In this episode, I reflect on my recent move from New Zealand to Australia and the unexpected lessons it reinforced about classroom management. Moving is always challenging, but relocating with a toddler highlighted the profound impact of predictability and structure on behaviour.
This experience reaffirmed a key classroom management principle: predictability is the brain’s best friend. I explore how structured routines, such as entry and exit procedures, transition cues, and scaffolding techniques, can help regulate behaviour and create a sense of safety in the classroom. Tune in for insights on how to proactively support students and foster a more predictable learning environment.
Listen in as I discuss:
- The Impact of Predictability on Behaviour. How my toddler’s reaction to moving reinforced the need for structure in managing emotions and behaviour.
- Classroom Routines as a Proactive Behaviour Strategy. Entry and exit routines, transition cues, and structured scaffolds that help mitigate dysregulation.
- Practical Classroom Applications. How small changes, like consistency in expectations, can positively influence student behaviour and engagement.
Have a question, comment, or just want to say hello? Drop us a text!
Enrolments for The Classroom Management Lab are now OPEN... but not for long! Join the 2025 cohort before doors close on May 11th.
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- Check out my website
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Oh, hi there teachers , welcome to the Unteachables
podcast.
I'm your host, claire English,and I am just a fellow teacher,
a toddler mama and a big oldbehavior nerd on a mission to
demystify and simplify thatlittle thing called classroom
management.
The way we've all been taughtto manage behavior and classroom
manage has left us playingcrowd control, which is not
(00:22):
something I subscribe to,because we're not dancers, we're
teachers.
So listen in as I walk youthrough the game, changing
strategies and I mean the thingsthat we can actually do and
action in our classrooms thatwill allow you to lean into your
beautiful values as acompassionate educator and feel
empowered to run your room witha little more calm and, dare I
(00:43):
say it, a lot less chaos.
I will see you in the episode.
Hello, hello, wonderfulteachers, welcome back to the
Teachables podcast.
My gosh, is it flipping awesometo be back here with you?
And if you're an avid listenerand you're thinking but you were
here just a few days ago, Iactually wasn't.
(01:04):
All of the episodes you've beenlistening to throughout February
were pre-recorded, becausewe've just made a huge move to
Australia and it has felt veryhuge.
It has been exhausting, it hasbeen overwhelming,
overstimulating, it's been allof the things.
So here I am sitting in our newapartment in Australia, in
(01:25):
Sydney, and if it's a bit echoeyfor the episodes I'm about to
record, I apologize, because wehave very few belongings in the
house so there's nothing toabsorb the sound of my loud
voice so it's kind of bouncingoff the walls.
But we've spent the last twoweeks kind of trying to furnish
a completely empty flat becausein the UK and if you're in the
(01:48):
UK I'm sure you're aware ormaybe it's just a London thing
but everywhere you rent is fullyfurnished and we haven't had to
actually buy our own furniturefor the time we've been together
.
So my husband and I so we'vemoved into this flat.
It's completely unfurnished.
We've had to go through theprocess and purchase all the
furniture and we're stillwaiting for all of our personal
(02:09):
belongings to come from NewZealand, like all of Ava's toys
and books and all of our clothes.
I think I've had the sameoutfit on for the last two weeks
because all of the things thatI bought have either been soiled
by my toddler eating on my lapor, you know just, it's too hot
to wear anything that I boughtover.
(02:30):
I completely forgot how humidand hot it was in Sydney in
summer.
So this has been a rude shock.
So it's been a bit of anadjustment.
Our belongings are stillwaiting on the dock in New
Zealand.
They haven't even left NewZealand to go on the journey to
Sydney.
So I don't know how long it'sgoing to be.
But all of that to say, if it'sa little bit echoey in my house
(02:52):
, I apologize and hopefully itdoes not hinder all of the
things I'm about to talk about.
And what I am about to talkabout has a lot to do with the
move, because moving is hard,obviously, and I've done it many
times in my life, both, youknow, at home and abroad.
You know I moved to Londonseven years ago by myself, with
(03:12):
nothing except for a bag.
We moved with a baby fromLondon to New Zealand and that
was tough.
But moving with a toddler hasbeen a totally different ball
game than anything that I haveexperienced.
It has been very, very tough,but not for the reasons that I
thought it would be.
I thought the flight might bedifficult.
(03:34):
You know flights are a bit hard.
No, that was the easy part.
I thought that the fact shedidn't have any toys was the
hard part.
No, that was.
That's fine.
We don't need toys, you know,she can just jump in the kitchen
with me and we can do somestuff there or go to the park or
go outside and play in the dirtLike it's not a problem.
It has been the change inroutine.
It's been the fact that she'slost everything in her life that
(03:54):
she once knew, except for us,of course.
You know her routine back inNew Zealand was waking up.
I promise you this hassomething to do with classroom
management.
I promise you I'm going to, ina roundabout way, get back to
the big message that I want toteach you for this episode, but
stay with me.
So she'd wake up in the morningshe'd see her grandparents,
(04:15):
she'd go and wake up hergranddad, like you know, papa's
sleeping.
Go wake up, papa.
You know she was going todaycare, she was coming home.
She knew all of the people atdaycare and she was really
connected with them and she hada really good attachment with
them.
She knew all the names of herfriends at daycare.
So you know, you know she'dcome home to go to bed, all of
that routine.
She knew where she was eating,when she was eating, what she
(04:36):
was doing and she was a reallyhappy girl and of course she has
big, big feelings, just likeall toddlers do.
And I read something that wasjust so helpful for me the other
day and it said that toddlers,they have every single emotion
that they're ever going to feelin their life, but none of the
skills they have to regulatethem.
(04:56):
And that applies to all of theyoung people we're working with,
by the way.
But they are just gettingbetter and better at regulation
and managing those as they getolder.
But that was really helpful forme to hear because I really
needed that reframe when I wasgoing through all of this stuff.
But prior to the trip, eventhough she was obviously a
toddler and she still had thosebig feelings, there weren't many
(05:17):
situations that we hadexperienced where a cuddle or
some food or a nap or some freshair or some water couldn't kind
of fix and shift her out ofthose big feelings or those you
know.
Really, like you know, when shewas having a bit of a tough day
, it wasn't too hard to fix thatwith those things.
But the second that we startedthe move and I'm talking the
(05:39):
second that we started packingthings up things totally changed
and it came to a head.
We went to the hotel atAuckland airport and since then
she's been very hard to keephappy.
It's getting a little bitbetter now and I'll talk about
that in a second, but she wasvery, very hard to keep happy.
We took her up to the restaurantto have some dinner and she'd
say, yes, she wants to color.
(05:59):
But then two seconds latershe'd be throwing her book and,
you know, screaming mama, mama,mama, mama, mama.
But wanted to be on me, butwanted to be off me and like
nothing would make her happy.
And this continued for about 10days.
It's only really started toshift back into a place where
she's a little bit happier, butI've never experienced times
with her where I couldn't giveher a cuddle.
(06:21):
Or, you know, try toco-regulate with her and things
would get better.
Or maybe it's just that she'sbecoming more of a toddler and
entering, you know, like thosemore toddler-y years.
You know she's just turned two,but either way, like the
dysregulation, the screaming forme, I carried her every second
of the day for 10 days.
She wouldn't even walk like letme walk into another room
without having a completemeltdown and needing to be on me
(06:43):
All whilst we were trying toget everything sorted.
We had no furniture, we had nocomforts, none of our belongings
and all of those things.
So all of this was happening inthis really like high pressure
environment, like we were tryingto unbox things like furniture
that we bought just so we couldhave a chair to sit on, and I
wouldn't be able to put her downon the ground because I'd have
(07:03):
to have her on me and if she wason me, she wanted to be off me,
and if she was off me, shewanted to be on me.
It was just really tough.
So what we were doing wassitting on the floor because we
had no dining table.
We have one now, thank goodness.
But we were eating with Ava onthe floor of the lounge room and
she'd have a mouthful of herfood, she'd stand up, she'd run
around and we had no way ofreinforcing boundaries with her.
(07:25):
We had no, no way of kind ofestablishing any routine with
her, because we had nothing tolike to really, I don't know
reinforce that.
It was very hard to get her tosit on the floor and eat it was.
She wasn't used to that.
She was very hard to get her tosit on my lap to eat.
She wasn't used to being on thefloor so she'd take a mouthful,
she'd run around and thiscontinued and this continued and
(07:48):
she just became more physical.
She was just becomingincreasingly dysregulated.
Poor Bubba, it was just reallyhard for her.
She was going through it and allthe while I've been really
trying to remain very regulatedmyself.
I've been trying to co-regulatewith her in the best way that I
can.
But even knowing all of thisstuff about how crucial that is,
(08:12):
I have really struggled with itbecause as adults we still like
that routine and we stillthrive on having our comforts
and having, you know, thingsaround us kind of sorted.
And it was just chaos, likeeverything was just flipping
chaos.
The last seven minutes of mejust talking is just to say
everything has been chaotic Atthe moment.
(08:34):
Things haven't changed much interms of our living conditions,
like in terms of our livingarrangement.
It'll still be about two monthsbefore we get our belongings
and even our lounge delivered.
But things with Ava, withthings with my, with my toddler,
have become far easier becauseof one single change, and that
change was that we've got adining table and we've been able
(08:54):
to have some predictability andcontinuity around mealtimes.
So there's not much that I cancontrol at the moment, but I can
start to reinforce theboundaries around eating, around
breakfast, around lunch andaround dinner.
We must eat at the table, wemust eat together.
We sit down as a family and wedo this every single morning,
(09:14):
every single night and she hasbeen delighted by it.
She sits at the dining tableand she sits there and she rubs
the table and she's like diningtable, with a smile on her face.
She says breakfast time and sheruns up to the table and she's
like up and she taps her newlittle booster seat because we
don't have any of her belongings.
(09:35):
We had to buy everything new.
So we've kind of also upgradedher to all of the big kid things
.
That was probably not somethingwe had to do all at once.
So we've kind of also upgradedher to all of the big kid things
.
That was probably not somethingwe had to do all at once, so
all of those changes probablydidn't help.
So she wants to get up on herbooster seat, you know.
But this has had a huge flow oneffect to everything in our day
to day, and I mean everything.
She's more settled, I feel moresettled.
(09:57):
We have a bit of structureagain.
So all of this and this is whenI'm getting back around to the
link with classroom management,and it is a really important one
it all just reinforced for methe power of predictability when
it comes to the brain andbehavior.
When we have things in our lifethat we can predict, when we
have routines, we havestructures in place, our
(10:19):
amygdala is able to preempt andprepare and it gives us a
feeling of safety.
We don't need to be on highalert all of the time because we
know what is to come.
Just like Ava and just like hermealtimes.
At least, she knew that when itwas time to have a meal, she
had a dining table she had tosit at, she was with her family
and there was starting to be alittle bit of routine and
(10:39):
structure.
She started to eat more.
Everything has started to get alot better, and this shows up
in our classroom in a variety ofways, and this is actually one
of the golden rules of classroommanagement in my book.
It's never just about thebehavior and it underpins one of
my pillars in that, becausepredictability is the brain's
best friend.
So when it comes to dysregulatedbehaviors in the classroom, yes
(11:02):
, we need to know, obviously,how to respond and resolve all
of those things when they do popup.
But there is so muchproactively to mitigate these
challenges before they pop up.
So a solid entry routine.
For example, how do studentsenter the room?
Is there a starter that'sreally achievable for them,
that's in the same place everylesson, or delivered in the same
(11:24):
way, or that they just know isgoing to be delivered in one of
a couple of ways?
Is there a map to theirlearning that they can reference
so when they sit down, is theresomewhere in the room that they
can look and even just see inthree dot points what they're
going to be doing that lesson?
Oh, up on the board.
I can see I'm doing my do now.
I can see that I'm then doing agroup activity around I don't
know Macbeth and then I can seethat I'm doing an exit task.
(11:48):
I can see what I'm doing andwhen I'm doing it.
Do they know, you know what theydo when they get into the room?
Do they know how to unpack?
Do they know where they'resitting?
You know what they do when theyget into the room?
Do they know how to unpack?
Do they know where they'resitting, you know, is there a
predictable space for them to go?
Or are they going into the roomthinking, oh crap, I just had a
fight with Jenny.
Where am I going to sit todayIf I sit over here, then are
they going to say, oh, go away,my friend wants to sit there.
(12:09):
Having a predictable seatingplan, I believe, is one of the
most crucial things for me interms of, like, mitigating some
of those challenging behaviorsand increasing the
predictability in the room.
So, thinking about that entryroutine, how can you increase
the predictability around that?
Then a solid exit routine.
You know things like exittickets, things like where do
students put their books whenthey leave?
(12:29):
How can they communicate ifthey don't get the work?
All of those kinds of thingsthat give them a sense of safety
, knowing that if they don't getit, there's something to do.
If they have their books andthey finish their work, where do
they put them?
Is there something that closesoff the lesson?
They do every single lesson.
Then there are things liketransition routines, so
non-verbals that students areable to follow.
(12:50):
So where do you stand forattention?
Do you use music?
Do you type up on the board?
How do you transition from onething to the other in a way
that's predictable and thatstudents are able to pick up
immediately and justnon-verbally know exactly what
to do before you even give themyour instructions.
And you know things likescaffolds are used for tasks.
So when you're doing paragraphwriting, are you using the same
(13:11):
paragraph structure?
Are you giving them a pureparagraph so they know?
Okay, when I go through thisparagraph writing, I know that I
can start with my point.
I know that I can give anexample.
I know that I go into myexplanation.
So routines and structures andpredictability around what
you're expecting in the room,and the list just goes on and on
for all of these micro momentsin the day where you can
(13:33):
increase the predictability.
Last month, by the way, I spokeall about exit routines, so you
can head back and check out allof those episodes if you want
some more guidance.
But your action step for thisepisode is to just have a think
about your current routines.
What is predictable in yourclassroom?
What can students expect whenthey come into the room and just
do a little bit of an audit?
You know, see if there are anymetaphorical dining tables that
(13:57):
you can pop up in your room toincrease the predictability and
the routines, and just thinkingabout how you can get those
students walking into the roomand going.
I know what's happening here, Ifeel safe, I feel settled.
Okay, lovely teachers, that isit.
I hope that was useful.
I hope it was helpful and, ifit was, it would mean so much
for you to head over and leaveme a review.
(14:17):
It really does help meimmensely when it comes to
reaching and supporting moreteachers, and I could use a
little bit of a boost throughall of this chaos that is
happening at the moment.
I would absolutely love to reada couple of your reviews.
Anyway, that is it.
Take care and I shall see youin the next episode.
Oh, hi there teachers , welcome to the Unteachables
podcast.
I'm your host, claire English,and I am just a fellow teacher,
a toddler mama and a big oldbehavior nerd on a mission to
demystify and simplify thatlittle thing called classroom
management.
The way we've all been taughtto manage behavior and classroom
manage has left us playingcrowd control, which is not
(00:22):
something I subscribe to,because we're not dancers, we're
teachers.
So listen in as I walk youthrough the game, changing
strategies and I mean the thingsthat we can actually do and
action in our classrooms thatwill allow you to lean into your
beautiful values as acompassionate educator and feel
empowered to run your room witha little more calm and, dare I
(00:43):
say it, a lot less chaos.
I will see you in the episode.
Hello, hello, wonderfulteachers, welcome back to the
Teachables podcast.
My gosh, is it flipping awesometo be back here with you?
And if you're an avid listenerand you're thinking but you were
here just a few days ago, Iactually wasn't.
(01:04):
All of the episodes you've beenlistening to throughout February
were pre-recorded, becausewe've just made a huge move to
Australia and it has felt veryhuge.
It has been exhausting, it hasbeen overwhelming,
overstimulating, it's been allof the things.
So here I am sitting in our newapartment in Australia, in
(01:25):
Sydney, and if it's a bit echoeyfor the episodes I'm about to
record, I apologize, because wehave very few belongings in the
house so there's nothing toabsorb the sound of my loud
voice so it's kind of bouncingoff the walls.
But we've spent the last twoweeks kind of trying to furnish
a completely empty flat becausein the UK and if you're in the
(01:48):
UK I'm sure you're aware ormaybe it's just a London thing
but everywhere you rent is fullyfurnished and we haven't had to
actually buy our own furniturefor the time we've been together
.
So my husband and I so we'vemoved into this flat.
It's completely unfurnished.
We've had to go through theprocess and purchase all the
furniture and we're stillwaiting for all of our personal
(02:09):
belongings to come from NewZealand, like all of Ava's toys
and books and all of our clothes.
I think I've had the sameoutfit on for the last two weeks
because all of the things thatI bought have either been soiled
by my toddler eating on my lapor, you know just, it's too hot
to wear anything that I boughtover.
(02:30):
I completely forgot how humidand hot it was in Sydney in
summer.
So this has been a rude shock.
So it's been a bit of anadjustment.
Our belongings are stillwaiting on the dock in New
Zealand.
They haven't even left NewZealand to go on the journey to
Sydney.
So I don't know how long it'sgoing to be.
But all of that to say, if it'sa little bit echoey in my house
(02:52):
, I apologize and hopefully itdoes not hinder all of the
things I'm about to talk about.
And what I am about to talkabout has a lot to do with the
move, because moving is hard,obviously, and I've done it many
times in my life, both, youknow, at home and abroad.
You know I moved to Londonseven years ago by myself, with
(03:12):
nothing except for a bag.
We moved with a baby fromLondon to New Zealand and that
was tough.
But moving with a toddler hasbeen a totally different ball
game than anything that I haveexperienced.
It has been very, very tough,but not for the reasons that I
thought it would be.
I thought the flight might bedifficult.
(03:34):
You know flights are a bit hard.
No, that was the easy part.
I thought that the fact shedidn't have any toys was the
hard part.
No, that was.
That's fine.
We don't need toys, you know,she can just jump in the kitchen
with me and we can do somestuff there or go to the park or
go outside and play in the dirtLike it's not a problem.
It has been the change inroutine.
It's been the fact that she'slost everything in her life that
(03:54):
she once knew, except for us,of course.
You know her routine back inNew Zealand was waking up.
I promise you this hassomething to do with classroom
management.
I promise you I'm going to, ina roundabout way, get back to
the big message that I want toteach you for this episode, but
stay with me.
So she'd wake up in the morningshe'd see her grandparents,
(04:15):
she'd go and wake up hergranddad, like you know, papa's
sleeping.
Go wake up, papa.
You know she was going todaycare, she was coming home.
She knew all of the people atdaycare and she was really
connected with them and she hada really good attachment with
them.
She knew all the names of herfriends at daycare.
So you know, you know she'dcome home to go to bed, all of
that routine.
She knew where she was eating,when she was eating, what she
(04:36):
was doing and she was a reallyhappy girl and of course she has
big, big feelings, just likeall toddlers do.
And I read something that wasjust so helpful for me the other
day and it said that toddlers,they have every single emotion
that they're ever going to feelin their life, but none of the
skills they have to regulatethem.
(04:56):
And that applies to all of theyoung people we're working with,
by the way.
But they are just gettingbetter and better at regulation
and managing those as they getolder.
But that was really helpful forme to hear because I really
needed that reframe when I wasgoing through all of this stuff.
But prior to the trip, eventhough she was obviously a
toddler and she still had thosebig feelings, there weren't many
(05:17):
situations that we hadexperienced where a cuddle or
some food or a nap or some freshair or some water couldn't kind
of fix and shift her out ofthose big feelings or those you
know.
Really, like you know, when shewas having a bit of a tough day
, it wasn't too hard to fix thatwith those things.
But the second that we startedthe move and I'm talking the
(05:39):
second that we started packingthings up things totally changed
and it came to a head.
We went to the hotel atAuckland airport and since then
she's been very hard to keephappy.
It's getting a little bitbetter now and I'll talk about
that in a second, but she wasvery, very hard to keep happy.
We took her up to the restaurantto have some dinner and she'd
say, yes, she wants to color.
(05:59):
But then two seconds latershe'd be throwing her book and,
you know, screaming mama, mama,mama, mama, mama.
But wanted to be on me, butwanted to be off me and like
nothing would make her happy.
And this continued for about 10days.
It's only really started toshift back into a place where
she's a little bit happier, butI've never experienced times
with her where I couldn't giveher a cuddle.
(06:21):
Or, you know, try toco-regulate with her and things
would get better.
Or maybe it's just that she'sbecoming more of a toddler and
entering, you know, like thosemore toddler-y years.
You know she's just turned two,but either way, like the
dysregulation, the screaming forme, I carried her every second
of the day for 10 days.
She wouldn't even walk like letme walk into another room
without having a completemeltdown and needing to be on me
(06:43):
All whilst we were trying toget everything sorted.
We had no furniture, we had nocomforts, none of our belongings
and all of those things.
So all of this was happening inthis really like high pressure
environment, like we were tryingto unbox things like furniture
that we bought just so we couldhave a chair to sit on, and I
wouldn't be able to put her downon the ground because I'd have
(07:03):
to have her on me and if she wason me, she wanted to be off me,
and if she was off me, shewanted to be on me.
It was just really tough.
So what we were doing wassitting on the floor because we
had no dining table.
We have one now, thank goodness.
But we were eating with Ava onthe floor of the lounge room and
she'd have a mouthful of herfood, she'd stand up, she'd run
around and we had no way ofreinforcing boundaries with her.
(07:25):
We had no, no way of kind ofestablishing any routine with
her, because we had nothing tolike to really, I don't know
reinforce that.
It was very hard to get her tosit on the floor and eat it was.
She wasn't used to that.
She was very hard to get her tosit on my lap to eat.
She wasn't used to being on thefloor so she'd take a mouthful,
she'd run around and thiscontinued and this continued and
(07:48):
she just became more physical.
She was just becomingincreasingly dysregulated.
Poor Bubba, it was just reallyhard for her.
She was going through it and allthe while I've been really
trying to remain very regulatedmyself.
I've been trying to co-regulatewith her in the best way that I
can.
But even knowing all of thisstuff about how crucial that is,
(08:12):
I have really struggled with itbecause as adults we still like
that routine and we stillthrive on having our comforts
and having, you know, thingsaround us kind of sorted.
And it was just chaos, likeeverything was just flipping
chaos.
The last seven minutes of mejust talking is just to say
everything has been chaotic Atthe moment.
(08:34):
Things haven't changed much interms of our living conditions,
like in terms of our livingarrangement.
It'll still be about two monthsbefore we get our belongings
and even our lounge delivered.
But things with Ava, withthings with my, with my toddler,
have become far easier becauseof one single change, and that
change was that we've got adining table and we've been able
(08:54):
to have some predictability andcontinuity around mealtimes.
So there's not much that I cancontrol at the moment, but I can
start to reinforce theboundaries around eating, around
breakfast, around lunch andaround dinner.
We must eat at the table, wemust eat together.
We sit down as a family and wedo this every single morning,
(09:14):
every single night and she hasbeen delighted by it.
She sits at the dining tableand she sits there and she rubs
the table and she's like diningtable, with a smile on her face.
She says breakfast time and sheruns up to the table and she's
like up and she taps her newlittle booster seat because we
don't have any of her belongings.
(09:35):
We had to buy everything new.
So we've kind of also upgradedher to all of the big kid things
.
That was probably not somethingwe had to do all at once.
So we've kind of also upgradedher to all of the big kid things
.
That was probably not somethingwe had to do all at once, so
all of those changes probablydidn't help.
So she wants to get up on herbooster seat, you know.
But this has had a huge flow oneffect to everything in our day
to day, and I mean everything.
She's more settled, I feel moresettled.
(09:57):
We have a bit of structureagain.
So all of this and this is whenI'm getting back around to the
link with classroom management,and it is a really important one
it all just reinforced for methe power of predictability when
it comes to the brain andbehavior.
When we have things in our lifethat we can predict, when we
have routines, we havestructures in place, our
(10:19):
amygdala is able to preempt andprepare and it gives us a
feeling of safety.
We don't need to be on highalert all of the time because we
know what is to come.
Just like Ava and just like hermealtimes.
At least, she knew that when itwas time to have a meal, she
had a dining table she had tosit at, she was with her family
and there was starting to be alittle bit of routine and
(10:39):
structure.
She started to eat more.
Everything has started to get alot better, and this shows up
in our classroom in a variety ofways, and this is actually one
of the golden rules of classroommanagement in my book.
It's never just about thebehavior and it underpins one of
my pillars in that, becausepredictability is the brain's
best friend.
So when it comes to dysregulatedbehaviors in the classroom, yes
(11:02):
, we need to know, obviously,how to respond and resolve all
of those things when they do popup.
But there is so muchproactively to mitigate these
challenges before they pop up.
So a solid entry routine.
For example, how do studentsenter the room?
Is there a starter that'sreally achievable for them,
that's in the same place everylesson, or delivered in the same
(11:24):
way, or that they just know isgoing to be delivered in one of
a couple of ways?
Is there a map to theirlearning that they can reference
so when they sit down, is theresomewhere in the room that they
can look and even just see inthree dot points what they're
going to be doing that lesson?
Oh, up on the board.
I can see I'm doing my do now.
I can see that I'm then doing agroup activity around I don't
know Macbeth and then I can seethat I'm doing an exit task.
(11:48):
I can see what I'm doing andwhen I'm doing it.
Do they know, you know what theydo when they get into the room?
Do they know how to unpack?
Do they know where they'resitting?
You know what they do when theyget into the room?
Do they know how to unpack?
Do they know where they'resitting, you know, is there a
predictable space for them to go?
Or are they going into the roomthinking, oh crap, I just had a
fight with Jenny.
Where am I going to sit todayIf I sit over here, then are
they going to say, oh, go away,my friend wants to sit there.
(12:09):
Having a predictable seatingplan, I believe, is one of the
most crucial things for me interms of, like, mitigating some
of those challenging behaviorsand increasing the
predictability in the room.
So, thinking about that entryroutine, how can you increase
the predictability around that?
Then a solid exit routine.
You know things like exittickets, things like where do
students put their books whenthey leave?
(12:29):
How can they communicate ifthey don't get the work?
All of those kinds of thingsthat give them a sense of safety
, knowing that if they don't getit, there's something to do.
If they have their books andthey finish their work, where do
they put them?
Is there something that closesoff the lesson?
They do every single lesson.
Then there are things liketransition routines, so
non-verbals that students areable to follow.
(12:50):
So where do you stand forattention?
Do you use music?
Do you type up on the board?
How do you transition from onething to the other in a way
that's predictable and thatstudents are able to pick up
immediately and justnon-verbally know exactly what
to do before you even give themyour instructions.
And you know things likescaffolds are used for tasks.
So when you're doing paragraphwriting, are you using the same
(13:11):
paragraph structure?
Are you giving them a pureparagraph so they know?
Okay, when I go through thisparagraph writing, I know that I
can start with my point.
I know that I can give anexample.
I know that I go into myexplanation.
So routines and structures andpredictability around what
you're expecting in the room,and the list just goes on and on
for all of these micro momentsin the day where you can
(13:33):
increase the predictability.
Last month, by the way, I spokeall about exit routines, so you
can head back and check out allof those episodes if you want
some more guidance.
But your action step for thisepisode is to just have a think
about your current routines.
What is predictable in yourclassroom?
What can students expect whenthey come into the room and just
do a little bit of an audit?
You know, see if there are anymetaphorical dining tables that
(13:57):
you can pop up in your room toincrease the predictability and
the routines, and just thinkingabout how you can get those
students walking into the roomand going.
I know what's happening here, Ifeel safe, I feel settled.
Okay, lovely teachers, that isit.
I hope that was useful.
I hope it was helpful and, ifit was, it would mean so much
for you to head over and leaveme a review.
(14:17):
It really does help meimmensely when it comes to
reaching and supporting moreteachers, and I could use a
little bit of a boost throughall of this chaos that is
happening at the moment.
I would absolutely love to reada couple of your reviews.
Anyway, that is it.
Take care and I shall see youin the next episode.
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