#161: What we get wrong about classroom management, low-level disruption, crafting a strong teaching presence + more

0:00I'll hi there teachers. Welcome to the Untageable's podcast. I'm your host Claire English and I am just a fellow teacher, a toddler mama and a big old behaviour nerd on a mission to demystify and simplify that little thing called classroom management. The way we've all been taught to manage behaviour and classroom manage has left us playing crowd control, which is not something I subscribe to because we're not dancers with teachers. So listen in as I walk you through the game changing strategies and I've been the things that we can actually do in action in our classrooms that will allow you to lean into your beautiful values as a compassionate educator and feeling powered to run your room with a little more calm and dare I say it a lot less chaos. I will see you in the episode. Hello there fabulous teachers. Welcome back to another episode of the Untageable's podcast. However, it is a little bit of a different episode today because a few weeks ago I had the

1:00absolute pleasure of being a guest with Aaron Johnston on the teacher take away podcast and it was such a great discussion. We spoke about misconceptions around classroom management. We spoke about how to reinforce solid expectations, low level disruption, crafting a really strong teaching presence, all of the things like it was such a wonderful chat. So naturally I emailed him and said, Hey Aaron, do you mind sharing that recording so I can share it with all of my Untageable's people because why not? Why the heck not? I hope you love the episode and I will see you back here for an Untageable's OG episode next week. Enjoy. Hello everyone. Welcome back to the teacher take away podcast. You are here for season six and

2:03episode two. We are so excited to have you with us for this episode and diving into a brand uses on the podcast for today's episode. We are going to be really diving into all things behavior, behavior support and you know working with students in the classroom and it is a huge honor to welcome someone who I have the utmost respect for and admire as an educator and a professional. The wonderful Claire English. Hello Claire. Oh, that's really lovely. Thank you. Hello, how are you? I'm really good. I'm so excited to have you on. I know we were just talking about this before I hit record. Having you on the podcast has been like one of those long term goals and so it's so good that we've finally been able to make this happen. We really appreciate you joining us and giving us your time and expertise. Oh my gosh, it's absolutely my pleasure and I am so excited to nerd out about classroom management with you and your crew. Awesome because it's one of the things

3:03that we love to do most is nerd out about all things teaching. So before we dive into the episode and we really start to unpack this topic around behavior, behavior management, classroom systems and things like that, I'll go through your bio just so our listeners get up to speed with who you are and what you do for anyone out there that doesn't know you. Claire English is an Australian educator, senior school leader, author and behavior specialist who spent her career supporting students with complex social, emotional and mental health needs. Having taught and led in both the UK and Australia, Claire is known for translating the toughest classroom behavior challenges into practical, actionable strategies that genuinely work and center both the educator and the student. She's the founder of the Unteachables Academy where she supports thousands of teachers with evidence in form training and tools to build calm, connected classrooms without relying on outdated punitive approaches, which we love and are all about here on the podcast. So Claire,

4:04we are super excited to dive into this topic with you today. Amazing. You know what, like when I hear that particular bio, it still blows me away that that's me. I'm like, wait, you're talking about, I want to meet that person because as we'll talk about soon, like my journey hasn't, I didn't start out that way, you know, like I didn't just magically walk into the classroom, feeling really confident and capable. So I'm really excited to dig into the stuff today in contrast to that bio. Yeah, perfect. Well, that's a great leading to our very first question, which outside of your bio, that's kind of the works that you do now. But let's dive a little bit deeper into your journey. So let's talk this through your journey so far in education. What's that been like? So I am a Western Sydney girl. Where's the Sydney girl through and through? And that's where I cut my teeth, so to speak, in education. But I got into the classroom and, you know, I was working in a school that was in a tough, I kind of low SES area. And I quickly realized that despite going

5:07into teaching, because I really wanted to be the teacher that I needed when I was at school, I was so ill prepared for all of the stuff that was going to be in the classroom. And then I realized, so yes, I had a really strong why I wanted to be like a really kind and compassionate and empathetic teacher. And, you know, and I'm sure your listeners are the same, you know, they want to be that teacher that is like really connecting with their students and, you know, like doing great things. However, I recognized that I started to lean on approaches because I was so out of my depth, I started to lean on approaches that were incredibly cleanative. And I was becoming the teacher that I didn't want to be like I like the exact teacher who I was going into education to be the opposite of. I was, you know, shabby, I was candy, I was quite resentful of my students. And I just hit rock bottom with it. And I thought, like, no, I need to do something different here

6:08because I didn't go to university for five years because I wanted to impact the lives of students positively just to walk away because the behaviors were so tough and because I was becoming this horrible version of myself that was just burnt out and stressed and just being really horrible. Like, you know, I just didn't know how to approach these behaviors and I was blaming the students and I was courting that cycle and I was just, it was just horrible, right? So I made it my mission to one day get really, really great classroom management. And even way back then, I'm talking my second year of teaching when I was in my early 20s and the 36 year old woman now doing the unteachables. But even back then, I said to myself, right now, I'm really crappy classroom management. I've got no idea what I'm doing. We have been thrust into this situation. I promise that one day I'm going to support teachers to also get greater classroom management and I'm going to support teachers to support students. And that was way back then that I had this mission, like this deep mission. And since that day, you know, like, working over the colds of being a

7:12teacher and, you know, working as some of the toughest contexts, I moved to, I mean, back from one recently and I spent seven years there working with the most at-risk youth, you know, worked at a school specifically for students with social emotional and mental health needs. And I was a senior leader there and, you know, I worked there for quite some time. These students had significant trauma, you know, like they didn't give a crap about me teaching them Shakespeare. I'll tell you that. So working with those students and working in context that were incredibly challenging, I've been able to hone my craft in a way that I wouldn't have been able to if I was working in schools where the paid is weren't so challenging. So yeah, and then I had my baby, the rest is history. I'm here doing the untitutables and, you know, speaking to you, but that is kind of the whistle stop tour of not just like how I've kind of come to this, but where I've started in education. And I think like the beautiful thing that you shared is that going on, like this has been like a personal journey. You didn't just like wake up one day and have all the tools and strategies.

8:16And I was thinking about it as you were talking because I know you shared a post this week like on your Instagram page and it just resonated with me, you know, where you get your class allocations and you see those names and you're just like, oh God, help me. Like, and you just feel like that, right? Like we've all been in that situation where like I've got to have this particular student and you just feel like right the year off. But like I said, like we've all been in that situation, but it's about going on a journey of, you know, unlearning, relearning and just becoming that little bit better like building our toolkit, right? And I think that's the beautiful thing about your journey and what we're going to, you know, share in this episode is like you've delivered that journey, like you've been in that situation. And, you know, now you're able to support teachers to, you know, go on that journey themselves. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm so glad I resonated with you. Everything that I share, I'm like, okay, I'm going to make sure people understand

9:17like I get it so deeply and people think that they're just bad at classroom management or that they're not a strong enough leader in the classroom and things can't change. But like my whole thing is about making sure teachers know that no matter what you're dealing with right now in the classroom, it really isn't hopeless. And I think at the end of that post, in the catchment, I said, like it is an inevitability that you will be able to like become stronger classroom management if you just start to put little things in place and it will take a little bit of time. But it is it's an inevitability that you will be successful in this space and you teach a can. You're not like, you know, soft enough or quiet or too quiet or not strict enough, like, yeah. Yeah. And I think like, you know, what you were saying is so true in the sense of too, like we all feel I'm prepared for this, like no matter how many years we've been teaching, no matter what our roles are, even like myself as a school leader, I still feel like I'm prepared, like I don't know

10:18at all. And I remember like you stepping out of uni going, I did not know what I'm doing, like I was not prepared for this. So let's normalize that everybody. It's okay to feel that way. So real excited to hear from you in this episode clear and all of the things that you've learned in this journey so far. But let's start off diving into the, I guess, the topic with some misconceptions when it comes to behaviour, behaviour management in the classroom. What do you think are some of the biggest misconceptions or misunderstandings? I think the biggest misconception that people do have when it comes to classroom management is that behaviour management is about behaviour itself, like it's about responding to the behaviour and resolving it through restorative conversations. But that is just such a small part of the overall puzzle that is classroom management. And I really do speak about it like this puzzle that we start to put the little pieces together as we go through and you know, like we're talking about the journey of kind of understanding

11:18classroom management more. When it comes to behaviour management, classroom management, most of the magic needs to be done before the behaviour is even happening, before there's any behaviour respond to whatsoever. Because of the misconception that classroom management is just about behaviour, teachers get trapped in this never-ending cycle that they just can't get out of that is so disempowering and this is a cycle that will leave teachers to leave in the profession because they just can't feel empowered and get on top of things, you know, the behaviour happens, they respond to the behaviour, they resolve the behaviour, the behaviour happens, they respond to the behaviour, they resolve the behaviour and it just becomes this giant game of whack them all. And of course there are things that we're doing at the level of responding to behaviour and resolving behaviour that will create some change. I'm not saying that's not important as well, but that change takes a lot of time. Like when we're dealing with the most complex kids with, you know, really challenging backgrounds that have the most challenging behaviours, that kind of response to behaviour takes a long

12:21time for us to be able to see. I'm talking like, yes, maybe even like a decade later, they'll come to us and say like, hey Miss English, like thank you so much for the way you responded to us in the classroom. When we're talking about, in the moment, classroom management that is actually going to immediately create some change and break that cycle, it's all of the things that we're doing before, all of the, it's pretty much everything that we're doing in the classroom. It's our teacher presence. It's how we're balancing that credible non-verbal presence with our approachable non-verbal presence. And that's not being like a strict teacher that's like giving students the look. That's not what I mean. I'm talking about crafting a really strategic non-verbal presence. And I talk about that a lot in the work that I do, Michael Granger's Envoy, that changed my life. And if you're a Western Sydney teacher, you probably know that Envoy because it was really like popular around the time, but you know, I was at, I was at a school in Western Sydney, but it really does change things like the flick of a switch. It changes so much when we're able to

13:25craft that non-verbal teacher presence. And just an example of that. So when I was in my early teaching career and I was like really struggling, my energy that I was bringing into the classroom was frantic. I was running from pillar to post, like writing names up on the board, going to help another student doing this, doing that, raising my voice. Like the energy was just pure franticism when that is, and that even though it doesn't sound like that's the approachable non-verbal body language. That's exactly what it is because we're like lucer in our body, we're louder, we're more reactive. Instead, if we were able to model the non-verbals, we want back from our students. So we're practicing stillness, we're dropping our body like our volume, we're speaking with a different inflection. Those are things that can start to shape a really powerful strong teacher present. So that's just one of the things that I teach when it comes to, you know, like starting to get on top of these things. Another one is the routines that we're using because those are non-verbaly,

14:26communicating our expectations every single moment of the day. We do these expectations lessons, but we forget that like the expectations are actually the day-to-day stuff that we're communicating non-verbaly. It's the way that we set up our tasks. So we're reducing the significant anxiety that some students are bringing in with them because they have had chronic amounts of failure in their education with certain subjects. When we do all of these things, and I could go, honestly, on for hours about every single one of them, when we're doing those things, we're working at the level of mitigation, the pre-behavior phase, and we're stopping behaviors in their tracks. I'm not saying that we're going to stop every single behavior, but what that does is that weeds the behaviors out that are a result of, you know, a lack of clarity or the stress response. Then we can actually have the space to deal with the big, big behaviors that we do need to respond and resolve. So we're not caught in that cycle with them. So biggest misconception is that behavior management is about

15:29the behavior in a nutshell. I know I went on a little bit longer, but that is in a nutshell what that huge misconception is. Yeah, and I think to like one of the things that you talked about, like there's so much power in a lot of the things that we don't actually see. Like I think about, you know, sometimes you walk into a classroom and it's beautiful and calm and you think, this teacher, they just like, they must have it all together, but there's actually so many things that you don't see that are going on that have created that classroom environment. Like, and you said like the power of our own self-regulation and the presence that we bring into a classroom, like the impact that that makes because it's contagious, like calm is contagious. And there's a lot to be said for that. Like you said, the energy that you give off, you know, if you're in that place where you're feeling frantic and you just respond, respond, respond that, you know, students can feed off that. So I think, you know, there's a lot to reflect on and think about just in the way that we show up. That's really powerful. And it's important as well to say, like just as

16:31easier as it is for us to ease you, but like it's as powerful as it is for us to co-regulate with our students. The reason we find classroom management so tough as human beings is because we're co-disregulating with them all the time. Like our students come in dysregulated and they're like, we're jumping on there and you know, like they're bringing us into their chaos rather than us trying to bring them into our calm. It's happening the other way and we're stuck in that cycle as well. That is really, really hard. Like we're just human beings trying to do the best job we can. And we've got all these students in the room that are incredibly dysregulated. And like, of course, we're allowing them to bring us into their chaos in terms of our nervous systems. Yeah, absolutely. Now, I know we've touched through on this and you talked about it in your bio a little bit. It is about going into the classroom and having that sense of like, I do not know what I'm doing. Like, I do not know how to do this. And I think every teacher out there hand out would be going, yep, that's me. That's exactly how I feel. Why do you think like most

17:32teachers feel this way, particularly when it comes to behavior, classroom management? Why do we feel so unprepared or, you know, ill-equipped? I think we feel ill-equipped and unequipped because like, we are, like we genuinely are. Like I went to university and I had like over five years, I had 20 minutes of classroom management training where the tutor said, okay, if a student's not listening to you, what do you do? And then he went into this really kind of like tacky humorous like, you know, screw it. So like, you know, dramatization of what it would be like to be in the classroom. And he was just walking around like tapping on students' deaths and like looking at us. Like that was the extent of my classroom management like training when it came to the five years of the university. And these are people who haven't been in the modern classroom at least for a long time. And they're preparing us to teach our subjects, but they're not preparing us to teach our students. And there's such a big difference between like, we don't teach our subjects.

18:36A lot of us go into the profession because we're really passionate about English or, you know, I did as well. I mean, I had other reasons, but the reason I chose English was because I was like, oh my god, like this was an escape for me. English was powerful and it changed my life. And then you get into the classroom, I realized that it's not your subject to teaching or teaching your students. And I think that university fails in a sense to recognize that because it is very heavy on the subject, which of course we need to be experts at this world. I'm not saying that. But there needs to be kind of like a middle ground. And because there is so much confusing and contradictory messaging around what quality classroom management is, it does get really hard for them teachers to buy themselves, work out what they're supposed to do. So I know there's a lot of professional learning in schools around classroom management, but a lot of it doesn't take into account that middle ground. So for example, the school goes trauma informed. And they don't, you know,

19:38recognize that not all behavior is because of trauma. Like there's a whole bunch of other reasons. And yes, it's important to understand trauma and make a safe space for students. But that doesn't magically equal a calm classroom. Again, things like restorative practice, we get on the route of, you know, let's make this school a restorative school and have restorative practice. Again, that's the end of the behavior cycle. And it's really reactive. And it doesn't take into account all the stuff that happens before the behavior. So I think that we get so focused on certain behavior approaches that be confusing teachers because they're like, but okay, do I have to do this? What about this? Like, you know, and it doesn't actually like be encompass a holistic view of what classroom management is. And again, there are punitive and, you know, approaches and approaches with reward systems that are just about the behavior. And there's like a band-aid that gets old and falls off. So there's just so many confusing mixed messages when you do come into the profession.

20:38When people then try to play catch up from being unequips. And it just gets really hard for us to know, what am I supposed to do? Like the biggest question I get asked by teachers, whether it's like on Instagram or like either communities that I run, it's like, but what am I supposed to do? What is it that I'm just tell me what to do because I'm so confused. That is like the consensus. Yeah. And I think too, like you said, because it's such a complex thing, like behavior, you know, and I think that is so complex of this so much to it. And so it actually isn't like a quick easy fix or solution that's going to magically work for everybody. Like we kind of talked about for it, it's about having a toolkit of lots of different strategies, lots of different philosophies and approaches so that we can utilize them in the right moments at the right point in time to make the biggest difference. Yeah, I talk about it like it's just so when I wreck my book, my book is called, it's never just about the behavior. Can you tell? My overarching umbrella

21:44philosophy, but I call my approach a holistic approach to culture management and not in like a what I could do, kind of like, oh, like, you know, but it really is taken into account everything. Like you need to think about like you need to just have a bird's eye view of it. And it is like my approach is trauma informed. My approach is restorative, but it's so much more than that and it has to be more than that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know, I think like he said, like teachers just want to know what to do, like just just tell me, like give me the things that I should be doing. And so, you know, I thought we get into some of those practical things, having talked about the philosophy and all of the things that we know, right, that the behavior is like exactly what you said, it's not really about the behavior. There's so much more going on there. But what do you think at this point in time, you know, we're heading into, you know, going back to school for the new year, what should teachers be doing now to set themselves up for success? So it's such a good question because when you think about that first week back of school,

22:46the conversation always kind of goes to like, how are we going to set expectations? That's like the first thing that kind of comes to mind. Then it is, okay, well, how are we going to break the ice and now we're going to build community? And that kind of all happens in that first week. But then what do you do beyond that? So we're doing like one lesson on ice breaking, we're doing one lesson on expectation setting. What is it that is going to stop the grace period from ending in week five? Because, you know, Aaron, you get into the school year and you have a certain class and it's like, oh my gosh, like my English class, it's beautiful. I'm so excited. And then you get to the end of time when you're like, hang on a second, like, why do I feel like this class is going down the drain? Like, how wise is so hard? That's why when I'm talking to teachers about going back to school and what they need to do to kind of set up the foundations of their classroom management, it isn't like a one and done thing. And we spoke about routines a little bit before,

23:49but I'll go into them more now. I like to obviously do ice breakers in a way that is going to get by in like my favorite way to approach ice breakers is by starting with a day one starter activity, which sounds like quite boring, but I always do something like, let's sit down five minutes, like write five things that some you have in a nutshell. So when I'm going around the room, students aren't going, oh, what am I going to say? What am I going to say? And then they're like kind of looking to other people and like they're thinking about their own things, they're not listening to everybody else. Like, I tried to set that up in that way. So there's more meaningful buy in when it comes to ice breaking. When it comes to expectations sitting, sorry, you can tell I put a toddler a daycare because I'm never not without some kind of working. When it comes to expectations sitting, yes, I do an expectation lesson. I think it's very important. However, what happens is those expectations then tend to like sit up on the wall and collect dust. So we need to think

24:50of a way that we can extend the community building. And I like to think of it like breaking the ice is breaking the ice. And then throughout the year, we kind of warm that ice into like a nice tea of community. So it's not a one I'm done. It's like the starting point. So community building just start like just open up opportunities for students to like authentically get to know each other. Have a bit of a laugh. Nothing that's got too much social risk. And then you can start doing things throughout the year like five minute brain breaks that help students to connect more and feel more at home in the classroom. You know, some really great starter activities that then lead into certain things that like in terms of ice breaking, I wouldn't approach that like a one and done. When it comes to expectation setting, making sure it's really collaborative. There's a lot of buy in. I do that by teaching expectations through concept first, like I would with any other kind of English lesson. So instead of just going into like these expectations, this is what I expect of you. This is what you expect of me. I start with like why are expectations a thing? Do

25:52you know what expectations are? Where do you see expectations in the real world? Like when you go home at night, like when's your bedtime? Like, you know, are you expected to eat dinner? Like, can you have lollies at 12 p.m., you know? And then like thinking about like sporting teams like, you know, what are expectations there? But the whole point of that part of expectation setting is making sure that students know it's not something that I'm imposing on them because I'm this horrible teacher. It's because expectations are something that is required for us to be like functioning as a society. So that's how I kind of approach expectation setting. But the most important thing I do in week one and I take this throughout the entire year is setting the heartbeat of the lesson, which is routines. And I will kind of implicitly set them. So day one, for example, with the icebreaker starter, that is already saying to students that every time you come into this lesson, there'll be a starter activity here. I expect your engagement.

26:53I expect you to be sitting here quietly for five minutes doing this starter activity. I then start to drip feed in different routines. So that first day back, I'll do an exit ticket. And with that exit ticket, I'll have something that relates to the icebreaker, like, you know, write down three things you learned about somebody in the class or, you know, something that, or what do you worried about for the year ahead? Or, you know, if there's one thing that you could tell your teacher, what would it be, depending on the year group you teach? So I make sure I'm still putting in place the bones, the heartbeat of the lesson, even though it's that first week. This is how we struck that balance between the credible and us needing to be a leader in the classroom, a credible leader, and striking that balance with the approachable, which is, I'm here. I care about you. I want you to be a part of this community in the classroom, because that balance is very hard to strike. And I think teachers get very confused by the mixed messages of like, dose-multi-leaster, but then also

27:56relationships are the single most important thing in the classroom. So just framing everything through the lens of those routines that you're then going to take through to the rest of the year, because that is what is going to communicate non-verbally your expectations every single day. Yeah. Love it. Absolutely. I think it's, like you said, it's, there's lots of mixed messaging, lots of things. And like you said, it's not necessarily doing something once and then going, oh, tick that off, Melissa, done that. And then going, oh, why isn't the behavior like what I want to see? And I think to the other thing, which I want to kind of springboard into, I mean further questions, but something that you just said is, I guess for those teachers, like maybe they're listening to this podcast a little bit later than we've recorded it and say, we're halfway through the term. It's like, oh, well, I've missed that window of opportunity in the first week of the term. Like, is it ever too late? Like, what do we do? Like, what do we, how do we,

28:57how do we shift it? For someone that's gone, oh, well, you know, I'm at the end of the term, it's too late. I just have to ride the year out. Like, how do we approach that? How do we make that shift? Because I think that was another thing you said in your Instagram post is it's never too late to make the shift and think I can change things. So like, how do we do that? What are your, what are your suggestions for that? I've done the same process in term four with some classes. I come into classes late and done this. It really is never too late. And I think it, so when I did envoy training, I remember like, back in the day, I didn't really challenge it in year 10 class. They were the higher, we called them the high level class, you know, the ones that were, like the most academically capable. And I think because of that, I was treating them very differently. And I was being more approachable and I was being more relaxed. And then I learned in envoy training that I was, I was causing all of this chaos because I, my expectations,

29:58non verbally were saying, like, hey, like, let's just have a chat. Like, I'm all cool. Like, it's a little good. I might be telling you to do your work, but I'm sitting here leaning on the table. And I'm really relaxed. And, you know, I'm trying to be a friend and all of those things. It was so uncomfortable doing envoy training, having to face that in myself and then going to the next lesson with my year 10s, term three, as a new, like, I was quite a new teacher. And then saying, I'm going to shift this. And I'm going to see what happens. And I changed my body language. So I went from being in my approachable body language. So loser, louder, a little bit more frantic, trying to be a little bit more friendly, not understanding the difference between kind of being like the leader and being business to then being like, hey, like, let's get this, let's get this started. I shifted that. And I immediately went into my, my credible body language when I was trying to line them up. I thought these questions from the students, Miss, what's wrong? Why are you acting like that? Like, are you sick? I'm all over the place. You used to be questions.

31:04Yeah, like all to say, I immediately changed. Like, my, something had shifted in me and they didn't know what it was. I wasn't being cold. I wasn't being nasty. I wasn't being quite unstricted. But my body language had changed. That lesson, I walked out crying, not because it was a bad lesson for the first time in Ghana, so long. But because I realized that I wasn't hopeless or stuck at any clinic in the year because it was the best, most productive, most beautiful lesson I've ever had. And I've had teachers that I've worked with. Like, voice noting me, after a day at school going, I can't believe that this is the lesson that I just had. Like, this is magic. No matter what part of the year you're in, you can start to implement these strategies. So the credible and approachable body language is definitely one that I would start with. I'm probably not doing a very good job of explaining it because you know, when you just know a concept and you kind of like put it out there, but I do have a lot of good podcast

32:05episodes about the approachable and credible body language. So that's one thing you can do, start to kind of shift your, you know, your teeth to presence, setting up these routines at any point during the year. It doesn't matter like where you are in the year. You can start rolling out these routines. And just the most important thing is, is then being consistent with them after that. So they know when I go to Miss English's class, I know that I'll have a starter. I know that if I finish a task early, that I'm going to get the checklist. So I can check off whether or not I'm actually finished or I've just rushed through this. And then when I'm finished, I'm going to get one of the early finisher activities. So I'm not sitting there with my hand up with turn of the students or going on my phone when I finish a task. So students are then automatically like, it's hardwired in them to know what is expected. So really rolling out those routines, no matter what time of the year it is, is just going to be so powerful. And you can set expectations. You can go back and teach an expectations lesson in turn three if you wanted to.

33:05And the way that I've done it before is being really transparent with students. I'll walk in. I'll have a new sitting plan up on the board. Usually I'll change the furniture around in the room as well, because in terms of like, like the brain, when we walk in, there's something different. We pay attention to that. So I'll change things around in the physical space and I'll go in and I'll say things haven't been working. I'm not happy with how things have been like we aren't working together in the way that I would expect by this point in the year. So we're going to be doing things differently now. Every time you walk in, this is what it's going to be like. Every time we start a solar activity, every time we do a task. So then we go into resetting those expectations. You are the captain of your shift. You can at any point in time change the way you're showing up in the classroom. Yeah, absolutely. I love, I love that now. I know you talked a little bit about some strategies like that approachable credible body language, which I'd love to explore a little bit more. But I want to explore it. I guess in this sense of, you know, when we talk about behavior, our minds tend to just go to this really big, major behaviors. And we have those.

34:12And yet we need to know how to deal with them. But actually for the next little bit of our conversation, I actually want to flip it to just that low level behavior, just the little niggly things that actually just like stall learning, like, you know, you're doing something behavior come back. We've got to stop what you're doing that interrupts the flow of the lesson. Like, how do we approach, I guess, your tips, your strategies, your ideas for those low level behaviors that that stall learning. And I guess, like, let's unpack some of those things like the approachable credible body language and what that looks like in practice. Because I think a lot of teachers, you know, they don't necessarily want to talk about the big major behaviors. It's like, what do I do when I've got that kid who just interrupts all the time? Or, you know, the kids are off task because they're the things that we kind of are constantly dealing with. You know, we can deal with the major things and we can debrief and move on. Those things don't happen all the time. It's all those, like, little low level things that I think festive and get us really frustrated because I'm just not getting through my unit. I'm just not,

35:16you know, getting through the teaching that I need to do. So how do we approach those low level behaviors in the classroom that make a real big impact overall to the learning? I love talking about low level behaviors. Like, it is my thing. I'm actually running my second book at the moment, the low level disruption playbook. And I'm doing this because low level behaviors, we spoke about misconceptions before. When it comes to low level behaviors, they are completely misunderstood. Like, you cannot address low level behaviors as behaviors at the behavior level. It is not possible because, as you said, it's a torrent of them. If you are dealing with low level behaviors moment to moment like behaviors and trying to speak to students and trying to address the behavior, you would be making phone calls all night to parents. You would be like, it is all consuming. The low level behaviors are the big level behaviors because they are the things that are stopping us from actually teaching. So it's really about working at the mitigation stage.

36:17I mentioned it before where I said, if we are treating our classroom management like that puzzle and putting things in place at the mitigation phase, I said that we filter things out. So then we only deal with the big stuff. That is how we deal with low level behaviors by stopping them from happening in the beginning. And if they are still happening, then that is when we start to move to what, like crafting our practice and really honing that and trying to do our very best to put the things in place that reduce the low level behaviors. But then if there are those pockets of students, one or two that then continue the behaviors, then we can focus on them. But it's really about working at the mitigation stage. Obviously routines are a humongous part of that, strategically crafting that credible teaching presence is another. So for example, let's just say that you've got a class of 30 in front of you and you can't deliver your teacher an instruction because there's always someone popping up. Or the class, you just can't get them. You know how like you just see teachers teaching over the noise because they're like, I've given up, I can't

37:20be bothered. Like I just need to teach over the noise because I've got to get something through to those two kids at the front that are looking at me, Dwight is wanting to learn something, which is the most disempowering, horrible feeling. And you feel so guilty. Really standing in at the same attention spot every single time because that will non verbally signal to students that it is time to be listening. So always pick the same attention spot. The biggest mistake I was making without you telling class, I was standing behind the desk. I was leaning on the desk. I was halfway over there. I was trying to get their attention from like, you know, from God knows where. Picking an attention spot standing there, planting your feet firmly on the ground evenly. We're not like, you know, standing with our hip out again, something that I was doing without, we just don't realize unless we tune into what we're actually showing, unless someone is there to tell us or we're recording ourselves, check on many times, or we start to really become a tune to actually what we look like in the classroom. We don't realize how we are in our credible body language when we're supposed to

38:23be in our approachable in those moments. So feet planted on the ground, standing up straight, shoulders back, taking a huge deep breath. I'm talking like neutral face, huge deep breath, and then dropping our shoulders, even just the act of taking a huge deep breath and we're in front of a class waiting for their attention. That is enough sometimes to send waves of co-regulation out into the classroom. If they're still not listening, hands up really clear, or any kind of like verbal signal you, I'm sorry, nonverbal signal you use, and then pairing up with a verbal call to call and respond. So, okay, you're nine back to the big group and then standing there still really trying to embody that credible, strong, but still like we're not being nasty or strict or anything like that. We are just standing strong in our teaching presence. We are standing confidently in that. What psych teachers are, is this takes a long time, the first few times, and then as your class gets to know your body language and they get to know

39:29the language and the communication that you're sending to them, it gets quicker and quicker and quicker and easier. But the most important thing is not doing anything until you've got the whole class listening. Close enough isn't good enough because if you've got one student at the back of the room that's still talking, you're like, okay, well, I just need to get through the content. That one student talking is going to be the non, you're nonverbalist saying to the whole class, I don't expect you to listen. It doesn't matter if you're listening. I don't care if Jack's not listening because he doesn't want to listen anyway. So, it's really important for us to have the entire class. That's just one of the road maps I teach in my little behaviour boot camp. Because there are quite a few things that we can do. It's very nuanced. Like, as you were saying before, it's very nuanced and it's something that is hard to capture. This is all very nonverbal and it's all something that you have to see kind of play out in a classroom. But it's so powerful. Like, it is so, so powerful. So, that is one thing when it comes to getting whole class attention.

40:33Low level behaviours in general because it's not just one thing that we do. We're just stacking up the things in our practice that's going to mitigate it because we have to think of the reasons behind those level behaviours. Is it the fact that they are dysregulated? Is it the fact that they're destructed? Is it that they're not sure about the task? So, they're talking to each other? Do they feel like the task is, like, scary? They don't want to, it's easier for some students to chat to their friends or to zone out that it is to admit that they actually aren't capable of doing something. Yeah, that is too hard. It's too hard. I know what I'm doing. Yeah. Exactly. So, when we start to kind of stack up, okay, I'm going to nail my teacher presence and you can do that no matter what kind of person you are, no matter how quiet or, you know, timid you think you are. So, stacking up teacher presence, stacking on routines, stacking on tasking in a way that is so clear, so skateboarded and differentiated. So, no matter who you are in the class, you are able to do that. When we start to

41:38stack up all of those things, you will see the lower level behaviours drop significantly and then you'll be able to start to work with the students who are still struggling because of other barriers that are in place. All the barriers are too high. Yeah, and I think to, like you said, it's really understanding what's going on in that lower level behaviour because, you know, the lack of engagement, like you said, could be because, you know, it's just too difficult and maybe the thing we actually need to focus on is not a behaviour management strategy. It's differentiation to meet the need of that student because it's easier for them to be off task then for them and their peers to know, I actually don't know what I'm doing. Yeah, absolutely, it's scary. Like, think about it, they're teenagers. I, at the point I'm a 36-year-old woman, I still struggle in staff meetings to say my piece sometimes. So, I'm like, well, I think that's too bad. Like, the social risk of doing something in a group is huge and if a student has experienced,

42:42like so much failure in education or they've felt humiliated or they feel dumb or they see, they look around, imagining that's why, by the way, a lot of students will get themselves out of exams. If they're in an exam hall, that's why they'll start to go, if you, if you, I'm not doing this throwing their paper because they're looking around and they're seeing that most of the students around them are able to pick up a pen and write something and they probably look at that page and go, I don't know what's going on here. What is this? It's like another language to me. So, these are the kind of behaviors we have to be thinking about as well. Yeah, and like he said, and what that student needs is an punishment or a punitive approach or they don't need a reminder of the expectation because like, hello, I know what the expectation is, but at this point in time, the thing that's that's driving my behavior is, I don't feel like I can do this. It's too hard, it's beyond me. Yeah, absolutely. And it's looking at all of those things with the different lens, I guess, isn't it? And being able to look a little bit deeper than the behavior,

43:46and like you said, and then mitigate it. What strategies can I put in place? So, that thing, I actually don't have to deal with that thing. It doesn't happen because I'm prepared. And part of it comes down to, you know, that most important teaching standard of all, and that is knowing my students and how they learn. Yeah, and I think it's really important to say as well as teachers, like it's very overwhelming to think about that standard because you're like, but I've got 180 students. How can I know all of my students that intimately? So, I think that when we, I remember speaking to, I was in a staff meeting, we're like 10 years ago and we're talking about that standard and we're like, you know, you're on the staff room table and you're like talking about things and having like a moment about like school and like kind of stuff. I'm like, let me expect us to do. So, the great thing about this approach is you don't actually need to intimately know how every individual students learn because you know how your students learn

44:49as a collective because you understand behavior. That is why this is so powerful. If you make these strategies just an everyday part of your teaching practice, you are already without even understanding like, you know, mark specific needs. I'm pushing it to understand like if there's actual needs there, but like without having to go, okay, like what does mark need? What does Lucy need? How do they learn best without doing that for 180 students? You're putting in place the structures, the bones, the things already in your practice to mitigate the behaviors before they begin and that is empowering because we can't sit there and regenerate 30 different worksheets for every single class. We don't have the time for that. We can't look at a class that's having low level behaviors and go, well, why is Stacy acting like this? Why is Karen acting like this? Because you're mitigating those things. So, it's about embodying a holistic approach to classroom management that empowers you

45:53to get on top of things in a way that's super sustainable as well. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you've said that beautifully because it can be overwhelming thinking, I need to have 180 different classroom profiles. No, not at all. But you have to have like you said that holistic understanding of how as a collective, your class or your classes, what the dynamics are at play, and then putting those strategies in place to mitigate. And no mitigation plan is perfect. You can put the strategies in place and sometimes they still won't work and that is okay. It's not a failure on you because kids are kids, they're humans. And we can't totally predict what they're going to do. But we can try and put things in place. But then it's having that deep toolkit that that thing I put in place hasn't worked. What do I do now? I don't just let it unfold or I give up, I've tried everything. What are the other things that I can do to hopefully make a shift or make

46:56a difference, right? I love that because behavior also isn't all like, oh, behaviors are bad, like they're children. And they are, they've got age-appropriate behaviors, just like my toddler, like she'll kick things at me. And I'm like, we are two years old. What am I expecting? Of course, I'm not going to accept it. And I'm going to try to teach her to do something different, but also age-appropriate behaviors. Kids are driven by their need for belonging. Of course, if they get a message from their best friend who is having a crisis in another class outside, they're going to run outside. We need to understand that as well, like the fact that they are, they are just human beings like us and they're also living their life for the first time, like us. And we're all in perfect and we're all together trying to do this thing, which is get them through their education. And I think taking that approach where we are all just doing our best as human beings, with the knowledge we have, with the skills we have is so crucial to being a teacher, which is a very human, hard, messy profession to be in. Absolutely. And I think acknowledging

48:02that is is really powerful and really impactful, right? Now, we've touched on some strategies, like I said, we could talk about this for weeks. You have a library of podcasts, episodes, diving into all of these things. You've got a book. You're working on another book for the people that they're listening, hopefully we've given them some real practical things they can go away and try. But if they want to dive deeper, what are your recommendations around books to read, courses they can do, from yourself or others, where can people go if they want to dive deeper into some of these things that we've talked about today? I'm going to assume that your people haven't heard of me before. And if this is okay, I've created this thing called The Kickstart, it's a $1 thing. And the reason I created this $1 kickstart was because as you probably heard throughout this episode, there are so many moving pieces to classroom management. And even this

49:03episode probably made you go, well, where do I start with this and what's most important and all of those things? I created this kickstart because I wanted a place to send you any teacher who might be struggling with classroom management, who wants to hone their skills, who feels really like lost or kind of hopeless or helpless. And I wanted a place where I wasn't telling you like, you know, maybe try all of these things, but really explicit five quick wins. So it's five ten minute sessions and it introduces teachers to a couple of those routines and just like really quick actionable things. At the end of my podcast, I always sign off with like, I keep sprinkling that classroom management magic into everything you do. These five quick wins are things that you can do immediately that will start sprinkling classroom management into your practice. So that is, if you want immediate change, if you want to see some of these things in action, the approachable and credible is one of the ten minute kickstarter lessons. And then I strongly suggest you start

50:04there. It's just a great way for you to get to know me, my work and a very affordable way. The only reason I made it a dollar rather than zero dollars is because I wanted only people to join who were going to do it. And that was a great way to kind of create that barrier. But you can head to the dash on teachables.com forward slash kickstart. It'd be awesome for you just to see the power of some of these things and for these things in place. I give you some like really great resources as well. So it's not like to tell you what to do. It's giving you literal like resources to then go and do it. Yeah, love it. And obviously your book. Obviously the book, so my book is, it's never just about the behaviour. And that is kind of like my, it's zooming up in a bird's eye view of my entire holistic approach to classroom management. And I've got my podcast, the Untie Shibbles podcast, which is my favorite place to hang out and Instagram obviously. But I've got like 150, 160 episodes. I just had a message from someone yesterday actually saying,

51:06oh my god, Claire, I was driving from Sydney to Canberra and back. And I listened to six hours of you. And I'm like, I was like, what? You listen to just my voice for six hours. I just, I wish she was saying that like every episode, there is something really tangible to take away as well. So if you want to learn a few things, then definitely come and hang out on my podcast. It's a great place to get to know some little classroom management tips as well. We love that. We love those practical takeaways. Now, Claire, how can I listen and keep in touch with you and follow the work that you're doing? So yeah, tell us all the places to find you out there in the wide world. You can come and hang out with me on Instagram if you want to. The dot Untie Shibbles. There's one of dots and dashes. So they dot Untie Shibbles. And obviously my podcast, you can head to my website, which is the dash Untie Shibbles.com. I'm assuming you're just pop all these in the show in any way. I don't remember that. I'm so used to saying my website name.

52:08Is that all the places? If you want to come and hang out, if you did listen to this episode, by the way, and it's the best time you're finding me, please come and like, chats me on Instagram, like send me a message or a voice note or something. I'd love to hear from people who have discovered me from different places. And yeah, if you've gotten something, it'd be really, really cool. Yeah, absolutely. Well, we will definitely put all those links in the show notes, but yes, people who aren't following you, Claire, they definitely should be because they have been missing out. I've been following you for years now. And I always get so much from the things that you share. And I've loved connecting with you to, you know, through social media and having chats by DMs and all of that. So I appreciate the support that you give to teachers out there. So as we wrap up this episode, we always like to finish off with takeaways. And so the takeaways from the episode. So for me, a couple of key takeaways. Number one is really for me, I guess being more mindful about those things that we talked about,

53:09like the presents, the way I stand in the room and what that communicates, because it's something that we probably just don't think about, right? Just those little things to feed on the floor, standing like straight, not sort of like leaning on something or, you know, with my hip-hop to the side, like all those little nuance things that can make a really big impact that we often just don't think about. We just unconsciously do them. And even like the language that I use, the way that I phrase things, the tone in my voice, all those little inflections that could actually communicate something actually completely opposite to what I'm trying to do. And I guess it's being more mindful of those and going into a position where I'm thinking about those ahead of time, like I'm going to go into this lesson, more conscious of where I stand in the room, how I stand, these kind of things, because that can have a really big impact. And I think, you know, like we

54:14were talking about too, no, if something's not working, like addressing it, but doing it not in, you know, not in the yelling sense, but just, hey, things aren't working. So we're going to, we're going to refresh this. We're going to go over this expectation again. We're going to talk about, but I don't have to yell and scream and humiliate or blame or make them feel bad. Clare, it's all your fault. Clare didn't do this. So we're going to, but it's not, it's not a bad thing to pause and go over those things, but again, it's about doing it in a way that's holding, I guess, everyone accountable for the sense of like, we're responsible for making this classroom work. And so we're going to come back and revisit this and not feeling like God's too late. I just got to ride the term out, you know, and get to the end of the term, because we can kind of live our life like that. But we can constantly, at any point in time, we've got the power to make a shift. And so I think they're my two biggest takeaways from the episode. What about you, Clare? Any final takeaways or reminders? I love that. I love you go those takeaways. That's really

55:18nice. Sometimes, like, I'm sure you do it too. Like, when you just have like a chat and you're talking away and you think in the back, you're like, I wonder how this is translating, because you have a whole lot of context behind the work that you're doing. And then you're like, it's like, it's really nice to take away it. And I'm really glad to hear it. I think the final, you sum that up really nicely. I think the final reminder is that, like, if you are struggling with classroom management, I think that this has like kind of been a theme that's run through the episode. And it is, if you're struggling right now with classroom management, whether it's like in a small way or a big way, if it's not your fault and you're not doing anything wrong, you're doing the best that you can right now with your skills, your current skills, your current context, your current knowledge, the support that you've been given. And on top of that, not only is it not your fault and you haven't done anything wrong, you're also not stuck. So if you're there thinking right now, I don't have the support around me. I've asked for help, and I'm not getting it. You truly aren't stuck. Like, there is so much support that I offer. And I know a lot of people do

56:22come, there's not a podcast and start to make some changes. Yeah. Bek, feel empowered to make a little changes. And as I said before, like, if you do that, if you make it a priority, even just one hour per week to listen to a podcast episode and put something in place, it is absolutely inevitable that any year's time you are going to feel more confident, more capable in your classroom management. And even like, I've worked with people who, you know, at the end of working with me for a period of time, they have had senior leadership come into their classroom saying, what are you doing in here? Like, oh my gosh, like, can you talk to staff about it? Or can you support this person? It's these ripple effects that go out, like these threads that go through all of us in the work we're doing that is just so powerful. And yeah, so you're not stuck. You know, it's not your fault if you're really struggling and there are so many things that you can do to feel better about the situation you're in. Because if you are the kind of teacher who wants to be in the profession to do things differently, I don't want you to leave just because you don't feel supported.

57:24Like, that'd be an absolute travesty, you know? Yeah. And I love what you said, like, you know, there's lots of things that you can do, like, send a listen to a podcast, grab a book, have a read, you know, yet you might not be able to necessarily get, you know, the opportunity to go to a PL or something like that. But there's lots of other little things that you can do. And even if it's just like you said, an hour a week, one strategy that you get from a podcast that you listen to over time, like that builds. And before you know it, hopefully in, you know, 12-month time, you look back and go, wow, look how far I've come, just from diving into a podcast or, you know, pulling apart a chapter of a book a month or something like that. So really practical things that you can do. But Claire, you are amazing and we're so grateful for you for joining us for this episode and sharing all your knowledge and expertise in this space. Thank you so much. Thank you, Aaron, for allowing me to come into your podcast and talking to your community. It's always incredible to, yeah, to be able to meet some new people and to get that message across.

58:30So thank you for all of the work you're doing. Pleasure, like I said, it's an absolute pleasure to have you on a really appreciate it. But we are going to wrap it up there for season six episode two and all things behavior listen, we would love to hear your takeaways from this episode. You know, we're to find us on social media, teacher takeaway podcast on all the channels, drop us a DM, head into the comments. We would love to hear your takeaways from this episode. What are the things that you got that you're going to try? We'd also love to hear your thoughts, recommendations. If you've got you want to explore this topic a bit further, you've got questions that you'd like as we can always jump back on with Claire and have another chat. But we're going to wrap it up there. Claire, thanks again for joining us. We're really grateful. Thank you, Aaron. And that's it. We'll have you back with us again soon for another episode of the teacher takeaway podcast. Thanks for joining us.