Session 4: Peace among us

Introduction

‘Peace among us’ is concerned with developing schools as learning communities where each member can thrive. This includes staff as well as the children and young people, and can extend to families and the wider community over time.

Developing a whole school approach to peace among us can be a daunting task, so it is helpful for schools to explore the range of initiatives and approaches that are available. This session looks at peer mediation and UNICEF’s Rights Respecting Schools programme. However, other approaches are available. For example, there is a Schools of Sanctuary scheme for schools wishing to understand and support children and young people who are forced to flee their homes, and the Peace Schools scheme run by the Welsh Centre for International Affairs which offers a range of resources to support schools in Wales on their peace journey. Links to both these schemes are provided in the Course resources and recommendations pages of this course.

By the end of this session, you should be able to:

• consider what peace might mean within your school community
• understand the core principles of peer mediation and its place in peaceful communities
• extend your understanding of QCEA’s Peace Competencies
• develop an overview of UNICEF’s Rights Respecting Schools programme.

Start with this video where Ellis introduces the session.

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Transcript: Video 1

ELLIS

Welcome to Session 4 where you’ll be looking at peace among us. This relates to inter-personal peace, but we’ll be thinking about it more in terms of a community – particularly a school community, although many of the ideas are transferrable to other settings.

Communities develop shared ideas and behaviours – cultures of their own. How can we infuse that culture with peace? How can you do that in a way that encourages children and young people to be the peacebuilders in their community?

It’s useful to think in terms of a whole school approach – how does everything work together in a school community?

An example approach you’ll look at in this session is peer mediation – conflict resolution for young people by young people. Often we assume an adult has to address every conflict children encounter, and as we saw in Session 3, we teach children they need to seek an authority figure. Sometimes they will need that kind of help, but often, young people are best placed to be peacemakers in their community, given the right support. Peer mediators are one way to put this into action, not just learning about peace but putting into practice as part of community life.

You’ll also begin thinking about peace among us from the perspective of children and their rights. Lots of UK schools are UNICEF Rights Respecting Schools. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child includes the right to education, to freedom from abuse, as well as the right to play. It also crucially says children have the right to be listened to. In this session you’ll be introduced to what this means and what it might look like in a rights respecting school. You’ll start to ask questions like How do schools develop a community culture in which students not only understand these rights, but live them out? How can every member of the school community build peace in your school?

End transcript: Video 1

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As you work through this session, think about what you could do within your sphere of influence in your school community. Whatever your role in the school – whether parent, meals supervisor, class teacher, headteacher – you might use this session to think about what you could do to help develop ‘peace among us’ in your community.