Restorative Practices in Schools in Northern Ireland: Towards an ‘All School’ Model

As in many other countries around the world in recent years, the knowledge of restorative practices in schools has grown in Northern Ireland, where there are growing calls from within the education sector to further embed restorative approaches in teaching practice and to include the knowledge of these approaches in teacher training. Whilst restorative practises are recognised as a proven structured approach for conflict resolution and the repairing of harm involving children and young people, its use in school settings remains intermittent in Northern Ireland, however an international evidence base increasingly identifies a range of positive outcomes and successes where restorative approaches have been embraced. In Northern Ireland much of the growth in such practices to date has occurred within the integrated education sector, where an underlying compatibility between the transformative values and goals of integrated education and the approaches embraced by restorative practices has helped to bring about a greater embracing of restorative practices in some schools. We argue in this paper that, far from being restricted to a few areas, the challenges posed within integrated education are universal to all schools in Northern Ireland and consequently that an ‘All School’ restorative approach would help to address the broad spectrum of factors that can lead to relationship breakdown and the perpetuation of harm. The paper considers several important developments that may lead to greater momentum for the growth of restorative practices across all schools in Northern Ireland, including the passing of the Integrated Education Bill (2022), the recent enactment of the Addressing Bullying in Schools Act (Northern Ireland) 2016, and the publication of the ground-breaking Adult Restorative Justice Strategy for Northern Ireland (2022-2027) that also incorporates proposals for a Centre of Restorative Excellence to support all restorative practice. We argue that each of these developments can provide real opportunities for mainstreaming restorative practises across all schools in Northern Ireland and help schools to forge stronger relationships with local communities and the broader institutions of society outside the school gates.