SCHOOL MEDIATION

Peer to peer mediation is a powerful tool for keeping the peace in the school yard. Young people are trained in skills for helping their peers to resolve their own problems. It equips the young participants in the program with life skills on conflict management. However, peer to peer mediation is more effective as an element in a greater more holistic and inclusive programme that involves the entire school. We call this more extended programme "School mediation".

School mediation is a method we strongly recommend. Not only has it contributed to strongly reducing the violence in schools in the Norwegian Peace Association's project in Palestine, but also has been shown to have a positive influence on local societies around the schools. (The picture on the left shows girls at Riad Al Aqasa Al Islamay school carrying out a "vulcanoe and shelter" exercise.

تأتي قريبا بالغة العربية...... اذهب الى الموقع بالغة الانجليزية

School mediation is a holistic graded process illustrated by the pyramid below. The whole school gets a basic training in general peace competence or communication skills, often by following a programmes like Lion's Quest's "It's my choice", "Step for Step", or Save the Children's "Nobody excluded", while a chosen year group (often the 5th grade) receive further training in personal conflict management and self-empowerment. From this group of pupils some candidates are picked out to receive special training in third party mediation and then become mediators to help their fellow pupils to resolve their conflicts.

A school that decides to participate in a school mediation program may receive help from us: our partners "Klinsj", an organisation that supplies the Oslo Mediation Services with their school mediation consultants, will happily train both teachers and pupils (usually seventh grade pupils) and, together with the school, draw up a program to evaluate and follow up the process.

You can read more about Klinsj and their courses here , and more about the system of peer to peer mediation in Norway (at present, only in Norwegian) here. You can see some of the exercises used in training for school mediation here, but we strongly recommend that schools wishing to start up school mediation contact the Oslo Mediation Services.

Here are some links you can check out:
• School Mediation Associates here
• University of Florida Peer Mediation Project: here
• He started it! Teachers Guide to Peer Mediation here
• Peer Mediation, Study Guides and Strategies, here

Here are some of the excercises that may be used in the various stages of training of school mediators. All of these exercises have come from Mediation Services Oslo, and you have already met many of them on other pages of this website.

Excercises for School Mediation
NOTE: Workshop facilitators should NOT use the excercises marked with an # without prior training. They are therefore password protected. Please contact us if you would like to use them, babs.sivertsen@nowar.no

Warming up, learning names and preparation:

Energizers ("Light and Lively " exercises - some need coordination, some cooperation, some concentration, some are just plain fun!)

Preparing for role-play:

Cooperation and Reflection (Awareness raising):

Reflecting on conflict:

Rounding off: excercises to conclude with, evaluation exercises.

Documents for School mediation:

Tools and courses

SCHOOL MEDIATION