Complaints about Teachers and RJ
On the page Finham Park Restorative Justice Video in this website, a visitor asked:
I’m wondering whether RJ is also used in school when a student or student’s family has a grievance against a teacher, and whether staff are being held accountable in the same way as students, ie encouraged to examine their own behaviour and ways to change/make amends when appropriate?
In the Restorative Justice Consortium (RJC) document “Principles of Restorative Processes December 2004” (available here), Principle 26 says
“Organisations to be encouraged to use restorative principles in other areas of conflict, such as internal grievance, disciplinary systems, and external procedures e.g., client complaints, wherever possible.
Exactly the same wording is retained in the RJC’s “Statement of Restorative Justice Principles As applied in a school setting” (available here).
The article “Restorative practice in schools: developing responsibility over conformity” published by the Restorative Justice Council sheds a little light on this situation but does not explicitly address it.
The teachers’ union NASUWT says in its page Restorative Behaviour:
Principle 4 – Using restorative behaviour approaches should not open up opportunities for teacher-blaming.
Where restorative behaviour is used poorly, in cases of behaviour that challenges, there can be an assumption that the teacher must be to blame, that the teacher has ‘failed’ the child in some way and has played a role in the pupil’s behaviour.
The NASUWT has seen a worrying number of schools where a teacher’s capabilities are questioned, along with a judgement on the quality of a lesson, when challenging behaviour occurs.
The restorative conversation then becomes an opportunity for the pupil to explain what the teacher has done wrong to cause their unacceptable behaviour.
This is not and should never be the intended purpose of a restorative conversation; the focus of the conversation should be for the pupil to take responsibility for their own actions.
It may become apparent during these conversations that the pupil’s behaviour is a response to an issue that is troubling them, such as bullying. The teacher can use the conversation as an opportunity to explore this and look at actions that might be taken to address it.
We believe that RJ has been used in complaints against teachers and are currently trying to verify this.