Our Restorative Approach
At West SILC and our partnership sites, we are proud to take a restorative approach to resolving conflict and to prevent harm. A Department for Education report (2011) ranked whole-school restorative approaches as offering the highest effectiveness rating for bullying prevention. 97% of schools surveyed rated the approach as effective. Further evaluative studies found that taking a restorative approach in schools improves attendance and reduces rates of exclusion.
Restorative approaches describe the strategies and methods used to prevent incidents that damage relationships from occuring, and to resolve them if they do. It allows those who have suffered harm to explain the impact of that harm to those who are responsible. Once those responsible understand the harm that their actions have caused they can take steps to put it right. The illustration below shows the benefit to the whole school community of our restorative approach.
