RESTORE Our Schools

This 10-page document entitled RESTORE provides a restorative perspective that can inform how we plan for the return to the classrooms, playgrounds and corridors of physical schools.

It highlights seven key areas which, alongside learning, are where we need to stimulate thinking and make decisions in order to collectively move forward into a healthy ‘new normal’. The areas intersect, interconnect and affect each other, as we all do. RESTORE is a lens through which staff, children and parents can look at the strategy and plans that are needed for everyone’s well-being in a fast changing environment and for a safe and healthy return to school.

The seven themes represented by the seven letters of the word RESTORE emerged from discussions on the current pandemic and its impact on us all, but particularly on schools: the students, parents and care-givers and the school staff.
The letters of the word RESTORE, could be seen as falling into two areas of need, one the recent past and our experiences of it, and the other looking ahead to how we want to be as a result of this experience:
The first four letters of the acronym, relating to Recognise, Empathise, Safety and Trauma, are connected to what has happened and its effects on us.
The last three letters, relating to Opportunity, Relationships and Engagement, are key to how we are going forward into a new normal.

RESTORE is the fruit of an ongoing collaboration among a group of Head Teachers, consultants, researchers and charities working in and with schools to implement and embed a restorative approach. See more information at restoreourschools.com

Let’s Be Friends Elementary Curriculum Grades 2-3

A prevention curriculum teaching young children positive social skills, “Let’s Be Friends” presents useful tools that enable students to co-create a positive social environment that fosters kindness, compassion and responsibility. The 45-page pdf provides 8 lessons targeted toward early elementary students.
Lesson One: Positive Attributes
Lesson Two: Internal & External Strengths
Lesson Three: What is a Friend?
Lesson Four: Qualities of Friends
Lesson Five: Understanding Conflict
Lesson Six: Building Empathy
Lesson Seven: Ways to be a Friend
Lesson Eight: Reflecting on Friendships

Gender based violence: Challenging norms, building capacities, promising practices, creating peace

16-page Powerpoint presentation given at the Second International Summit on Conflict Resolution Education which “provide[s] a new context for prevention of intimate partner, domestic and sexual violence, participants will build their capacity to engage in social change work, learn current promising and best practices for intimate partner and sexual violence prevention.”

Working with angry and disruptive youth in the classroom

8-page Powerpoint presenation given at the Second International Summit on Conflict Resolution Education, which provided, “insights into youth anger and strategies to positively address these challenges in the classroom, participants will understand the reasons behind escalating behavior and will practice how to respond effectively to strong willed and/or out-of-control youth, participants will learn strategies to deescalate emotions, maintain dignity and respect, and help the student focus on learning.”

Virginia Tech shooting: Lessons for dismantling norms about violence

10-page Powerpoint presentation given at the Second International Summit on Conflict Resolution Education, which “offers a Preliminary inquiry into pedagogical actions for addressing the intersections among gender, race, ethnicity, social class, mental illness, and violence, the limitations of the thinking that pervaded the recent public discourse on the Virginia Tech Shooting will be revealed and a responsive pedagogical action proposed.”

Emotion and conflict

Powerpoint presentation on conflict resolution and the nature of emotion in conflict.