We have been working with primary schools in the West Midlands for over 30 years and have worked with thousands of children in that time.
We know each school is different, so in addition to our established courses listed below, we can work in a more bespoke way, according to the needs of your school.
Learning for Peace Package
Putting peace at the heart of your PSHE curriculum to enrich SMSC throughout the school. This package of support for teachers and children will refresh your circle times, through a structured, but flexible approach.
Building a culture of peace
See how one school is building peace through their curriculum, ethos and peer mediation scheme.
Training brings alive the theory and practical aspects of our Learning for Peace resource, so staff are better equipped to put it into practice. By the end of the training, your school will have the tools to be able to address SMSC through PSHE from Reception to Year 6 through five themes. We work with you to be able to facilitate Peacemaker circles and to understand the purpose and significance of the fun and interactive methods we use to engage pupils spiritually, morally, socially and culturally. The whole package can be delivered over half a term.
What’s included?
- A planning day with your SMSC/PSHE lead to help plan regular Peacemaker sessions into your curriculum from Reception to Yr 6. Together we will look at your existing plans and other whole school initiatives so that this work dovetails existing priorities. This includes Rights Respecting Schools, Global Learning, Growth Mindset and Values Education. We believe these initiatives can help each other rather than work against each other.
- A twilight or half day training to kickstart the project with all staff. This will introduce the theory and the approaches and demonstrate effective circle time for all pupils.
- Classroom modelling with pupils. Our trainers will come and run a circle with every class in your school to show how the sessions can be structured and facilitated.
- Classroom mentoring for staff. We will join in a circle with every class, facilitated by the class teacher, and give constructive feedback. We also give opportunities for staff to ask questions and reflect on their practice.
- Final twilight or half day training. This provides an opportunity to reflect on what has happened during the classroom sessions, and to give further training on particular themes of interest to staff [for example understanding conflict].
- A copy of the book for every year group.
What people say about Learning for Peace
Peacemaker Courses
Eight, weekly sessions to help children learn peacebuilding skills through circle time.
Pupils develop social and communication skills, emotional literacy and techniques for responding to conflict.
Peacemaker courses can bring enhanced focus to a school’s PSHE and SMSC curriculum. The courses teach children skills for life, develop wellbeing and strengthen relationships in the classroom. One trainer works with a class for an afternoon a week. Our trainers are highly experienced and will develop a programme according to the needs of the class, drawing on tried and tested techniques and approaches. Courses are usually 8 weeks. Click on the links below for research to support the need for this work.
Becoming Peacebuilders
A course that builds children’s confidence to build peace themselves. Includes: active listening and communication, building healthy friendships, recognising and naming feelings, understanding conflict and how it escalates, learning to resolve conflict.
Year 6 – up you go!
A course designed especially for Y6. It preps children, socially and emotionally, for their transition into secondary school and helps build confidence. Children learn about safety, making choices, understanding themselves and their identity, recognising their thoughts and feelings and are given space to look ahead to new opportunities. Children have described the course as an ‘adventure into the unknown’.
Peace Explorers – out and about
This course helps nurture peace and wellbeing by helping children explore their thoughts and feelings in the outdoors. The labyrinth is used for reflection and processing, alongside circle games and exploratory team activities. Children learn about cooperation, how being outdoors can help manage ‘big’ emotions, inner peace and health and wellbeing.
RESTORE
This course is restorative in nature and enables a class to spend some nurturing and nourishing time together. All classes can benefit, particularly those experiencing an issue such as a change in staffing, or classroom dynamics, or a wider such as the Covid pandemic. This course will help children recognise what is happening and think ahead to the future. The course follows the RESTORE framework which Peacemakers was integral in developing. See the link below. Children learn to recognise that people respond to situations in different ways, empathise with the different ways in which people respond to things, how to handle their emotions, including big feelings like anger and anxiety, safely, build friendships and look ahead to new opportunities.
What people say about Peacemaker Courses
Click here for a teacher’s reflections on how the Becoming Peacebuilders course impacted two children in her class:
Today there was an incident and to see that he actually didn’t get cross, didn’t have a strop but got on with his work was fantastic.
We don’t get statements like ‘Sam can’t do that’ any more. He is actively participating both in and out of the circle. He is not sitting back.
Peer Mediation Training
Support and training to build a peer mediation service in your school.
Children are trained as mediators to help resolve conflicts on the playground.
Peer mediators are usually Year 5 or 6 pupils who are trained to mediate disputes on the playground. A school mediation service is run by pupils, supported by a member of staff. We train up to 24 pupils over 3 days, in line with the Best Practice Guidelines recommended by the Peer Mediation Network. Lunchtime Supervisors are invited to part of the training. The most successful mediation schemes involve the whole school and are supported by senior leaders, parents and governors.
What’s included?
- Support pack for the school to help prepare pupils and staff for mediation. Click the button below to download.
- Planning meeting to talk through the process and what is involved.
- Training for 24 pupils over 3 full days [this may be reduced to 2 days in schools where pupils have been involved in a Building Peacebuilders course at school].
- Peer Mediation Coordinator included in the whole training [more are welcome].
- Lunchtime supervisors invited to part of the training [usually an hour].
- Optional staff briefing to introduce the service to the wider staff team.
- Certificates for trained mediators.
- Follow up session plans for the Coordinator to support the mediation team once we leave.
What are the benefits?
- Staff spend less time responding to incidents during and after lunch.
- Staff have a greater understanding of students’ experiences and relationships.
- Improved student behaviour and opportunities for classroom dialogue.
- Children develop confidence, social and communication skills.
- Children develop skills for life.
- Children experience the satisfaction of helping their peers.
- Children have an opportunity to resolve conflicts without involving adults.
- Children have the chance to have their point of view heard and understood.
- Children get the chance to find a solution that works for them.
- There is a more peaceful school environment.
- Schools consistently report that mediation appreciably reduces the amount of staff-time responding to student conflicts, while the mediators themselves enjoy the responsibility.
What people say about Peer Mediation
Peer Mediation Network Training Approval
To celebrate the massive achievement of The College of Mediators gaining approval for its training, this video of interviews with fellow members of The College of Mediators and Peer Mediators was made.
Peer Mediation Plus Training
Peer Mediation Plus (PM+) trains the school staff as well as the pupils.
Our extensive experience in-house and shared amongst colleagues around the country through the Peer Mediation Network, demonstrates that Peer Mediation training has the greatest impact when it is supported by adults who understand the values that underpin it, and who echo the language used in classrooms, corridors and playgrounds. Peer Mediation Plus (PM+) therefore trains the school staff as well as the pupils. Our PM+ training is approved by the College of Mediators and Civil Mediation Council (CMC).
What’s included?
PM+ is a package of support for Peer Mediation which takes the work more deeply into the fabric of the school and is designed to maximise the chance of the scheme being sustainable in the longer term. PM+ seeks to address this need from the outset by offering a comprehensive package of support that includes:
- A pupil workshop for the year group from which mediators will be selected. This allows those pupils to fully understand what peer mediation is and what they are volunteering for.
- 3 days of peer mediation training for up to 24 pupils.
- Training for Lunchtime supervisors [2 hours].
- Resources to support the Peer Mediation lead.
- Invitation to join a network of PM leads led by Peacemakers
If you’re interested in PM+ please contact the office to discuss costs and timings.
What are the long-term outcomes?
- Relationships [ie pupil-pupil, staff-staff, staff-pupils, staff-parents] are strengthened in school leading to improved levels of trust and confidence in each other. Relationship between Peacemakers and school is established so we can start the journey towards being a peaceful school.
- Skills – Children develop the skills of mediation and can apply them at school and in their lives. Staff develop a deeper understanding of non-punitive ways of managing conflict, and peace. A shared language is developed between pupils and adults.
- School culture – mediation is reflected in the school’s wider vision with an emphasis on relationships and the modelling of positive behaviour strategies by adults in school.
- Transfer of skills – children who use the mediation service to talk through their conflicts, acquire the language and attitudes modelled by the mediators and this impacts on the wider school community.
- Sustainability - mediation is valued as a key element of a thriving school, with necessary investments made to sustain the project beyond a change in school leadership and beyond our initial funded interventions.
Junior Peacemaker Workshops
Excite and motivate your pupils to build peace at school and/or the local community with a one day Junior Peacemakers workshop.
What are Junior Peacemaker Workshops?
These workshops are for a whole Key Stage 2 year group [up to 3 forms] over a day. You choose the theme and we bring the trainers and resources needed to introduce the theme to your school. Use the day as a springboard for in depth work around the theme after we have left. The days are linked to the UNICEF Rights Respecting Schools Award and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Workshop Themes
Our workshop themes encourage pupils to explore Peace Within [Inner Peace]; Peace Between [Peaceful Relationships] and Peace Throughout [Peaceful Communities]. Choose from:
- Climate Justice
- A Sense of Belonging – Welcoming refugees and asylum seekers
- Creating a Healthy School
- Thinking about WW1 – Choices then and now
- Change Starts with Us – Taking action against bullying
- It’s not Fair – How can we make a difference?
What people say about Junior Peacemaker Workshops
Junior Peacemakers Workshop guide
This resource is available to help you run one of our workshops yourself.
