Free online training: Active Bystander
May 10, 2024
Peer Mediation Programme
Peer Mediation Scheme is a whole-school approach where older pupils are trained to help younger children resolve conflicts without adult involvement. Twenty selected Year 5-6 students complete a 9-hour mediation training and then take turns mediating playground disputes during break times. Peer mediators handle low-level conflicts only, and refer more complex issues to school staff.
This programme is an initiative of Wandsworth Mediation Service, a London charity with over two decades of expertise in dispute resolution.
Introducing peer mediation leads to:
- Calmer playground and classrooms.
- Better empathy and understanding between children.
- Less staff time taken up sorting out conflict.
- Children across school are more confident interacting with one another.
- Calmer playground and classrooms.
- Better empathy and understanding between children.
- Less staff time taken up sorting out conflict.
- Children across school are more confident interacting with one another.
4 reasons to introduce peer mediation in your school:
- Proven success record: We are a Civil Mediation Council-recognised peer mediation provider. Our programme has been successfully implemented in several London schools since 2020. It has recently been modernised with support of educational specialists.
- Saves staff time: By empowering pupils to manage conflicts independently, peer mediation saves valuable staff time, enabling teachers to focus more on teaching and less on resolving arguments.
- Enhances PSHE curriculum: The scheme aligns with key PSHE objectives, helping children understand and regulate emotions, develop negotiation and assertiveness skills, and maintain positive relationships both in and out of school.
- Long-term support: We will supply a comprehensive resource pack, including rotas and records, and stay in regular contact for smooth implementation. After the first term, we will host a supervision session to help the peer mediators refine their skills.
Participants
A minimum of 10 and a maximum of 20 students can enrol in each course, typically from Year 5 or 6. Participants are chosen based on an application process. Pupils keen to participate submit a form to their teachers, and the school then selects those they believe will benefit most from the programme.
Outcomes for the peer mediators:
- Increased emotional awareness: developed understanding of what conflict is, how it can escalate, and ways to manage it effectively through recognising underlying thoughts, feelings, and needs.
- Developing mediation skills: such as empathetic listening and win/win solutions. Learning about peer mediators’ ethical standards, including impartiality and confidentiality. Practising various mediation scenarios and recognising when and how to ask adults to intervene.
- Increased assertiveness: through exercises that focus on identifying and eliminating blame talk, using body language effectively to build rapport, and navigating conflict situations with emotional regulation techniques and a focus on facts and feelings.
Peer mediation costs and timing:
This programme is grant-funded and available at no cost to state schools in Wandsworth. The scheme is implemented through:
- 1-hour workshops: Each Year 5 class participates in a workshop that introduces the programme and invites students to apply.
- 9-hour training for mediators: Delivered in three 3-hour sessions (typically weekly), concluding with a 30-minute launch event to present the programme to the entire school.
- 1-hour staff training: For all teaching and support staff, to cover the practical aspects of the scheme.
- 2-hour supervision session: Held a few months after the training, this session allows mediators to reflect on their practice and identify areas for improvement.
All sessions are delivered through a range of highly interactive activities, role plays and games, with very little writing.
Check-list for schools
- Choose champion. To ensure successful implementation, the scheme needs support from the entire school community, including teaching and support staff, pupils, and parents. Please appoint a ‘Peer Mediation Champion’ who will engage staff, ensure mediators follow their rotas, and act as our main point of contact.
- Find a suitable rom. We ask the school to provide for each session a quiet room with space for participants to move around, plus a projector or interactive whiteboard for presentations.
- Complete impact forms. This courses is grant-funded and provided at no cost to state schools. To fulfil our reporting obligations, we ask that the Peer Mediation Champion promptly completes our pre- and post-implementation evaluation forms.
