‘You have to understand the impact’: Inside the battle to stop schoolyard bullies

Résumé détaillé

With schools facing deregistration if they fail to overhaul anti-bullying rules by year’s end, Winmalee High is showing how restorative justice works.

Tears well in Winmalee High School principal Voula Facas’ eyes as she sits across from the mother of a badly bullied child.

The mother says to Facas: “I am not the sort of person who comes in and yells the place down. I just didn’t want to see my child so depressed.”

Facas listens intently, as she has every time the parent has visited the school to report the bullying their child faces. Together, the pair has worked through the problems, creating a safety plan centred on making sure the child who was causing harm understood the consequences of their actions.

“That’s what restorative practice is about – it’s getting kids to understand their impact,” Facas said.

“You can discipline a child for doing the wrong thing, but if they don’t truly understand the impact, then nothing will change.”

This belief in restorative justice is the approach all NSW schools must soon follow. By the end of the year, schools are required to overhaul their anti-bullying practices to meet a new statewide framework, or face deregistration.

Under the new framework, bullied students must be given personalised safety plans that could include more supervision and their own “safe zone”, such as a library.

Schools must prioritise student wellbeing, explicitly teaching kindness, respect and inclusion, and counsel bullies rather than simply punish them.

Winmalee High School’s adherence to the framework is the reason the mother decided to keep her child in the school.

Début de l'article, extrait de The Age. Pour lire la suite, ouvrez l'article chez le média.