Personal Responsibility vs Personal Accountability

I thought that I would take this opportunity to discuss personal responsibility and personal accountability. As a restorative school, Rangiora High firmly believes in the following model:

We know and expect that students and staff, despite their best intentions, will “Muck Up” from time to time. By definition, any system that involves humans will result in errors… However, what matters most is how we deal with, and move on from these mistakes.

Where we find this system most commonly breaks down is around the “Own Up” part of the process. In my role, I am often asked to support students and whānau to find a resolution for these issues. As many students will be able to tell you, I spend a large amount of my time asking students to meet school expectations around “On time and Ready to Learn”, “Phones Off and Away”, and to demonstrate our school values of “Respect, Aspire and Contribute”.

This does mean that several of the students that I interact with attempt to provide a justification for their actions and choices, rather than accepting that they “Mucked Up” and need to “Fix Up”. These include but are not limited to:

But, it was coldBut, other people are doing itWhy are you picking on meBut…..

To our way of thinking, personal responsibility and personal accountability means just that, being responsible for yourself and your actions. Just because some students make the choice to do the wrong thing, that does not mean you should join them. Personal responsibility is demonstrated by individuals making the choices to do the right thing, even when nobody is watching.

Personal accountability means, acknowledging the “Muck Up” and setting about a plan to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Personal responsibility means being responsible for your choices and not seeking to blame someone or something else.

Mistakes are inevitable, how we respond to them when we make them and our actions afterwards are what matters most!

As the expression goes: “Knowing the right thing to do is easy, DOING the right thing is what matters.

Tim Heidmann

Head of Student Support.