Thank you for contacting us, my first thought is maybe the cooling off time isn’t enough or staff aren’t reassuring him that they will help sort things out as clearly as he needs to trust them to tell them what’s going on. I would speak to the class teacher and ask if they are doing any check in/outs? If your colleagues are really concentrating on the time out and reassurance and your class teacher is checking in and out I would say that he needs weekly 1-1 restorative support sessions to build his confidence and his ability to explain what’s happening to him. Can you please check with your colleagues about the things I’ve suggested and come back to me if you need any more clarification. We have a check in and out implementation plan on the resources page and we have the framework for the 1-1 support sessions.

I would ask tutors to start a check in and check out on a Monday and Friday tutor time. They might also find it useful to write restorative rules for each tutor group on how they are going to treat each other and what they will do if there is a disagreement. I would also speak to the assistant head of year, who I believe is the pastoral role in your school and has had the introductory training. Ask her to have as many restorative chats as she can, to timeline the issues and prepare the chats by taking the pupils through the questions before she brings them together. I would also suggest that she asks the pupils to make a written agreement between the parties at the end of any chat on what they will do to differently next time something happens or there is a disagreement.