Restorative Approach

One of the most important lessons for any student to learn in school is how to build relationships, learn from their mistakes, repair harm, and take accountability for their actions.

  • Restorative discipline and its practices focus on building, maintaining and when necessary repairing relationships among all members of a school community.

  • Restorative discipline does not seek to deny consequences for misbehavior. Instead, it focuses on, helping students understand the real harm done by their misbehaver, to take responsibility for the behavior, and to commit to positive change. In doing so it creates empathy, trust, accountability, responsibility, resiliency and community building.

Why Restorative Practice?

  • Short term benefits…stop a child’s inappropriate behavior and teaches what is appropriate.
  • Long term benefits…aims to help students take responsibility for their own behavior.
  • Restorative discipline adds to the current discipline model, which attempts to prevent or stop misbehavior and teaches more life giving responses.
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What Does the Research Say about Restorative Practice?

  • Students become more willing to take responsibility for their misbehavior.
  • Students develop higher self-esteem
  • Students show an increase in pro-social values
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We value our teachers working closely with the parents in all areas of behavior and discipline and that all communications are open and honest.

At High Point Academy, a successful student is respectful and responsible!

High Point Academy is a charter school focused not only on high academic standards but also on character.

Basic Principles

  • Reserve and enhance the child’s self-concept.
  • Teach children how to build and maintain relationships within the community.
  • Teach children how to own and solve the problems they create.
  • Repair harm to the victim(s) and community.
  • Share control and decision making.
  • Combine consequences with high levels of empathy and warmth.

We have adopted the essential rules of Love and Logic and Restorative Practices

  1. Adults set firm limits in loving ways without anger, lecture, threats, or repeated warnings.
    1. Adults set limits using enforceable statements.
    2. Adults regard mistakes as learning opportunities.
    3. Adults resist the temptation to “nag”.
  2. When children misbehave and cause problems, adults handle these problems back in loving ways.
    1. Adults provide strong doses of empathy before describing consequences.
    2. Adults respond with a curious and inquisitive tone, separating the deed from the doer while allowing the child to speak for him or herself.
    3. Children are given the gift of owning and solving their own problems.

High Point Academy staff emphasizes repairing the harm caused or revealed by misconduct rather than a punitive discipline process. It does so by:

  1. Identifying the misconduct and attempting to repair the harm.
  2. Includes all people impacted by a conflict in the restorative process.
  3. Creating a process that promotes healing, reconciliation and the rebuilding of relationships to build mutual responsibility and constructive responses to wrongdoing within our school.
  4. HPA teachers and administrators will use a continuum of strategies that are restorative rather than punitive. Students will not be forced to participate in restorative solutions but in turn, will receive a more traditional form of discipline.