At the heart of a positive school climate are the relationships we build.
Mount Carmel College uses a Restorative Practice approach in building, maintaining and restoring relationships.
The aim of Restorative Practice is to restore right relationships and bring about healing after some hurt or harm has been done to another or others. This approach helps students, staff and all members of the College community, including parents, learn from mistakes and resolve problems with others.
It has, at its heart, the key Gospel values of reconciliation, responsibility, reintegration and resolution of conflict. Restorative Practice offers processes that can help all students learn to understand and deal with their own emotions in ways that build stronger relationships and promotes resilience.
The Restorative Practice motto within the College is Triple R: Respect, Restore, Repair.
Restorative practice includes the following four key elements:
- Focus upon harm and relationships, not on blame and punishment.
- Working with one another
- Importance of fair process
- Key restorative questions:
- What happened?
- What were you thinking at the time?
- What have you thought about since?
- Who has been affected by what you have done?
- In what way?
- What do you think you need to do to make things right?
By incorporating these key elements in the process of Restorative Practice, students build a powerful basis for experiencing and building healthy dialogue with each other.
Alignment with School-Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS)
Restorative Practice aligns closely with the principles of SWPBS, as both approaches focus on promoting positive behaviour through proactive strategies, clear expectations, and supportive relationships.
SWPBS provides a framework for creating a consistent and predictable environment where respectful and responsible behaviour is explicitly taught, modelled and reinforced.
Restorative Practice complements this by offering a relational approach to managing conflict and repairing harm when expectations are not met. Together, they foster a culture of accountability, empathy and connectedness, ensuring that students are supported not only in their behaviour but in their overall social and emotional development.