Girls learn to Talk the Talk at SHE Can workshop
South Yorkshire girls were pushed out of their comfort zones in a confidence and communication building workshop delivered by ‘Talk the Talk’.
Over 40 girls involved in this year’s SHE Can programme came together at Sheffield Hallam University for a day of workshops with Talk the Talk. The sessions, focused on confident communication, are designed to give young people the skills to enable positive interaction in a range of real-life situations. Talk the Talk work throughout the UK with students in year groups 7-11, running a variety of confidence-boosting workshops.
Four schools across South Yorkshire are taking part in this year’s SHE Can programme, run by HeppSY+. Students came from Meadowhead School, Clifton Community School, Astrea Academy Dearne and Firth Park Academy. The students were split into two smaller groups to work on different interactive activities and booklets.
As the day was all about communicating, the girls were asked lots of questions about what makes good communication and how they communicate. The groups discussed current topics in the media, such as homophobia, racism, and politics, with a particular focus on how females are presented. Their main task was to think of a topic they were particularly interested in for a presentation they would work towards throughout the day and present at the end of the session.
They started by talking about things they were passionate about and used their booklets to plan how they would express their arguments. They wrote down key messages they wanted to get across, as well as counter arguments. Their notes were brought to life as the girls started discussing their points in pairs. They got animated, debating their topics and using the framework Talk the Talk had employed earlier in the session to vocalise their arguments.
As well as what they were saying, the girls focused on what makes a good communicator: their body language, stance and voice. Having confidence in themselves and what they were saying was encouraged.
Each of the girls gave an individual presentation and received a certificate to mark their achievement before receiving feedback.
At the end of the session the girls were able to reflect on the day. There was also an opportunity to feed back what they had learnt and discuss any progress they had made with their communication skills.
