Have you ever felt lost for words?
Juggling too many balls in the air?
Lost sight of what’s important?
Been out of control in a limbic moment?
We’ve all been there!
In a successful school culture, focusing on what we can control is at the heart of developing positive environments where students, parents/carers and staff thrive.
Having strong awareness of the thoughts, language, and actions that we use at an individual and collective level in our schools need to be on the list of controllables that support, promote and build strong, meaningful and restorative relationships that elevate school culture.
The RP 2.0 (Real Schools’ Restorative Practice model) provides a framework that encourages a culture of building relationships through intentional language strategies.
I recently connected with Jordana at Tamworth West PS, who, in a visionary moment at the school bus stop took a giant step in her own restorative journey. Jordana recognised, that in order to support the students at the school to influence the culture, she needed to add language to her list of controllables, especially when someone needed support to shift their behaviours and actions.
Jordana’s blueprint was simple and strongly connects to her knowledge of and commitment to the RP 2.0 model developed through our partnership so far.
- Build relationships with the students who need you the most via Affective Interactions (Past Present and Future questions) to consistently frame the conversation. Remembering to throw in something that really interested the person at the same time.
- Confidently and intentionally use Affective Language to express feelings in a way that helps others in the school community recognise positive behaviours, and to ignite thinking about when a behaviour doesn’t help someone feel great!
- Priming to make the behaviours she was supporting people to shift were very clear, giving them a chance to know what was going to make a difference to others.
- Circle back to language to congratulate people for controlling the controllables themselves.
Jordana’s blueprint is catching on at Tamworth West – the staff and students are noticing that the habits they are building is making an impact. People are feeling in control of their emotions and hearing more than ever about behaviours we want to see, as well as supporting each other to find solutions if something doesn’t quite go to plan.
All of this because of one teacher controlling the controllables – her Thoughts, Words and Actions – and supporting one student, one behaviour at a time.
