31 January 2008

Senior teacher, Patricia Ann Jones is extremely pleased to have achieved funding support for her ‘Playground Peacemaker’ scheme at Plasnewydd Primary School, Bridgend through the General Teaching Council of Wales’ (GTCW) Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Funding Programme.

Patricia’s scheme is designed to enhance the role and mediation skills of the school playground peacemakers, and to give structure to their role. Incidents in the playground are recorded by the mediators, working in pairs, and the details of these conflicts are stored on file along with weekly review sheets.

Following On Track training with an expert, Patricia undertook ‘circle-time’ sessions with year 6 pupils at the school to introduce the Playground Peacemaker’s rationale. She also observed the training techniques for pupil mediation.

Patricia said; “I found the training given by Lisa Shepherd to be extremely useful. The weekly review meetings with Peacemaker leaders were an important opportunity for me to monitor the success of the scheme. In my role as Senior teacher, I have responsibility for monitoring school projects, of which playground peacemakers has formed a key part. I found the clear aims of peacemaking were helpful and gave pupils taking on this role an added confidence, as well as helping them to develop a key life skill. The activity also helped me to further my understanding of a variety of mediation skills needed to resolve specific types of disagreements between pupils.”

Hayden Lleellyn , Deputy Chief Executive of GTCW, commented: "A significant proportion of the teaching population in Wales has taken advantage of the Council's CPD funding programme. Teachers in Wales take their professional development seriously and we are delighted to be able to help Patricia further her playground peacemaker scheme and develop it within the school”.

GTCW has taken measures to ensure that the CPD funding is as easy as possible for teachers to access. Information and application forms are sent to all eligible teachers and can be downloaded through GTCW's website at www.gtcw.org.uk.

Senior teacher, Patricia Ann Jones is extremely pleased to have achieved funding support for her ‘Playground Peacemaker’ scheme at Plasnewydd Primary School, Bridgend through the General Teaching Council of Wales’ (GTCW) Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Funding Programme.

Patricia’s scheme is designed to enhance the role and mediation skills of the school playground peacemakers, and to give structure to their role. Incidents in the playground are recorded by the mediators, working in pairs, and the details of these conflicts are stored on file along with weekly review sheets.

Following On Track training with an expert, Patricia undertook ‘circle-time’ sessions with year 6 pupils at the school to introduce the Playground Peacemaker’s rationale. She also observed the training techniques for pupil mediation.

Patricia said; “I found the training given by Lisa Shepherd to be extremely useful. The weekly review meetings with Peacemaker leaders were an important opportunity for me to monitor the success of the scheme. In my role as Senior teacher, I have responsibility for monitoring school projects, of which playground peacemakers has formed a key part. I found the clear aims of peacemaking were helpful and gave pupils taking on this role an added confidence, as well as helping them to develop a key life skill. The activity also helped me to further my understanding of a variety of mediation skills needed to resolve specific types of disagreements between pupils.”

Hayden Lleellyn , Deputy Chief Executive of GTCW, commented: "A significant proportion of the teaching population in Wales has taken advantage of the Council's CPD funding programme. Teachers in Wales take their professional development seriously and we are delighted to be able to help Patricia further her playground peacemaker scheme and develop it within the school”.

GTCW has taken measures to ensure that the CPD funding is as easy as possible for teachers to access. Information and application forms are sent to all eligible teachers and can be downloaded through GTCW's website at www.gtcw.org.uk.