Building trust with students starts with a simple question: do our students trust the people asking them to learn?
Many educators walk into a classroom expecting students to learn, participate, and behave appropriately.
For many students, that happens. For others, learning can feel disconnected from the people and environment around them. When this happens, should schools simply become stricter and expect students to adapt?
Or should we first ask a more important question:
Do our students trust the people asking them to learn?
Ms. Evan, a new principal at an international school in Malaysia, faced this question early in her leadership journey. She began to see that trust was not something that happened after good teaching. It was part of what made good teaching possible.
Recent research from University College London found that young people connected positive communication from teachers with motivation, learning, and feeling supported at school. Teachers also identified positive relationships as an important part of their role, although workload and other school pressures can make those relationships harder to build consistently.
For Ms. Evan, the challenge was not simply to make students behave differently.
It was to change the relationships around learning.
The Problem
When Ms. Evan first took on her role, she noticed that some students were disengaged from their learning.
Traditional approaches to discipline and high expectations were not solving the problem. The more the gap grew between teachers and students, the harder it became to create meaningful learning experiences.
Ms. Evan realised that expectations still mattered. However, students also needed to feel that the adults setting those expectations understood them, listened to them, and genuinely wanted them to succeed.
That led her to a simple principle:
Learners learn best from people they trust.
The Solution: Building Trust with Students
One useful way to understand trust is through the Trust Equation, a model developed by David Maister, Charles Green, and Robert Galford.
The model describes trustworthiness through four factors:
Trust = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy) ÷ Self-Orientation
In simple terms:
- Credibility: Do I believe what you say?
- Reliability: Can I count on you to do what you say?
- Intimacy: Do I feel safe being open with you?
- Self-Orientation: Are you focused on yourself, or on the person in front of you?
The Trust Equation was originally developed for professional advisory relationships, rather than education. Still, its four ideas provide a useful lens for thinking about teacher-student relationships.
Ms. Evan used these four areas to think about how teachers could build stronger relationships with students.
1. Credibility
Are you worth listening to?
Students need to believe that their teachers know what they are talking about and can help them make sense of difficult ideas.
Credibility does not mean knowing everything.
In fact, admitting when you do not know something can sometimes make a teacher more trustworthy. A teacher who says, “I’m not sure. Let’s work it out together,” shows students that learning does not stop when we reach the edge of what we know.
Actions for educators
Teacher workshops on expertise sharing
Ms. Evan encouraged teachers to share their subject knowledge and teaching ideas with one another.
This could include:
- Demonstration lessons that bring difficult ideas to life
- Professional development sessions that introduce new approaches to learning
- Opportunities for teachers to share useful classroom experiences with colleagues
Classroom activity: Real-world applications
Teachers can strengthen credibility by showing students how classroom ideas connect to the world outside school.
A science experiment, a mathematical problem connected to everyday life, or a discussion about how a historical event still affects society can make students think:
“I didn’t realise this was connected to that.”
Transparency and honesty
Teachers do not need to pretend they have every answer.
When educators are open about what they know, what they do not know, and how they can find out more, they model curiosity and intellectual honesty.
Classroom activity: Student-teacher Q&A
Give students opportunities to ask teachers about their academic interests, professional experiences, or areas of expertise.
These conversations can help students see their teachers as people with knowledge and experiences worth learning from.
Ms. Evan’s experience
As teachers became more comfortable sharing their knowledge, they also became more comfortable acknowledging uncertainty.
Students began to see that expertise was not about having an answer to everything. It was about knowing how to think, ask questions, and find better answers.
2. Intimacy
Do your students feel safe enough to be honest with you?
Intimacy can sound like an unusual word in an educational setting.
Here, it is not about becoming overly personal with students. It is about creating enough safety for students to be honest about their thoughts, questions, worries, and needs.
Teachers cannot support students well if they do not know what students are experiencing.
Actions for educators
Personal development sessions
Ms. Evan introduced sessions that helped teachers develop empathy and active listening skills.
The goal was simple: listen to understand, rather than listening only to respond.
Classroom activity: Two stars and a wish
Students can share two things that are going well and one thing they would like to improve.
This gives teachers a simple way to hear what students value and where they may need support.
Classroom activity: Personality and interest activities
Simple activities can help students explore their interests, strengths, and differences.
The purpose is not to place students into fixed categories. Instead, it is to help them understand that people can approach learning and collaboration in different ways.
Ms. Evan’s experience
Ms. Evan began spending more informal time with students, including conversations over lunch.
She also created opportunities for students to talk about their interests and experiences.
As students saw that their thoughts were being taken seriously, they became more willing to share them.
The result was not instant perfection. It was something more useful: a classroom culture where students felt more comfortable speaking honestly.
3. Reliability
Can your students count on you?
Trust is difficult to build when words and actions do not match.
A teacher may promise to return feedback, hold a meeting, or follow up on a concern. If those promises are repeatedly forgotten, students learn something from that experience.
Reliability is built through consistency.
Actions for educators
Professional conduct workshops
Teachers can reflect on simple habits that affect trust:
- Being on time
- Meeting agreed deadlines
- Following through on commitments
- Communicating when plans need to change
These actions may seem small, but they shape how students experience their teachers.
Classroom activity: Weekly progress updates
Teachers can give students regular updates on their progress.
This creates a predictable rhythm and gives students a chance to understand what they are doing well and where they need to improve.
Mentorship programmes
A mentor does not need to solve every problem.
Instead, the mentor can be someone students know they can return to for guidance, encouragement, and honest conversations.
Classroom activity: Student commitments
Students can set academic goals and identify the actions they will take to reach them.
Teachers can then check in regularly and help students adjust their plans when necessary.
Ms. Evan’s experience
Teachers began paying closer attention to the promises they made and the commitments they kept.
Students experienced a more consistent environment. Over time, that consistency helped strengthen their trust in the adults around them.
4. Self-Orientation
Are you focused on the student or on yourself?
This may be the most challenging part of the Trust Equation.
Imagine a teacher who is focused on collecting every homework assignment because they need to finish marking them by Friday.
Now imagine a student who has struggled to complete the work because of something happening outside the classroom.
The teacher still needs to maintain expectations. However, trust can weaken when the process becomes more important than understanding the student.
Self-orientation asks us to consider where our attention is focused.
Actions for educators
Student-centred teaching workshops
Ms. Evan encouraged teachers to think about how learning experiences could respond to students’ needs, rather than relying entirely on the teaching style that felt most comfortable to the teacher.
This does not mean giving students everything they want.
It means understanding who is in the room before deciding how best to teach them.
Classroom activity: Student choice projects
Where appropriate, teachers can give students choices about topics, formats, or ways of presenting their work.
Choice can give students a greater sense of ownership while still keeping clear learning goals in place.
Student feedback
Teachers can ask students what is helping them learn and what could be improved.
Listening to students does not mean accepting every suggestion. It means being willing to consider their experience and make changes when those changes can improve learning.
Classroom activity: Peer review
Students can review one another’s work using clear criteria.
This gives them practice in giving useful feedback, receiving feedback, and thinking about how their own work affects others.
Ms. Evan’s experience
Ms. Evan encouraged teachers to make more room for student voice.
Students were invited to share their opinions, contribute ideas, and take greater ownership of their learning.
Teachers also became more willing to acknowledge when students had valuable insights to contribute.
The classroom became less about who had the most authority and more about how everyone could contribute to learning.
Connection Before Challenge
Trust does not mean lowering expectations.
Students still need boundaries. They still need to be challenged. They still need to learn how to meet responsibilities.
The difference is what comes first.
When students believe their teachers understand them and want them to succeed, challenges can feel very different.
They become more willing to ask for help, take risks, admit mistakes, and try again.
Research on teacher-student relationships also continues to examine the connection between positive relationships and learning engagement. The Education Endowment Foundation’s Student Engagement Instrument, for example, includes teacher-student relationships as one of the areas used to understand student engagement.
At Fairview, this connects closely with the belief that education should prepare children for life, not just exams.
Students need knowledge. They also need to know how to communicate, ask questions, work with others, reflect on their choices, and keep learning.
Those skills are much easier to develop when students trust the people guiding them.
How IB Education Supports Stronger Relationships
Building trust with students also connects with the student-centred approach found across IB education.
In the Primary Years Programme (PYP), students are encouraged to ask questions, explore ideas, and take an active role in their learning.
The Middle Years Programme (MYP) builds on this through inquiry, communication, collaboration, and reflection.
At the Diploma Programme (IBDP) level, students take greater responsibility for their learning and are expected to question ideas, examine evidence, and develop independent thinking.
This approach gives teachers an important role beyond simply delivering content.
They become guides who help students think, question, reflect, and take ownership.
That relationship matters.
Education That Prepares Students for More Than Exams
A student may forget a particular worksheet, lesson, or test question.
They may remember the teacher who noticed when they were struggling.
They may remember the teacher who listened before judging.
And they may remember the teacher who looked them in the eye and said:
“I believe in you.”
That is why relationships matter in education.
Connection before challenge.
Before we ask students to stretch themselves, we need to give them reason to believe that the person challenging them is on their side.
At Fairview International School, this connects with our belief that education should prepare children for life, not just exams.
Students need strong academic foundations. They also need confidence, communication skills, independence, and the ability to work with others.
Good relationships help create the conditions for those skills to grow.
Ultimately, building trust with students is not about being a teacher who says yes to everything.
It is about being a teacher whose students know they can count on.
And sometimes, the most meaningful thing a teacher can say is simply:
“I believe in you.”
