Building capacity in schools and children’s services – Developing restorative approaches across a local authority

The session will explore the way in which the City of Edinburgh Council has developed a strategy on ‘Improving Relationships and Promoting Positive Behaviour’ as a support to the successful implementation of curriculum for excellence, within its local authority improvement planning process.

It will also explore the support provided by the Scottish Government’s Positive Behaviour Team through an interactive programme on Restorative Approaches. This training enables participants to become effective ‘Restorative’ practitioners and also to ‘champion’ the development of Restorative Practices within their own establishment.

Good relationships are central to effective learning and teaching and also inform key aspects of the emerging CfE assessment procedures. Restorative Approaches encourage and enable staff to develop and assimilate a range of skills and strategies which promote and enhance the learning - teaching process.

The project has a clear ‘action research’ element built in to assess the impact of Restorative Approaches developments within each school. The research model allows for flexibility of elements within individual schools, but provides an overall compatibility across these elements.

Early evidence suggests that through the development and assimilation of Restorative Approaches within CEC schools, learners are experiencing better outcomes both with regard to interpersonal skills and also crucially within Curriculum for Excellence.

The seminar will enable participants to consider the CEC approach to developing and implementing its strategy within schools and learning establishments and will provide a platform for CEC practitioners to share their experiences.

Brian Steele, Positive Behaviour Team, Scottish Government