Gaining children and young people’s attention
Capturing the attention of groups of children and young people, especially if they are deaf and/or hard of hearing can be a challenge. If you want to change an activity, give some information or just need a moment to focus having a ‘signal’ can be really helpful. You may need to pre teach the routines to children or young person who are deaf and/or hard of hearing so that they understand the expectation.
To get a deaf child’s attention you can call their name, wave, knock a table, or tap their shoulder lightly. You can view additional tips here to support developing communication: Ten top tips for communicating with a deaf child or young person – Support for schools and settings
The following provides ordinarily, inclusive and available strategies that you can use in your setting:
Early years
Novelty: Use novelty, such as the sound of a wind chime or a rain stick or something that is visually stimulating, to help capture young children’s attention. For slightly older children using a word or phrase to prompt an action, for example ‘Pop a marshmallow in’ followed up with the action of puffing up your cheeks. Get the children to follow suit. It’s hard to speak with an imaginary marshmallow filling your mouth!
Imagination: An equally imaginative approach involves filling an empty spray bottle with lavender mineral oil and relabelling the bottle ‘quiet spray’. Or you can blow magic ‘hush-bubbles’ for a similar impact.
Primary or older
‘Silent 20’: Use this to conclude an activity. If children or young people return to their seats and are completely quiet within 20 seconds, give a reward – this could be accumulative such as a jar of marbles – when the jar is full the class have a fun activity.
Word/s of the week: Ask children or young people for ‘word/s of the week’ to signal that it’s time for silence. Who can tell you the words for this week, sensitively identify children or young people who may not be fully focused to gain their attention. Link the words to topics.
Call and response: Use catchy phrases as a cue that you want the class’ attention, you could change it each week/term or keep it the same. Something simple like ‘1, 2, 3, eyes on me’. Children or young people respond with ‘1, 2, 3, eyes on you’
Secondary and beyond
Policies: Use the setting’s behaviour for learning policy to establish that each class member is respected, valued and cared for. Instructions have meaning and help everyone.
Instructions: Use written, picture or symbol instructions to support verbal instructions e.g. for the next ten minutes we will work in silence, then we will discuss our findings etc.