26/08/2026
What if we prepared people for conflict before conflict happens?
Recent reports from the ABC and other media outlets about growing aggression and conflict in Australian schools make sobering reading (see bit.ly/ABC-school-conflict).
The Australian Catholic University’s long-running Principal Wellbeing Survey reports that violence against teachers has increased by 80% since 2011, with half of the 2,182 school leaders surveyed experiencing violence in 2024. More than half also reported being threatened with violence, with parents and caregivers frequently responsible for threats made in person, by email or online.
Against this backdrop, the ABC reports on an innovative initiative using an AI-powered robot to help trainee teachers practise difficult conversations with disgruntled parents. Scenarios include accusatory emails, disputes over student behaviour or academic performance, and conversations that become increasingly unreasonable or aggressive.
It is an innovative response. But the fact that this kind of preparation is increasingly needed highlights the pressures being felt across our school communities.
These reports reinforce an important truth: we need to equip people for conflict before conflict happens.
That is a significant part of what PeaceWise seeks to help Christian schools do, equipping people to live as peacemakers and build cultures of peace.
Through PeaceWiseKids and PeaceWiseYouth, students learn practical, age-appropriate ways to understand conflict, take responsibility for their responses, listen well, make wise choices, apologise, forgive and pursue restored relationships.
Through staff training, teachers and leaders develop the same biblical framework and practical tools. Parent training can extend this shared understanding into homes and relationships between families and the school.
Together, this can create something much more powerful than three separate training programs. It builds a common language and framework for navigating conflict across the whole school community, helping students, staff and parents approach difference and difficult conversations in healthy, constructive ways.
For Christian schools, there is an even deeper opportunity. Peacemaking provides a profoundly practical way to integrate faith into everyday school life. Conflict becomes one of the places where students and adults discover what following Jesus looks like in practice, through grace, truth, forgiveness, responsibility and reconciliation.
So perhaps the question is not simply:
“How do we manage conflict when it comes?”
but:
“How are we preparing our people for it before it comes?”
If your school wants to move beyond simply reacting to conflict and intentionally build a community of peacemakers, we’d love to help you explore what that could look like.
To see a beautiful example, why not check out this quick video from Channel Christian School: bit.ly/Channel-Christian
La Trobe University is preparing student teachers with an AI-trained robot called Fletch that has learned common gripes from parents.
