Introducing Peaceworks Peer Mediation in School's Programme (PPMSP)

The school playground is full of arguments! Some as minor as "whose turn it is to use the hoop" through arguments about which team scored the most goals in a football match up to conflicts about how "best friends" are shared. Minor they may be, but conflicts can so easily escalate and become painful and disruptive. Inevitably, most of these incidents will be resolved arbitrarily by a teacher or a dinner time assistant, with the children not really learning how to work through and resolve the conflict.

Peaceworks has developed a programme to introduce the concept of mediation to schools: training the staff and teaching mediation skills and processes to pupils, then training some to become peer mediators in their schools. The lessons are taught over a three year period (usually Years 4, 5 and 6) with 6 lessons in each year. In these lessons, the children learn to understand conflict, how to manage it, and then how to be mediators. Volunteers are then selected to be part of the mediation scheme in the school.

The lessons are initially taught by Peaceworks' team of educators who model the lessons to the teaching staff, who then receive a support package including all the lesson plans, and a day of Peaceworks' time every year for any additional training that may be required. Each lesson taught by Peaceworks is observed by a teacher, so that in subsequent years, the lessons may be taught by the school teachers themselves. The Peaceworks educators also teach a full INSET day, so the teachers themselves, have a broad understanding of what mediation is, can reflect upon their own style of conflict management and support the peer mediators.

The cost to the schools is kept to a minimum with the school paying for the support package and the INSET training. The costs of the lessons and the peer mediation scheme, are raised by Peaceworks. Currently, financial and practical support is provided by local education authorities, healthy schools projects, police authorities, churches and community trusts, crime prevention partnerships and the Children's Fund.

The scheme was first piloted in Bognor Regis in 2001-2003, and is currently being taught in 12 schools in West Sussex and Surrey. The Programme has been extended to included intermediate, middle and secondary schools. Peaceworks has also trained a local schools' charity in Portsmouth to present its materials in their local area.

If you are interested in having Peaceworks visit your school to explain more, or require further information, please contact Chris Seaton or Sharon Rawson at the Peaceworks office.