For those of you who grew up in the early days of YouTube, you may remember the ‘what’s in my bag’ trend… well I’m here to deliver a nostalgic throwback with a psychologist’s spin on it!
For context, I am a Trainee Educational Psychologist in my second year of training. Most of my time is spent on placement and I have more of an independent caseload this year with a patch of my own schools. One of the most rewarding and important parts of the role is listening to and understanding the pupil’s voice- how they experience school, learning, relationships, and themselves. Since children and young people differ widely in communication style, age, and confidence levels, having a flexible toolkit for gathering pupil voice is vital. Here’s what I carry in my bag to support meaningful pupil voice work (in addition to these tools I will of course take more specific assessment tools for improving my understanding around the four areas of need).
Games
Tools: Dobble, Snap, Jenga…
Games are great for building rapport quickly and are particularly effective with children who may be reluctant to engage in more formal conversations or assessments. I have written a blog post recently about the power of simple games and how they can give a great insight into a range of factors:
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Responses to Competition: Do they enjoy winning, struggle with losing, or shy away from competitive dynamics?
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Motivation and Engagement: What keeps them interested- speed, challenge, strategy?
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Social Interaction: How do they cooperate, take turns, or negotiate rules? Do they play by the rules?
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Emotion Regulation: How do they respond to frustration, success, or surprise?
- Sensory tools or fidget tools: Not games, but super useful for children who need something to regulate with whilst talking about potentially tricky subjects! Play doh, Lego etc. work well.
Playing games is also a great way to level the power dynamic, allowing children to feel more in control and at ease.
Conversation Starters
Tools: Story dice, sentence completion cards or prompts, question dice…
Some children need structure to express themselves. Conversation starters serve as scaffolding to help them access and articulate their thoughts and feelings without the pressure of open-ended questions. It can also feel less like an interview and a bit more of a game!
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Dice and random prompts can introduce elements of playfulness and unpredictability which some children may find more ‘fun’ than direct question and answer sessions.
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Sentence completion tasks like “Writing feels like…” or “I wish my teacher…” give insight into internal experiences that might not emerge through direct questioning.
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These tools are helpful for bypassing social desirability by encouraging more spontaneous and reflective answers.
Card Sorts: Visual Tools for Thinking and Feeling
Tools: School Wellbeing Cards, Strengths and Difficulties Cards, Kind Words for Kids…
Card sorts have been useful in lots of my casework, but can be especially powerful for children who are:
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Pre-verbal or minimally verbal
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Neurodivergent and more comfortable with visuals
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Easily overwhelmed or uncomfortable with back-and-forth dialogue / interview style sessions
They provide a concrete, visual way to talk about abstract experiences, like relationships, learning preferences, or emotional wellbeing. The school wellbeing cards, for example, help children identify push and pull factors.
Personal Construct Psychology Tools
Tools: Talking stones, scaling activities, ideal school / self prompts…
Personal Construct Psychology (PCP) explores how children make sense of their experiences and themselves. These tools are ideal for uncovering personal constructs.
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Talking stones can represent people, feelings, places, or events. You can ask questions, and children can arrange and explain them, creating meaningful conversations with real depth.
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Scaling activities help quantify feelings that are otherwise hard to name and compare and contrast (e.g., ‘you’ve rated maths and art a 4 but literacy a 7… I wonder what’s the same about maths and art that is different to literacy?’)
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Ideal School drawing or creating the Ideal School out of a medium of choice, e.g., Lego, clay, can help to identify what is important to a child about their environment.
Effective pupil voice work requires more than just good questions, it requires adaptable, engaging, and child-centred tools. What’s in your bag can make all the difference in unlocking a child’s world and each tool offers a different window into how a pupil experiences school (and life!). As trainee EPs, the more attuned we are to these moments, the more we can understand a child’s lived experience and advocate for them.
Pictured: Holder’s School Wellbeing Cards, Triesman’s Sentence Completion cards, Dobble, Snap, Play Doh, Conversation Cubes, Story Cubes
