about Australia’s initiatives to implement Restorative Practice in schools, have a look at the Real Schools Academy, and even better: Listen to the CEO Adam Voigt tackle the question “How do we work on the culture of a school if we’re not sure what it [culture] is?” *Psssst… his book Restoring Teaching will be launched soon… You can save your copy now!!! *
Margaret Thorsborne, who has a history of experience with implementing Restorative Practice in different schools and organisations in Australia, US, UK, South East Asia and New Zealand will shed light on the concept of “deep culture change”. Her presentation might be the perfect accompaniment to Adam Voigt and his exploration of the meaning of school culture. Additionally, Margaret offers some helpful tools to assess the “readiness” for the introduction of Restorative Practice initiatives, using a relational approach. More can be found here: Ready4RP. She will also share her key findings from her experiences supporting a variety of organisations in their efforts to acquire a restorative mindset.
Tom Shaw, a teacher, researcher and senior leader from the UK, is part of developing the Restore Our Schools Project. Curated by “a restorative collective of researchers, practitioners and school leaders”, stakeholders plan together for the return to the classrooms, playgrounds and corridors of schools. He will introduce the astonishing CMCS (Carr Manor Community School) model. This model bucks several local and national trends: “It has had zero permanent exclusions for 14 years, consistently has the lowest rate of fixed term exclusions in Leeds, high staff retention and the lowest staff absence for stress in Leeds. Pupils self-report higher than city-wide measures on the annual well-being survey”. Curious to find out what’s behind this magical model? Don’t miss his talk!
