Category Archives: Responsible Roles

Primary 7, Responsible Roles, Uncategorized

Playful Pal Training

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It is the end of another term and it is time for the P7’s to hang up their safety jackets and pass on the responsible roles to the P6’s. On Monday all of the P7 Playful Pals were involved in training the P6’s for their upcoming year of taking on their roles. It was a fun packed morning and all of the P7’s were responsible for creating a programme that would fully equip the P6’s in their roles. The P7’s took 2 mornings to create their programme and had to think of things that would fully involve everyone and make sure that the P6’s understood the role of a Playful Pal and what this actually involves, and of course there was some fun along the way.

The morning started off with a bit of first aid training and the children learning basic first aid of putting a bandage on and how to stem a wound. Things got a bit more serious when the CPR dummy came out and the children got the opportunity to try out some life saving skills. I would feel safe in any of their hands now!!!  Once the children had completed their first aid training it was time to hand it over to the P7,s. First on the agenda was a short video letting the P6’s know exactly what the Playful Pals do in the playground and a short expectations power point. Next was on to some team building games, the P7’s really thought about what games would bring the children together as a team. In order for the P6’s to experience what scenarios they might come across in the playground, part of their training involved role play situations. Finally our new Playful Pals had to write a job description for their role and after all of their training they were able to pinpoint the skills required for their new position.

Overall the P7’s put on a great programme to train our new Playful Pals and the P6’s had a great learning experience. The P6’s are now fully equipped to take on their new roles.

Good luck in your new roles.

I hope you all have a fantastic holiday and stay safe.

 

Miss Anderson

 

Achievements, Events, Health & Wellbeing, Primary 7, Responsible Roles, Uncategorized

Magical Mediators receive WL Stellar Award!

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On Friday afternoon the Magical Mediators and their parents/ carers were invited along to the West Lothian Stellar Awards at Howden Park Centre where they received the winning award for Responsible Citizens.

The information below details why these group of pupils were nominated for the award and the impact they have had on the school and themselves. A big Congratulations to all the Magical Mediators for this huge achievement, we are very proud of them.

https://www.westlothian.gov.uk/article/13221/Spotlight-on-pupils-at-Stellar-Awards

  • How the outcome was achieved, were there barriers, new ideas, teamwork etc.

Over two years as a Senior Management Team we recognised that we were having ongoing issues in the playground. As part of a way to address the issues we introduced Responsible Roles for Primary 7 pupils which included:

  • Playful Pals: They have the responsibility of teaching younger pupils playground games, looking after the playground equipment and ensuring children are not on their own at break and lunch times.
  • Safe Security: They have the responsibility of ensuring the playground area and toilets areas safe and pupils are using the facilities responsibility.
  • Magical Mediators: They operate a peer mediation programme which helps pupils solve disputes in the playground through a coaching programme.

The Primary 7 pupils filled out an application form and were allocated a role depending on their knowledge, skills and qualities, they then underwent training for their specific role.

  • Who was involved/ affected – those involved, those supporting, those who benefitted.

Initially the Magical Mediators were trained along with St. Ninian’s Primary by the Scottish Mediation Network, the pupils now run their own training programme. They work in partnership with the pupil support workers and are supported by the depute head teacher. The Magical Mediator service is offered to P1-7 pupils. Our Magical Mediators are still in regular contact with the Scottish Mediation Network, who have written case studies about our programme to share our learning with others.

  • What was learned.

The Magical Mediators help our pupils become independent by helping them develop conflict resolution skills there preparing them with skills for learning, life and work. Pupils in the school have become more solution orientated by trying to solve their own problems first before asking an adult for help.

The Magical Mediators programme has impacted hugely on their Primary 7 leadership skills as they have responsibility for leading and developing the programme. They have developed their communication skills in a number of ways from promoting and advertising the service through Assemblies, promotion videos and our school blog to how they communicate with the pupils who use their service. They have developed resilience and problem solving skills in order to independently  overcome difficult situations. They have also developed their organisation skills by

  • What makes the achievement/project/group/individual special.

Our Magical Mediators have represented our school and West Lothian at the Scottish Medication Conference and more recently they were asked to share our journey to schools across Scotland at the Scottish Young Talks Conference.  At this conference they received an award from the Scottish Mediation in recognition for our Outstanding Contribution to Peer Mediation in Scotland by a School.

  • What are the lasting impacts of the achievement/project etc.

Our Magical Mediators continue to have a lasting impact on the health and wellbeing of the pupils in our school. It is a sustainable programme, as the Primary 7 pupils have developed training workshops to  train the new magical mediators each year. We regularly support the Scottish Mediation Network with their research and have appeared in their Young Talks Magazine several times.

You can find out more about our Magical Mediators on our blog:

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/wl/mcps/?s=magical+mediators&searchsubmit=

Achievements, Events, Health & Wellbeing, News, Primary 7, Responsible Roles, Uncategorized

Magical Mediators Receive Scottish School Award

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Today the Magical Mediators were invited to attend the Young Talks Conference at Dundee University organised by the Scottish Mediation Network.

We listened to presentations from Tam Baillie (The Children and Young People’s Commissioner in Scotland), Nick Patel (a Mediation Magician) and from people who have a full time career in Mediation. We also attended two different workshops.

We were one of two schools who were asked to share our peer mediation journey. Keira, Anna, Sean and Caitlin presented at the school’s showcase to over 100 participants.

We took part in a Skype video chat with a school in America, it was interesting to see how peer mediation operates in another country. We also watched a video about peer mediation in Scotland and it was lovely to see our P7 peer mediators from last year.

The biggest surprise of all was when we received the award for our Outstanding Contribution to Peer Mediation in Scotland by a School and the prize of a free mediation training session from Jeremy Scuse (the managing director at Catalyst Mediation Ltd).

We our so proud of our Magical Mediators, both from last session and this session and all their achievements – congratulations!

Achievements, Events, Health & Wellbeing, Primary 7, Responsible Roles

Peer Mediation Conference 2016

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Due to the ongoing success of our Magical Mediator programme, our Magical Mediators have been invited along to attend and present at the Young Talk Conference at Dundee University. Unfortunately due to limited spaces all our Magical Mediators are not able to attend, to ensure everyone felt included we created a video as part of our presentation.

Programme for Young Talk Conference 2016 

Primary 7, Responsible Roles

Visit from Scottish Mediation

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The Primary 7 Magical Mediators had a meeting today with Roxan from the Scottish Mediation to discuss our Magical Mediators process. The discussed the benefits to the pupils at school and in the real world. They also discussed potential difficulties and how they overcame them. Roxan was very complimentary about our Magical Mediators and how they were a great asset to the school.

Photos and videos to follow!

Events, Health & Wellbeing, Primary 7, Responsible Roles, Transition

Responsible Roles: Magical Mediator Training

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There was a lot of excitement in the upper area this morning as the Primary 6s found out their Responsible Roles which they will start in term 4 of P6 and into P7. Each Primary 6 pupil completed a job application form, which were of a very high standard and were then allocated an appropriate role dependent on their skills, qualities and experiences.

The Primary 7 pupils with the support of Miss Burton put together a training session for the new P6 Magical mediators. They started with a job description and an overview of what the job required. We then took part in a selection of community builders which helped us to focus on the skills and qualities needed to be a mediator, and which also put us in the role of the disputants. Following this we went through the 5 stages of a mediation and the Primary 7s showed us a mediation scenario, then we had time to try out our own scenarios with the Primary 7s supporting us. Finally we ended with a question and answer session, the Primary 7 pupils offered a lot of very useful advice.

Thank you so much to the Primary 7s for training us and we are looking forward to our work experience shadowing opportunity in the new term.

Here is the Magical Mediators training video that the P7s made:

Achievements, Events, Health & Wellbeing, Junior Leadership Teams, Outside of School, Primary 7, Responsible Roles

Magical Mediators @ Scottish Mediation Conference

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Six of our Magical Mediators were invited along to the Scottish Mediation Conference on Friday. It was a school trip with a difference, as we had to get two trains in order to get to Queen Margaret University, and our day started at 7:45am, some of us felt a little sleepy!

We managed to fit in some numeracy work, as we had to calculate how much money we needed at the shop, and we used our prior learning to calculate the duration until our train arrived. We bumped into Carol Hope our Peer Mediation trainer at the platform at Waverly and we got the train to Musselburgh together.

First of all we listened to a keynote from Kenneth Kressel from the Psychology of Mediation. Some of it was a litte bit difficult to understand but it allowed us to reflect on what time of mediator we are. It also was our first time in a huge lecture theatre (and university).

We then attended a workshop with Mediator Magician Nick Patel (who has worked with the famous Magician Dynamo). He reminded us of all the important skills and knowledge we need to be a mediator, while showing us some tricks. In the second workshop we discussed the challenges and solutions to peer mediation being sustainable in our schools, here we had the opportunity to share our magical mediators story and learn from other schools.

On the way home we reflected on the day, some of us thought it was ‘The best day ever!’. Our next steps are to share this event with the other magical mediators and discuss as a group how we can develop the magical mediators service. A big thank you to Roxan and Carol for inviting us to this event, and to our parents for dropping us at the train station. Miss Burton said we demonstrated excellent communication skills and that we represented MCPS in a positive way.

mediators

 

Roxan the  Peer Mediation Network Coordinator send an email to say:

So glad to hear your pupils enjoyed it – it was such a great, positive day! Your pupils were all so lovely, clever, motivated, and talented and it was our pleasure to have them there. Nick was also very very impressed with the peer mediators, and said it reflects very well on their teachers and trainers! The rest of the conference delegates were also delighted with the presence of the young people. Overall, it was a very happy day! Thank you so much for joining us.