Abstract:

Research carried out in the Spanish context (e.g. Álvarez, Dobarro, Álvarez, Núñez, Rodríguez, 2014; Cerezo, Sánchez, Ruiz and Arense, 2015; Díaz-Aguado, Martínez and Marín, 2013; Merma, Peiró, Gavilán, 2013) has shown an increase in violence among young people and has identified the presence of problems that affect classroom coexistence and climate. It is estimated that in Europe, in the last five years, between 4% and 10% of adolescents have participated in some situation of violence in the school environment assuming different roles, whether as aggressor, observer or victim, and the latter, without a doubt, is the most vulnerable role. Victimization is generally associated with emotional and behavioural problems and difficulties in relationships and school performance. The victim is affected on a personal, social and academic level, so this situation requires not only adequate and timely intervention, but also prevention mechanisms, especially in schools. Studies such as those carried out by Álvarez-García et al. (2010), Lenhart et al. (2015) Merma, Gavilán y Rico, (2018) and Merma-Molina, Gavilán y Sauleda (2019) show that future teachers have a scarce and general knowledge that prevents them from recognizing and characterizing the problems that affect classroom coexistence, such as addiction to mobile phones and video games, social exclusion, indiscipline, sexting, grooming or gender violence. Taking these studies into account, an initial training programme for the prevention of school violence has been implemented with 250 pupils (31.9 per cent male and 68.1 per cent female) in the first year of the Teacher's Grade in Primary Education. The aim is for future teachers to be able to identify this type of problem that affects the pupils, the classroom and the centre, and to acquire skills related to prevention.

The process of implementing the programme was carried out in the following phases:
- First phase: in a transversal way, and with a theoretical-practical approach, in each learning session, one of the disconvivential variables was developed throughout 8 weeks. The problematic behaviours addressed were: indiscipline, school absenteeism, physical violence, verbal violence, exclusion, gender violence, technological addiction, bullying and cyberbullying, school stress and procrastination.
- Second phase: at the end of the theoretical-practical training period, during the following 3 weeks the students held simulated class sessions in groups of up to 5 participants. Each learning session was oriented to how to prevent a specific disconvivencial factor and was directed to students of the different stages of Primary Education (from first to sixth grade).
- Third phase: at the end of the experience, the level of knowledge of the disconvivential factors of the university students and their perceptions of the experience were assessed. The results show that the students not only have a positive opinion of the programme, but that their conceptual and procedural competences on these problems have improved significantly.

Keywords:

School violence, violence prevention, coexistence, initial training.