Catriona Stewart, Headteacher of the first U&K School shares

The 3 Rs of Justice

Our children are like children the world over, they have an acute notion of justice and fairness. Unlike many adults, they also understand its nuance. It is not black and white. This is why we don’t adopt a ‘zero tolerance’ policy for behaviour and discipline and practice where Action A always equals Consequence C. Our behaviour principles include a policy for supporting children’s social and emotional development with behaviour, discipline and yes, policy for exclusion, within it. It’s far from perfect and, like justice, democracy and fairness remains a work in progress.

Here are our Three Rs in respect of justice:

Remorse – Shame and guilt harms a person’s self esteem, but authentic remorse connects to deeper feelings of sadness and embarrassment. We all mess up and it is really important for children to learn this, to understand it deeply. Our wrongdoing and consequent sadness is not the measure or the sum of us but rather a measure of us at a point in time and we can do something about it . So when children mess up in school we look first for remorse; to see or hear it, we need to listen to them. A child who is genuinely remorseful and sorry won’t want to feel like that again.  Conversation and dialogue, not sanction or punishment, is what can make the difference.

Restoration (or repair) – However sorry and remorseful we are, harm has been done. Whether harm to ourself, others or the environment, repair or restoration is necessary. This is one the key approaches in being ‘useful and kind’. Restoration can include physical restoration: children have come along after school with a parent to mend a fence or plant a bush. The fence might be a different wood and the repair far from perfect, but it is  a wonderful symbol of putting things right. I never require a child to write a sorry letter. Not long ago we had two children in at playtime, one of them had wanted to stay and write a sorry letter to the person they’d hurt. This was their idea, their action, it was they who had agency. What purpose is a letter of apology from someone who isn’t sorry? An apology where responsibility is shifted to the victim is not restorative and does not repair. When we have the opportunity genuinely to restore repair, then justice is not only better done but is seen to be done. Justice seen to be done is of paramount importance for those children with all their keen eyes on fairness. 

Through restorative solutions, we are more hopeful that other children might see the individual through new eyes, someone who is good and kind, who messed up but put it right.

In both remorse and restoration there are consequences to wrongdoing. Consequences in how we feel about ourselves, others or the environment and what we do about it. Agency lies with the person who has done wrong. The solution and action, theirs to take.

Reparation (or sanction/punishment) – For many reasons, early life trauma, messages they have received and learned elsewhere, maybe just children’s different stages and personalities, some might not be ready to feel remorse or to make genuine amends. This is where reparation or external consequence, often called a punishment has a useful place. Remorse gives a feeling of discomfort between the person you want to be and the mirror your action has held up to you. If you don’t feel the discomfort of remorse I think we have a duty to children to make what their wrongdoing, especially that towards others or the environment, discomforting. I hope children will not bully again because they feel so sorry but will settle for someone not hurting another because they don’t fancy the consequence. In this way I do believe punishment can be useful and kind. It’s the way you would want a loved one to be treats if they behaved this way.

So what happened to the other child, the one who chose not to write the letter? While one wrote their letter, on nice paper with a fancy pen, the other sat and waited for a discussion with me. I chose that the letter writing and restoration was given the attention first. This meant the (unsaid) reparation was a longer lost playtime than their friend who had taken responsibility and put things right. I then gave attention to the other, discussed, firmly, usefully and kindly, so they understood that I’d be talking to their parents and while I accepted they did not feel sorry, I did not respect it, reminding them of the harm caused. The parents were marvellous; they were very genuinely sorry and at home, they wrote to the child and their parents on their own behalf, expressing how sorry they were for how their child had made another feel. The reparation was over but the next day this child returned, told me how they did feel sorry and asked if they could spend some time at playtime that day, writing to the other child to apologise, which of course they could, of their own volition, in control with quality stationary!

Children are in school to learn, to learn about justice as much as to experience it. I think to teach as well as deliver justice takes a lot longer than many ‘zero tolerance’ behaviour policies would have you believe, it’s more labour intensive, it takes thinking and listening, reflecting and responding to an individual rather than a system.

Catriona Stewart, Headteacher, Kingsmead School, Cheshire