Just how do you create a relational and restorative school?

Restorative and relational practices can contribute to creating a healthy, stimulating and supportive school environment for the staff, students, parents and carers.  Restorative and relational schools create the context and develop the skills to allow students to thrive, not just in their studies, but also in their social and emotional awareness of self and others. In such a context  students and staff alike develop agency in creating a thriving, equitable and inclusive school culture. A culture which focuses on developing proactive language and behaviours in relationships and learning opportunities, as well as providing the skills and understanding to resolve conflicts, where they may happen. 

Participants of this course will take the principles, and main methodologies, of restorative and relational practice out of the training room and look to explicitly locate them in school environments to stimulate change. The course will allow participants to explore ways of addressing challenges in implementing and embedding restorative and relational practices in their own context.

The EFRJ's Restorative Schools Working Group has been working on making the expertise developed in restorative schools contexts widely accessible for educators through workshops, webinars and publications. This training course builds on the working group's work as well and will complement the 2026 series of webinars that will be launched in the spring of 2026.

This training is applicable to school staff working in a range of school settings (kindergarten, primary, secondary and tertiary), and with a range of roles (teachers, leaders, support staff, school social workers and psychological support services).

Participants will work in pairs, triads and larger groups, as well as have time for individual reflection. Circles will be used throughout the course, and participants will experience their use for both community building and pedagogical dialogue. Theoretical inputs will be balanced by practical application in all aspects of the course through modelling and referencing to what it might look like in school settings. The final sessions will focus on the group supporting each other in creating a concrete plan for how their learning can be implemented and embedded within their own setting. A post course check-in, to support participants, will also be offered to allow mutually supportive dialogue on how things are going when they are back in the real world!

This training will provide participants with the skills and confidence to use restorative principles and practice: 

• within their own practice
• with students
• within school staff teams
• within teaching and learning contexts

This training will ultimately enable participants to form a concrete plan on how to embed and implement these skills and practices in their own setting after the training. 

Chris Straker was a teacher for over thirty years in the UK. During his time as a school principal he developed his school into one defined by relational and restorative principles. Towards the end of his time in the school he also worked in the Hull Centre for Restorative Practice, which he co-founded in 2007.

He has drawn on his experience to develop training in restorative approaches to a wide
range of school settings, as well as leadership within schools, and across agencies in children’s services. He has also worked with these agencies on strategic, city-wide, implementation of restorative working with a focus on developing a shared set of behaviours and language within, and across, different settings and agencies.

He has been a keynote speaker in Canada, USA, New Zealand, Australia, and South Korea. His, present, work in the UK is complemented by training and consultation in several European countries. He has been a member of the European Forum for Restorative Justice Working Group on Restorative Schools since its inception.