The Sundial School, in collaboration with the PEACE IS Foundation, has kicked off its Peaceable School Project. The Peaceable School Project is a comprehensive program for teaching conflict resolution. Through the conflict resolution strategies of mediation, negotiation, and group problem solving, students learn to recognize, manage, and resolve conflicts in peaceful, noncoercive ways. The central vision of the program is the creation of a peaceable climate, an understanding of conflict and of peace, and the means of resolution through communication. Sundial becomes the second secondary school to launch this project, following St. Maarten Academy at the start of the 2015/16 school year.
Mr. Davis, Social Worker at the Sundial School, explained that a key consideration by the school when they decided to launch this program was the Peaceful Schools Project Report that was released by Student Support Services in 2010 following extensive research across the school community. The report gave a high-level view of safety, violence and attitudes towards them in schools. “To me, the most glaring data coming out of that study is the fact that over 90% of our students do NOT rule out violence as a good way to deal with conflicts. That’s a problem”, said Mr. Davis, who is also the coordinator for the pilot project at Sundial School.
PEACE IS Foundation sponsored the materials for the Peaceable School Project, including student manuals and program guides for teachers. The Foundation will continue to support Sundial in the implementation of this project.