Mediation in schools - The skipping of a generation

Peer mediation is a conflict resolution tool that schools can use to help children sort out some of their problems on their own.

In this programme, peer mediation expert Gwynne Wilson Brown visits Kingswood Primary School in south London to see how their programme is going.

Gwynne meets up with learning mentor Sarah Harris and they look at a video they filmed when they were first setting up the scheme, discussing selection process. Through the rest of the day, we see:

• A top-up training session, where pupils hone their listening, empathy and trust skills
• Mediators putting their skills to the test and trying to resolve a dispute between two young children
• Mediators from a local secondary school running a workshop for Year 6 pupils

For Kingswood, the road to building their current team has been long and sometimes hard, but they now have a successful and effective group.

Please see link.

It is intriguing because in my experience many lawyers remain fearful of use of mediation but here you are beginning to see mediation being used at a younger level.