SEVERAL schools in the Isle of Man are piloting the use of restorative justice to resolve issues with pupils' behaviour.

12 teachers from six schools – three primaries and three secondaries – have been trained in the use of restorative justice.

Restorative justice is based on the traditional principle of community living – that when harm is committed it must be acknowledged and repaired in a process involving all the parties affected.

Teachers are now using the method as an additional approach to resolving issues such as harmful behaviour, playground incidents and bullying.

The new approach focusses on five key questions - What happened? What were you thinking? What were you feeling? Who has been affected? What needs to happen next?

Dave Colley, school improvement adviser for the Department of Education and Children, said the emphasis on pupils shifted from the questions "Why did you do it?" and "How should you be punished?" to "Who has been harmed?" and "How should we repair the harm?"

He explained: "Pupils attend the restorative justice meetings and listen in the knowledge that they will have their time to speak during the process.

"Both the harmed child and the child who has caused the harm can formally express their perspectives and the solution is generated by the young people themselves, and not the adults or teachers."

It is hoped that this new initiative will break the cycle of poor behaviour among a small minority of pupils who repeatedly offend.

Mr Colley continued: "Restorative justice promotes the Department of Education and Children's initiative of 'pupil voice' and can be a cathartic process for everyone involved if used appropriately.

"It is not always a suitable way of resolving conflict because both the harmer and the harmed student must both agree to participate but, where it is, it is a powerful way of releasing children from conflict, allowing everyone to move on with learning and feeling positive again about their education rather than harbouring ongoing concerns."

Ballasalla Primary School is one of the schools using restorative justice to tackle challenging behaviour.

Head teacher Lyn Ashworth said: "It has proved particularly successful with helping aggressive children understand the consequences of their actions when hearing how they make people feel, not just physically but emotionally too.

"The use of the scripts (that teachers use) ensures consistency of approach and enables staff to remain calm and unravel problems without showing bias or jumping to conclusions."

Education and Children Minister Peter Karran MHK said: "In terms of repeated punishment we find that pupils who offend often do so perpetually and we have to break the cycle and take another approach now it's available to us.
 
"It is about making sure that young people develop with a sense of responsibility as well as right and restorative justice is a great way of highlighting that balance.
 
"This will not be appropriate for every school to use every day. But it's there, it's exciting, it's different and it's something schools can add to their armoury of solutions to difficult school issues."

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