1

Demonstrate strategies and techniques to promote

understanding and trust in communication with children

and young people

The main strategies that promote understanding and trust when you communicate with

children and young people are simple and straightforward. What's more, you are

already well-versed in their use, so all of this should make a great deal of sense to

you.

Good listening skills

One of the most important aspects of good communication is the ability to stop talking

and listen properly. Active listening is a valuable skill to have, and if you know you are

a 'talker' and are not so good at listening, you should include active listening in your

reflective practice, examining how well you feel you listened when children talked to

you throughout the day, and thinking about how you might improve your skills.

There are lots of aspects of active listening, and they all feed into the same result:

better communication. Active listening means that although you do not say anything

much, what communication you do present, backs up the fact that you are listening.

For example, you may check your own understanding of what is said to you, by

repeating back what has been said to you, in your own words. For example: 'So let

me get this straight. When you went to the park yesterday, there was a big dog on

the swing?'

Active listening also means making encouraging noises in appropriate places,

nodding at the 'right' times, and presenting attentive, interested body language, so

that the child or children can see that you are listening.

2

Promote understanding and trust in communication with children and young people.

To assume makes an ass out of you and me

Assumptions are not a good idea in any context, whether that is in business, in a

school, or even working in healthcare. You cannot guarantee that you know

everything about a person, and because of that, it is important not to assume that

they know what you mean when you say something, or that you fully understand

them either.

Assumptions do tend to cause miscommunication, because the nature of an

assumption is an unspoken guess about something. That means when you work with

children and young people, if you have to give instructions or support around a task,

one of the most important things you need to do is to check their understanding. It is

vital that everyone understands exactly what is meant, in order for successes to take

place in a school environment, so double-checking this can be done in a variety of

ways and is never a waste of time.

3

Checking understanding

You will probably by now have many approaches that help you check the

understanding of the children and young people with whom you work. These may be

through asking them open questions about what they are doing, during an activity.

For example, 'so what are you looking for in the petri dish?'

You can also check understanding by asking them why they think they are doing the

task they have been assigned, or ask more questions around the purpose and point

of the activity, so that it is easier to establish the depth of their understanding.

If you find that their understanding is limited or has missed the point, you then have

an opportunity to clarify the issue and ensure that they have a better view of the

situation.

Did you know?

Various claims have been made over the last 50 years about the importance of non-

verbal communication. It is said to be as much as 93% of all communication, although

this figure has been repeatedly revised by various experts. Whatever the actual figure,

it is universally agreed that although non-verbal communication tends to be culture-

specific, it is also extremely important to ensuring adequate communication and the

task of communicating without the non-verbal stuff is very difficult indeed.

Pulling together the information Summarising the information or instructions so that pupils understand them better is

one way in which you can pull together the information they know. They are told the

long form by the teacher in the initial stages of the activity; however, sometimes this

can be too much information for children to take in, so it helps to be able to

summarise it and break it down into key points so that they can more easily see what

is needed. In some cases it may be helpful to write the key points on the board, while

in others you may be able to more easily do this by talking directly to small groups.