Problem / need / context
At a Further Education and Training (FET) centre in County Galway, trainers delivering a QQI Level 5 Early Childhood Care and Education programme began noticing a persistent challenge among their learner group. The cohort included recent school leavers, returning adult learners, and a number of learners from non-English-speaking backgrounds who had recently arrived in Ireland. While most demonstrated enthusiasm for working with children, many found it difficult to communicate effectively in the demanding interpersonal context of early years practice — both with the children in their care and with the parents, colleagues, and supervisors they encountered during placement.
Placement supervisors reported that some learners struggled to settle children who were distressed, defaulting to scripted phrases rather than responding to the individual child in front of them. Others found it difficult to give constructive feedback to a colleague or to raise a concern with a room leader without the conversation becoming tense. A number of learners also reported low confidence in their ability to engage parents in meaningful conversation at drop-off and collection times — a routine but high-stakes interaction in early years settings. In some cases, this lack of relational confidence was affecting learner retention, with two learners having withdrawn from placement during the previous academic year citing anxiety about interpersonal demands.
These observations pointed clearly to a need to develop the transversal skill of Motivational and Relational Communication — defined as the ability to build trust, maintain engagement, and communicate clearly and respectfully with learners in vocational contexts. In early childhood care and education, this skill is foundational: a practitioner’s ability to build rapport, respond to emotional cues, de-escalate tension, and sustain positive relationships directly affects the quality of care they provide. Trainers recognised that this skill could not be developed through theory alone, and that learners needed structured, low-stakes opportunities to practise and reflect on their communication within the training environment itself.
Intervention
In response, the programme co-ordinator and two module trainers designed a short intervention called “Conversation in Practice,” embedded across three weekly sessions of the Communications and Professional Practice module. The intervention was developed in consultation with two local crèche managers who acted as expert advisors, sharing examples of the kinds of communication challenges that arise most frequently in early years settings in the Galway area.
Each session centred on a different relational scenario drawn from real early years practice. In the first session, learners worked in pairs to role-play a morning drop-off in which a child was reluctant to separate from a parent. One learner played the practitioner, one played the parent, and the rest of the group observed and noted what communication approaches seemed to help or hinder the interaction. After each role-play, the group debriefed together, discussing the specific words, tone, body language, and pacing that affected how the situation unfolded. The trainer introduced a short input on rapport-building and the use of warm, consistent language to support emotional regulation in young children.
The second session focused on peer-to-peer communication in a professional setting. Learners practised giving constructive feedback to a colleague following a mock activity session, and navigating a scenario in which a concern needed to be raised with a more experienced room leader. The crèche managers attended this session in person, sharing feedback scripts and language they use in their own settings and discussing how tone and framing affect whether a conversation strengthens or strains a professional relationship.
The third session focused on managing conflict and de-escalation, with learners working through written scenarios describing difficult conversations — a parent unhappy with a behaviour incident report, a colleague who had misunderstood a room rota, and a child who had become distressed during an outdoor activity. Each learner drafted a verbal response, shared it with the group, and received structured peer feedback using a simple framework the trainer had provided. All three sessions were followed by a short individual reflection prompt, asking learners to identify one communication habit they wanted to strengthen before their placement began.
Outcomes
The impact of the “Conversation in Practice” intervention was evident across several dimensions. Within the classroom, trainers noticed a change in how learners engaged with one another during group activities. Learners became more attentive listeners, more willing to offer and receive feedback, and more confident in voicing a view or asking for clarification. The quality of peer discussion in module sessions noticeably improved, with learners using more specific and constructive language when responding to each other’s contributions.
Placement outcomes for the cohort were strong. Placement supervisors across several Galway city and county crèches commented that learners arrived with a noticeably stronger awareness of how they communicated with children, parents, and colleagues. One supervisor at a crèche in Salthill reported that a learner had successfully managed a distressed child at drop-off without any prompting from the room leader, using a calm and consistent approach that reflected good professional practice. Another supervisor noted that the same learner had proactively sought feedback from colleagues at the end of each week, demonstrating a relational confidence that was unusual at such an early stage of professional development.
Learner retention also improved. Unlike the previous academic year, all learners in this cohort completed their placement hours. Several learners who had expressed anxiety about the interpersonal demands of the role before the intervention reported in end-of-year feedback that the role-play sessions had been among the most useful parts of their programme. The involvement of the crèche managers was particularly valued, as it gave learners insight into what relational communication looks like in practice — not as an abstract skill but as a lived, professional behaviour that experienced practitioners think about and work on throughout their careers. The training team subsequently agreed to retain and expand the “Conversation in Practice” model as a core feature of the module delivery going forward.