Scoil Mhuire is a Restorative Practice school.

Restorative Practice is based primarily on a set of core values that are important to us as a school and the explicit promotion of the ability to empathise and to find solutions to specific problems that may arise between pupils. These values include respect, and being respectful of everyone, including towards pupils you may not always see eye to eye with or even like. Our pupils learn to respect each other and where someone is coming from in terms of their own expression of thought and feelings. They also learn to account for their own actions and hold others to account for theirs. Restorative practice allows for building trust and positive relationships between and with others.

The staff of Scoil Mhuire engages in regular professional development in the area of Restorative Practice and our pupils learn about Restorative Practice and how to use it during classroom lessons, school assemblies and when problems arise that need solving. In particular, we teach our pupils how to use the key Restorative Practice questions and the language of empathy needed to ask and answer those questions.  We use Restorative Practice to help our pupils to sort out conflicts or incidents that occur.

The use of our Restorative Practice questions ensures that everyone gets a chance to tell their side of the story and lets everyone feel listened to. Restorative Practice encourages us to reflect on what we have done and how we made others feel. It helps our pupils to develop empathy in a real and meaningful way as the emphasis is on how we can make up for any wrongdoing, as opposed to punishment or sanctions.