Jacqueline Darbyshire
301 Communication and professional relationships with children, young people and adults.
2.5 Explain how to manage disagreements with children, young people and adults.

Children

When I was doing playground duty a group of children came up to me and said “Mrs D, S doesn’t want to play with us”, knowing that this group of children normally play nicely with each other I thought this was out of character and decided to call S to find out what was wrong.
Get down to eye level and listen: Firstly I made myself approachable and got down to their level and asked why had they fallen out and why sh didn’t want to play with her friends. She said that she didn’t feel like playing with anyone and just wanted to be alone.
Reacting and commenting: I sympathised with them but also explained to them that it’s nice when we play together but sometimes people just want some time to be alone. I asked the girls whom wanted to play to go and play nicely together and maybe if S saw them having fun then maybe she would want to go over and join in with them.

Young People:

S came over to me on Tuesday morning and said that M said that” she didn’t want to speak to her ever again”. I asked why and she said that she had borrowed a pen from her and that she didn’t give it back and that this pen belonged to her big brother. I then called for M.
Listen: When M came over both girls started to argue between each other, I gave both of them a chance to speak.
Be Sympathetic: I told the girls that there are two sides to every story and rather than jumping in and passing judgement on each other, they should have thought about the reasons about why their friendship should be put on the line over something so trivial.
Resolve: I told both girls that I thought that they had both been rather silly and that they had made each other upset unnecessarily and that I thought that it was time to apologise to each other. Upon this they both agreed said sorry, then hugged each other and that was the end of the disagreement.

Adults:
A parent approached me and said that she believed that her child had been moved down levels within the home reading scheme and wasn’t very happy with this as they think it has been a wrong move and wanted them to be put back into the level they had been in since