Richmond Council

Richmond Council has pioneered the use of Restorative Approaches in schools as part of Lifelong Learning Programme through the British Council. The initiative has proved instrumental in transforming behaviour, teaching, learning, and improving attendance and staff morale in schools throughout the borough.

The brief:

Richmond Council wanted to make a DVD to show restorative approaches in action, which would be part of a training programme and would highlight the spectrum of its success.  The aim of the DVD was to provide another medium for learning for an established restorative approaches training programme. It needed to demonstrate the following to training participants:

  • How restorative approaches work in practice
  • The different ways restorative approaches can be used – one to one, groups etc.
  • The benefits

The audience would be training participants from schools and from other sectors such as care homes, youth workers and school police officers.

The Approach:

We approached this project by illustrating the restorative approach in action using real school children to re-enact real life stories and issues. By involving the school, and inviting staff and pupils to personally contribute to the film, they became stakeholders in the process and were fully behind the approach.