I was in WA last week kicking off one of our School Culture Partnerships with a PL Day about working restoratively and a teacher stopped me for a chat.
She asked, “I love all this, but why is it called RP2.0? Was there something wrong with the way schools had been doing RP that needed fixing?”
It’s a fair question and one I’m asked regularly too.
There was a lot that was right about the older and more scripted ways of working in schools that I refer to as ‘RP1.0’.
For one, its research base in Affect Theory and Social Psychology is next level in terms of rigour. In other words, it’s not fake and it’s not bullshit.
Sometimes, that card of questions was the right weapon for the right battle. And in some cases, a community conference really is a good idea.
But not all the time. In fact, not many. Much of our work in schools is less formal and more proactive than that.
I asked myself the question, “Is there a way to take these valuable principles and this evidence base – and make it fit for a contemporary, busy and unpredictable school?”
And there was. It took some work, but I identified four shifts in Language, four in Conduct and four Mindsets that can serve today’s teachers better.
I used all twelve artefacts for years in my own schools, as a teacher and principal, and then collated them into a model I naffly called ‘RP2.0’ when I left my Principalship to found Real Schools in 2012.
The rest, including the 307 schools now implementing it as the foundation of their school culture, is history.
What I love most about RP2.0 is that:
- Every strategy has a bias for low teacher investment with high-return potential.
- The teachers using the strategies report being exponentially more effective.
- It’s saving Australia’s teachers much needed time and energy.
And that’ll do me.
Keep fighting that good fight,
P.S. I’m pretty proud of the work we do in partner schools just like yours. Take a look at this video from our partners at Fitzroy North Primary School as they head into Year 2 of their School Culture Partnership with us here at Real Schools.
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