At CRESST, we know that no two schools are the same and neither are their Peer Mediation programmes. That’s why we’re sharing success stories from schools we’ve worked with across the UK.
These short case studies are designed to celebrate the dedication and creativity of schools that have introduced Peer Mediation with CRESST’s support. They offer a snapshot of what’s working well, how challenges are being met, and practical ideas that might support your approach.
There’s no one-size-fits-all model, but we hope these examples give you useful insights, and demonstrate how, with the right support, young people can resolve conflict peacefully.
School Profile: Elmwood Junior School
- School age range: 7-11
- Peer Mediation est.: 2023/4
- Mediators trained: 24 Y5 and Y6 pupils
Elmwood first began working with CRESST in November 2023. 24 students took part in the initial two-day Peer Mediation training and a workshop for staff was delivered to support the programme. In 2024, a new cohort of peer mediators also received training, helping to grow and sustain the scheme within the school.
How Peer Mediation works at Elmwood Junior School:
Peer mediation schemes often work with a single coordinator who gets the scheme up and running, monitors its progress, and supports the children through any challenges. At Elmwood, the headteacher, Chris Marston, believes strongly in the value of peer mediation and has appointed three staff leaders to support this programme. This, and the fact that teachers use it to help resolve their own conflicts, means that it is deeply embedded in the school culture.
Following the initial training, mediators introduced the scheme at assemblies for all year groups. They followed up with visits to individual classrooms to personalise the scheme and reinforce its value among the whole school community.
Once the children had familiarised themselves thoroughly with the GLIDE script, they were able to simplify it. In 2025, they had lanyards created with reminder text featuring three basic points: What’s the problem, Remember to echo back and Ask what ideas disputants have to make things better. Peer mediators go up to the adult on playground duty and introduce themselves at the start of each work session.
The school has invited parents for a cup of tea and a chat to look at how they can reinforce the approach at home. This is a recent development, and while teachers reported finding it hard to get parents/guardians to come in for this reason, they were also keen to explore the potential for parent/guardian engagement further.
What has been the impact?
16 children who trained as peer mediators completed questionnaires after the training:
- 100% enjoyed the sessions, felt ready and were eager to become peer mediators.
- Three-quarters of them said it had made a ‘difference to them as a person.’
When a follow-up visit took place three months later:
- More than three-quarters said being a peer mediator had changed them as a person, with reasons given including that they were more calm, confident and better at listening.
- Pupils cited being able to ‘help people’ as what was best about being a peer mediator and that they felt more confident about handling conflicts in their own lives.
- 88% of the peer mediators reported that they’d seen at least some changes in their school because of peer mediation, including ‘people getting along more’, ‘fewer fights’ and ‘less things taken to teachers’.
On a follow-up visit from CRESST in June 2025 we spoke with around 12 mediators. Seeing how they’d adapted the scheme it was clear that they had the confidence and skills to interpret it flexibly to benefit the maximum number of pupils. For example, while they stuck to the principle of not mediating one disputant, they shared an example of where one disputant was messing around and the other really wanted mediation. In that instance, they sent away the disputant who wasn’t engaged, letting them know that they could return at another time, and offered care and comfort to the one who was upset. In other words, between mediating and not mediating they found a space for care and connection.
Children also reported using their skills at home – asking siblings if they wanted to sort things out together or speak to an adult – and on the football field, where the mediator was able to identify the issues and ringleaders and carry out a mediation away from the wider group. One pupil mentioned that it was important for her to learn emotional deregulation skills to support her transition to secondary school.
What has been challenging?
One teacher pointed out that it was difficult to evidence the success of peer mediation. This is partly because it is so well-integrated into the school that it is hard to isolate the impact of the scheme from the effect of the school’s wider values and ‘everyone’s a leader’ approach.
CRESST aims to capture before and after data and is happy to share this with schools alongside the anecdotal evidence gained during the end-of-year review. At Elmwood, teachers reported that the difference in the young people was clear to see.
Student Perspectives:
“I think it worked perfectly last year. We had a lot of children coming to us, recognising us in the playground with our high vis jackets. It felt good to support others especially when we helped support disputants to resolve their conflict or compromise with each other. I really enjoy being a peer mediator. I am really excited about helping other people resolve their problems again this year. We are helping to train new peer mediators.”
Staff Reflections:
Miss Elliott, ELSA (Emotional Literacy Support Assistant)
“I have been supporting the peer mediators since the start of the training. Peer mediation has had a positive impact across the school as not only does it give children the opportunity to independently provide support to resolve conflict with the learnt skills, adults also have the opportunity to use the skills themselves across the school, handing back to children the opportunity to problem solve conflict independently. Actively listening and asking open questions are two of the key skills children have learned.
As an ELSA, I use the peer mediation skills throughout the day, both on the playground and during ELSA sessions. In my opinion, there has not been anything negative; giving children the opportunity to resolve and support conflict has an amazing impact and sense of achievement. We have adapted the GLIDE process to save time during mediation however, the process remains the same.
I have also used the skills in adult situations out of school which have ended positively, using the process to work through conflict. The main point for me is, it works. We have begun a new school year with very enthusiastic peer mediators with our previous mediators supporting the training. All are looking forward to using their skills.”
Top Tips:
Get Everyone Involved: For peer mediation to succeed, the whole school community needs to understand and support it. Find ways to explain both the purpose and process, through assemblies, staff meetings, newsletters, or displays so that staff, pupils and parents know what it is, why it matters and how to support the scheme.
Meet Regularly with Your Peer Mediators: Regular check-ins keep your mediators confident and committed. Use these sessions to troubleshoot challenges, offer encouragement and practice key skills. Even short, informal meetings can make a big difference.
Share the Skills Beyond the Team: At Elmwood, peer mediators, supported by staff, helped deliver conflict resolution skills in PSHE lessons across the school. This raised awareness, gave all pupils useful tools and helped reinforce the value of the mediation scheme.
Build an Adult Support Team: Coordinating peer mediation can be time-consuming and hard to sustain alone. At Elmwood, three staff members share the coordination role, helping to spread the workload and provide consistent support. Just as important is the full and active backing of the senior leadership team, which helps embed the scheme into the school’s wider culture and priorities.
See Hurdles as Learning Opportunities: Elmwood Junior experienced dips in enthusiasm, especially among older pupils, and challenges with the location and visibility of their mediators and mediation space. Each time, they regrouped with staff and students to reflect, adapt, and try new approaches. They also found it helpful to seek ideas and support through regular attendance at CRESST’s half-termly Peer Mediation Coordinators Forum, connecting with others facing similar challenges and CRESST staff. These hurdles are part of the change process, not signs of failure of the scheme.
What to know more or share your successes?
If you’d like to find out more about Peer Mediation training or are interested in having your school featured in a future CRESST Success Story, please contact Rob Unwin, Programme Director at admin@cresst.org.uk or send a message using our Contact form.
The Peer Mediator Coordinators’ Forum is an informal, half-termly online drop-in for staff supporting peer mediation in schools. It’s a great chance to share ideas, ask questions, and connect with others doing similar work. Keep an eye on your emails for dates or get in touch to make sure you’re on the list!
]]>Cresst is now offering creative conflict resolution workshops for university staff.
]]>“I’ve been a trustee of CRESST; and through school, my son is a CRESST peer mediator. Peer mediation training is one part of CRESST’s work with schools, all aimed to support young people in “doing conflict well”. It seems obvious that at present, we would all benefit from seeking to create a more peaceful future; and all of CRESST’s work would benefit from your support.”
To find out more and/or to contribute visit his Just Giving Page
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After receiving a four star award from Teach Primary Awards in the Citizenship category in 2018, we are delighted to have been shortlisted again, but now for our secondary school resource. Last time, we closely missed out on the five star award after being taken over by a government publication!
This year, we are running against many other strong resources and the shortlisted resources include:
- The Student Voice – The Student Voice Contextual Safeguarding Tool
- Jigsaw PSHE – Jigsaw PSHE
- Teachappy Ltd – Staff wellbeing and self-care in schools
- INEQE – Healthy Online Relationships
- The National College – Certificate in the Role of the Senior Mental Health Lead
- National Online Safety – Certified School Programme
- CRESST – KS3 PSHE Lessons: Curious About Conflict
- Jessica Kingsley Publishers – 10 Minutes to Better Mental Health
There are some great judges on the panel for secondary resources this year and Ann Marie Christian as the judge for our category, Health and Wellbeing.
Thank you to everyone who supported these lessons being created, in particularly, Jenny Owen for spending so much time creating them.
Best of luck to all organisations who submitted recourse for the awards this year!
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Do you spend valuable learning time after lunch dealing with playground conflict?
Would you like your pupils to learn better ways to handle fallouts and sustain friendships?
Are midday supervisors spending time listening to disputes rather than promoting play?
Would you like a more peaceful school where children develop lifelong skills?
Structure
Join us to hear from one of CRESST’s trainers about what peer mediation is, and how it can overcome the barriers to education caused by everyday low-level conflict in schools.
Conflict Resolution
CRESST’s vision is to empower the next generation of children and young people with the skills needed to manage non-violent conflict constructively. Our aim is not to eliminate conflict, which we see as inevitable in everyday life, but to reduce the hurt and harm caused when it escalates badly. We deliver workshops and group work sessions, using lively and participative training methods, to help children and young people learn conflict resolution schools in their schools and community. We help set up volunteer mediation or conflict coaching schemes where young people guide each other, especially younger ones, to resolve disputes and friendship fallouts.
Interested?
Fill in your details on the form at the bottom of this page, and we will get back to you shortly with details on how to access the event nearer the time. Alternatively send us an email for more information by clicking here.
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Training peer mediators in primary schools has been CRESST’s core work since we first started in 2004 – and that’s a lot of peer mediator training! We’ve worked with 75 primary schools, many of which have continued to run Peer Mediation schemes themselves, training children each year to take on the role of helping younger children to resolve their playground disputes.
Recently, we’ve been working with our Sheffield University partnership PhD student to examine the evaluation data from the past five years to understand the bigger picture of the difference that CRESST makes with our training.
Peer mediators are trained to help other children handle conflict well. They can enable people to maintain friendships by understanding what’s happened in a falling out and work out together how they’d like to move on from it. CRESST provides this within a whole school approach, offering training sessions for other children to understand more about conflict, and information sessions for staff, parents and governors too.
543 children trained and ready to be peer mediators
Our peer mediation training is based on a two-day interactive programme, which helps children to understand more about conflict and how people respond to conflict. It trains them in a simple mediation process and develops their listening and questioning skills to provide skilled interactions to help other children resolve their own disputes.
After each training programme, we ask the participants to complete a simple evaluation questionnaire. After our training almost everyone said they’d valued the training:
99.1% felt ready to be a peer mediator
99.5% had enjoyed the training
98.7% were looking forward to being a peer mediator
We also asked whether they felt the training had made a difference to them as a person and 89.9% said yes. Staff report children having more confidence and being more responsible:
“The children who’ve done the training are much more confident, not only in themselves but in their ability to change things, to make things happen.”
And children report the same:
“I’m always seeing it on the news about people who change the world and make it a better place and so I wanted to change the school and make it a better place.”
70% of participants gave us a 5 out of 5 score for the training, with a further 25% giving us 4 out of 5. We were interested to discover that we got our highest scores in deprived areas. Have a look at our infographic to find out more.
Training for teaching staff and lunchtime supervisors
As part of our whole school approach, we also provide training sessions for staff. Feedback from them tells us that they also overwhelmingly enjoyed the training, understood the peer mediator role and would refer playground disputes to peer mediators in the future. This understanding and support from staff is key to the success of a peer mediator scheme.
Find out more
We’re delighted to have such positive findings from our training and have created this simple infographicto share the news. Or if you would like more in-depth information about the impact of training as a peer mediator on children and in schools, then why not check out some of the feedback we’ve received from children and staff involved in this project in the video below.
For over fifteen years, CRESST has been working with schools, developing practical models to enable children, young people and adults to manage conflict constructively. If you’d like to get our regular update on Handling conflict well, why not join our mailing list? You can sign up here.
For example, getting the washing up done can cause arguments between people who live together. But once there’s an agreed method for fair turn taking – and it’s kept to! – it’s probably no longer viewed as a source of conflict.
Different people, different ways
Different people will want to deal with conflictdifferently – sometimes dealing with conflict can be a source of conflict! It’s important to remember that the other person might have a different understanding about the problem and how to resolve it. One thing’s for sure, when you’re feeling wound up, you’re not going to be at your most receptive to listening to the other person or thinking creatively about solutions.
These are all complex behaviours and it can be difficult to remember all the learning you’ve done to understand how to handle conflict well. CRESST works to empower children and young people to learn handle conflict well. We offer training and resources for the adults who work with them to introduce key skills and knowledge to support positive communication and realistic strategies for handling conflict in ways that won’t cause hurt or harm.
Lessons accredited by the PSHE Association
CRESST have developed a six-lesson series Curious about Conflict, which has been accredited by the PSHE Association for use with secondary age pupils. The lessons are based on our experience of working with schools for nearly twenty years. You can find out more about these lessons here.
The full series (6 lessons, slides, video and all resources) are available on our website for free until the 18th April.
For nearly twenty years, CRESST has been working with schools, developing practical models to enable children, young people and adults to manage conflict constructively. If you’d like to get our regular update on Handling conflict well, why not join our mailing list? You can sign up here.
]]>But anyone who has ever been angry or upset with a friend or family member knows that it can be hard to keep listening when you don’t like what the other person has to say. We don’t always feel like being curious about their perspective when it’s different from ours. If we’re feeling hurt by someone else’s words or actions, it can be difficult to be generous. And all of these challenges can block our willingness to try and be friends again.
Peer mediators are trained to help other children overcome these challenges. They can enable people to maintain friendships by understanding what’s happened in a falling out and work out together how they’d like to move on from it. For a peer mediation scheme to work, it’s important that the whole school unites with supporting positive ways to handle conflict well.
Everyone can learn about handling conflict well
At the moment, schools aren’t able to offer peer mediation because of the constraints of lockdown and operating in bubbles. CRESST is looking forward to the time when this work will be possible again, and we’ve used the time to review and develop our lessons on understanding conflict. When CRESST works with a school to train mediators, we always take a whole school approach, offering training to teachers, governors, support staff and parents, as well as to the pupils themselves.
Our introductory lessons for Y5 and Y6 introduce skills and knowledge for handling conflict well, including:
- Understanding conflict and knowing more about your emotions
- How conflict escalates
- Different responses to conflict
- Listening skills
- Questioning skills
New lessons, new activities, new opportunities
Providing these lessons to a year group, and associated training for adults, offers the chance for everyone to gain more understanding about how to listen, be curious, be generous and try to be friends again. It’s the first step in setting up a peer mediation scheme. After the lessons some children are selected to have the extra training to learn how to be a peer mediator, to bring people together to sort out everyday conflicts.
We’re excited about our updated and revised lesson plans. We’re looking forward to getting back into schools again. Until that’s possible we’re sharing many of our resources for free and finding new ways to offer support and information in different ways. Have a look on our website to find out more or follow us on Twitter to be the first to know about new opportunities.
For nearly twenty years, CRESST has been working with schools, developing practical models to enable children, young people and adults to manage conflict constructively. If you’d like to get our regular update on Handling conflict well, why not join our mailing list? You can sign up here.
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