Expert Insights - An Educator's Guide to Having Difficult Conversations

In education we have all seen an almost exponential rise in the expectations and demands from parents and families in the last few years. This has led to a landscape often characterised by tension and conflict with some families. ‘Tricky Conversations With Families’ is designed to provide a context to this developing challenge as well as offering principles and approaches which can stop situations escalating.

It begins with understanding why families sometimes react as they do and common pitfalls school staff can encounter along the way. We then cover how to organise meetings and conversations as well as understanding the power of verbal and non verbal communication. Through this we can restore and build more constructive relationships with even some of our most tricky families.

Facilitated by Keith Bates who has been in education for thirty years, most recently working as Director of Inclusion in a MAT. He has always worked in the areas of behaviour and inclusion, with an initial background in secondary education.

Within his role as Director of Inclusion, Keith worked with eighteen schools across primary, secondary and special education. During that time, all the primary schools in the Trust saw a drop in their numbers of suspensions and exclusions when compared to previous years. All secondary and special schools remained below national averages.

Keith has based his career on the concept of inclusive education and, even in this most challenging of education landscapes, he believes we can all be more successful for the children we work with.

We hope that you will be able to join us for this session.