April 28, 2025 • 21 mins
If you’re drowning in behaviour…
If you’re thinking, “I actually can’t keep doing this”…
If you’re exhausted from trying everything and nothing’s sticking…
You are not alone. And you are not the problem.
Confidence in classroom management can come with time and experience. But often, it doesn’t. That’s why I created a clear path forward.
In this episode, I’m walking you through the four steps of my Classroom Compass Approach – a simple structure I designed to help teachers move from overwhelmed to in control. It’s the exact approach I’ve used to help over 1,000 educators take back the reins in their classroom.
IN THIS EPISODE, I DISCUSS:
- Why classroom confidence doesn’t always come with time – and what actually helps
- The four steps of my Classroom Compass Approach
- What to focus on before behaviour even happens
- How to respond and resolve without escalating
- Why this is the stuff that truly transforms your practice
Here’s the beauty of this whole approach: it puts you back in the driver’s seat.
We can’t control behaviour. But we can control how we show up, how we plan, how we respond, and how we connect.
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.
JOIN MY FREE LIVE TRAINING: TURN YOUR TEACHING INTO A CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT MACHINE
RESOURCES AND MORE SUPPORT:
- Shop all resources
- Join The Behaviour Club
- My book! It’s Never Just About the Behaviour: A holistic approach to classroom behaviour management
- The Low-Level Behaviour Bootcamp
- Free guide: 'Chats that Create Change'
Connect with me:
- Follow on Instagram @the.unteachables
- 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 bouncers,
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, beautiful teacher,welcome back to the Unteachables
podcast.
I am Claire English, I'm yourhost and today I would love to
talk to you about yourconfidence in the classroom and
how you feel when you step intothat classroom in front of your
(01:05):
30 odd students.
How do you feel when you'refaced with behavior?
How do you feel when you knowthere's a bunch of chit chat and
you feel like you can't get thechit chat to die down Like how
do you feel in those moments?
Because building confidence inthe classroom it can come with
time, it can come withexperience, it can come with
(01:26):
personality.
I say can because sometimestime and experience still
doesn't lead to classroommanagement confidence.
I know this because a lot ofthe teachers that I work with
have been teaching for 10, 15,20 years and you know they don't
feel confident, they don't feelall over things.
They still feel frazzled andout of their depth when it comes
(01:48):
to standing in front of a classof 30 students who are all
chatting away and not listeningto what they're saying and
walking them out of the room andall have different behaviors
and all have different needs andlike it's just, it's a lot.
It's a lot to be a teacher,it's a lot to classroom manage
and, bloody hell, it does take alot of confidence to be able to
stand in front of a classroomand walk in and be like, yep,
(02:09):
I'm here and I'm going to leavethis room in the most epic way
that I possibly can.
But if you're drowning inbehavior, if you're struggling
with classroom management, youmight be thinking, bloody hell,
I can't keep doing this for theforeseeable, I can't keep
throwing pasta at the water, seeif it's cooked.
I can't keep continuing thecycle, not knowing if it's going
(02:30):
to end.
Like I just can't keep doingthis.
That's why I have a lot ofteachers coming to me and saying
I just don't know if I can keepteaching anymore.
Like I just don't know if it'sfor me, I just yeah, it's that
job, isn't it?
Where you know it can reallyshake your confidence.
It can really make you feellike you're not good enough.
It can really make you feellike you're not cut out for this
job.
And it doesn't help that whenyou go to get support, sometimes
(02:52):
you get told to build arelationship or to not take it
personally or you know, just towhat are you doing with your
teaching and learning.
Like it's just not helpful whenyou go to seek support around
these things and the supportthat you're getting is not
adequate.
So I just wanted to say that,like you know, it can be really
really hard to keep continuinglike keep, keep on, keeping on,
really without knowing ifthere's an end in sight and
feeling really hopeless.
That is why I do this work.
(03:15):
Yes, of course you need to gothrough it, to grow through it,
but you also should have someawareness of what you're doing.
That can change things.
And when I say go through it togrow through it, I mean like
get the experience and do themiles and actually hardwire the
skills.
Like I wasn't good at classroommanagement, overnight, it was
me trying and hardwiring andpracticing and having
(03:39):
observations with someincredible mentors and being
able to, you know, see where Iwas, you know, maybe needing to
tighten things up.
Or like recording.
I remember looking at arecording of myself teaching and
I'd be like my mentor wouldpoint some stuff out and I'm
like, oh my God, I am doing that.
I'm cringing right now becauseI am only teaching to one side
of the room accidentally or I am, you know, like shuffling
(04:00):
around on both feet and notlooking confident sitting at the
front of the room and myteacher presence need work and
you know there's so many things.
But you do need to go throughit to grow through it in terms
of experience.
But you can't just keep goingthrough it and growing.
You can't grow through whatyou're going through unless you
(04:22):
have the actual awareness andskills and strategy to what you
can do to change things.
I hope that made sense.
That was like a lot of mesaying go through and go through
.
But this is exactly why Icreated my classroom compass
method.
When it comes to my holisticclassroom management approach,
it's actual action steps thatyou can take to build your
(04:45):
confidence and know what tochange in your situation.
So, no matter if you've beenteaching for zero years or 20
years, you can use the classroomcompass method to be able to go
okay, this is where I'm at andthis can guide me in this
direction.
This can help me to change this, or I can use this to be able
to identify what the problem ishere.
That is exactly why I createdthis holistic approach so you
(05:08):
just can build your confidenceand know what to do to change
your situation and not feelhelpless and hopeless and stuck
going.
God, I'm just, I'm goingthrough it, but I'm not growing
through it, because I'm justending the day wanting to curl
up into a little ball under mydesk and cry I've been there,
I've done that.
So in this episode, I am goingto be introducing you to my
classroom compass method andstepping you through those four
(05:30):
steps.
However, if you want to divedeeper into this with me, I ran
my live training.
If you're listening to this inreal time.
I ran it this week, so it'salready done and dusted, but you
can still watch the replay atthe moment.
So if you would rather go andwatch the training around this
and dig deeper straight away,just pause this episode and head
to the-unteachablescom forward,slash, learn, and you can just
(05:52):
watch the live training there,where I step you through what
I'm about to step you through inthis podcast episode, but in
more depth and with visuals, and, yes, there's going to be more
information for you.
If you would rather pause thisepisode and go and watch the
training instead, so go and dothat now, or stick with me and I
will step you through theclassroom compass method that I
have established over my careerto make things a whole lot
(06:16):
easier for me and those that Isupport.
So let's crack on.
There are four steps to thispathway, or, if you want to call
it the compass.
There's four little prongs, thefour little directions.
You can tell that I wasn't youknow in some kind of
orienteering.
Four prongs to a compass.
There's four parts of this.
(06:36):
That's all you need to know,and each part of this makes up a
different module in theClassroom Management Lab.
So I've really tried tostructure it in a way that just
makes sense and you can just youknow kind of learn things and
apply them in your classroom andthen use them as that beautiful
compass to guide the way whenyou're struggling with things in
your classroom.
The first part of this model isprepare, that is, your behavior
(07:00):
backpack.
The whole purpose of prepare isliterally, as it says, the
behavior backpack is to fillyour backpack up with the
foundational and essentialbehavior theories and you know
the neuroscience behind thebrain and how it's shaped and
why.
You know behaviors happen andyou know knowing what's
developmentally appropriate, allof those things that are really
(07:21):
important for us to understand,to then be autonomous in our
classroom management, to thenhave an understanding about all
of the things to follow in thepathway, all of the things to
follow in the model.
Everything is then contextuallyrelevant and makes sense to
your understanding of behavior,because you could use all of the
(07:43):
strategies in my model withouthaving your behavior backpack,
but you'll never be trulyautonomous in saying, oh, that's
happening.
I understand why this ishappening and I can choose one
of these to make that better orto mitigate those behaviors, or
to support other teachers tothen mitigate their behaviors in
the classroom that arehappening.
(08:03):
With your behavior backpackit's like literally putting on a
behavior backpack, putting onyour backpack, putting things in
and then just carrying thatthrough with you for the whole
rest of the model.
With this behavior backpackyou're able to get curious, you
can understand the approach in adeeper way and you can make the
right decisions and respondappropriately.
In the moment, without thisbehavior backpack you're going
(08:25):
to really struggle to do thatbecause without the behavior
backpack you don't understandthe context around the behaviors
you're seeing.
So let's say you've got yourbehavior backpack on Brilliant,
you've got all of thatfoundational information around
behavior.
The second step is the mostcrucial in my mind and that is
reduce.
The most important classroommanagement happens before there
(08:46):
are any behaviors to manage.
I'm such a big believer in that, I'm such a big advocate for
supporting teachers to controlthe things in their classroom
that they can control tomitigate behaviors and
especially things like low-levelbehaviors.
A lot of those can be mitigatedby the things that we do before
the behaviors happen.
The goal for this step of themodel is to mitigate the
(09:07):
underlying factors thatcontribute to a lot of the
challenging behaviors thatmanifest in the classroom.
Doing the things we can control, which is surprisingly a lot.
So in this part of the model wehave things like our teaching
presence and how we strengthenour teaching presence and how we
develop a strong, confidentpresence in the classroom.
That's non-verbal, that'scompassionate, that is still
(09:30):
calm and self-regulating andco-regulating and all of the
things.
Then we have routines what arewe doing when we walk into the
room?
What are we doing intransitions?
What are we doing when we'reexiting the room?
All of those things are socrucial to the overall classroom
management that we areestablishing in our room and
being able to mitigate thebehaviors that we're seeing.
(09:52):
The next is buy-in.
How do we get buy-in Then?
Lesson design, differentiation,lesson delivery, expectations,
boundaries, rapport all of thesethings happen on a level of
mitigation, before the behaviorseven manifest in the classroom,
and, of course, we can thendrag those forward when
behaviors are happening in theclassroom.
(10:13):
These things are somethingthat's relevant.
However, having anunderstanding around the things
that we can control in ourclassroom these things are
something that's relevant.
However, having anunderstanding around the things
that we can control in ourclassroom is golden.
Like you will see, just bytweaking things in the reduced
phase, you will see asignificant reduction in the
challenging behaviors that youare seeing in your classroom at
(10:33):
the moment.
And I know that because I'vebeen there, I've done that and
I've supported hundreds ofteachers to do the same and see
incredible changes in theirclassrooms and actually make
them feel like, oh my gosh, I'vegot this, I can feel confident
walking in here because I am allover X, y and Z and I know that
when behaviors do pop up, I'vethen got a plan.
So, speaking of which, the thirdstep.
(10:54):
So you've got the prepare,you've got your behavior
backpack, you're carrying yourbehavior backpack, you've
carried it into reduce.
You know, with your behaviorbackpack, why the reduction of
behaviors are happening throughthese things.
It's not just like throwingspaghetti at a wall and going,
oh, that works, why does it work?
You'll understand why it works.
Then you've got the third step,which is respond.
(11:16):
Behavior is still going tohappen.
No matter what we do, no matterhow amazing our routines are,
no matter how incredible ourteaching presence is, no matter
what we do with differentiationand our expectations and our
boundaries, behavior is stillgoing to pop up and every single
choice that we make in theclassroom has the potential to
connect or disconnect, escalateor de-escalate, and the goal
(11:37):
with this step here of respondis to de-escalate and address
the behaviors which arise duringthe lesson so we can get back
to teaching.
So this part of the compass isall about co-regulation,
de-escalation, non-verbalcommunication and I take you
through my five P's roadmap.
If you've read my book or ifyou've been in any of my courses
(11:58):
, you'll be familiar with someof my P's of nonverbal classroom
management, the roadmap that Ifollow to actually responding to
behaviors in the moment.
But I take you through that.
But all of this is managingbehavior in a way that is the
palm and not the fist Anothermetaphor you might've heard me
talk about in the previouspodcast episodes which just
(12:19):
means managing behavior in a waythat is non-confrontational and
in a way that's actually goingto work, to get buy-in and to
support students to makedifferent choices Thinking are
you speaking to studentspublicly or privately?
Is your body languagethreatening or non-threatening?
Are things escalating orde-escalating when you address
them?
So all of those little thingsare things that we talk about
(12:40):
when it comes to respond and ifyou do want to go and watch the
replay of that live session,then you can go and do that and
I go into that in a little bitmore detail Then just say you've
got your behavior backpack on,you've beautifully mitigated so
many of those disruptivebehaviors that were causing you
to really struggle in theclassroom and feeling really,
(13:01):
you know, lacking confidence.
Then you're able to respondeffectively and deescalate those
behaviors that are popping up.
Then, when the storm has passed, if those big behaviors have
happened in the room, then youneed to resolve things.
When things are de-escalated,when the lesson's over, then we
can work with our young peoplethat need additional support.
(13:22):
What I love about the classroomcompass and the model that I
teach is restorative practice.
Right, a lot of teachers godon't like restorative practice
because it takes me a long time.
I can't have 20 conversations aday.
I can't have that manyconversations.
It's not going to be impactfuland no, you're right, it's not
going to be possible.
It's not realistic.
What is brilliant about thisapproach is you are addressing
(13:43):
and reducing the behaviors alongthe way that don't warrant that
kind of discussion.
The behaviors that are leftover at the end of the lesson
are going to be the bigbehaviors that really warrant a
proper resolution, and this iswhere we bring in things like
the education, that truediscipline, the accountability.
So I teach you mytransformative talk method in my
(14:05):
classroom management lab coursethe connection, so really
understanding what's going onwith our student, the repair,
like how do we give realconsequences, like logical
consequences in the moment, andreally getting that buy-in.
So that's what I go through inthe resolve part of my classroom
compass, because it shouldn'tbe that you're talking to
(14:26):
multiple students every singlelesson.
It should be that the work thatyou're doing is creating space
for that, because you're alreadydoing the work to mitigate and
resolve in the moment.
So it's only those things thatare, you know, you know, really
pertinent to be able to resolvewith that young person.
So the beauty of this wholeapproach is that it focuses on
(14:48):
the things that we can control,the things that get us back in
the driver's seat.
This is all about theconfidence that we bring into
the classroom.
If you aren't aware of thethings that are going to put you
back in control and put you inthe driver's seat, you won't
ever feel confident with yourclassroom management.
Again, it's all about justthrowing spaghetti at the wall
and seeing what sticks.
You can't keep doing that.
(15:09):
You need something to guide youin the right direction.
So I'm such a big advocate forthat.
So my model is, you know, havingan understanding around
behavior, those foundationalthings.
It's not death by theory, it'snot us going over theory time
after time.
So you feel empowered and walkaway and go actually, what the
heck do I do in my classroomLike it makes sense to me.
I want to support my students,I want to support my students'
(15:30):
nervous systems.
I understand their behavior isfrom trauma or needs meeting all
these things.
Then you walk away and goactually, what do I do in the
classroom?
It's not that.
So it's about putting things inthat backpack to carry into the
rest of the model, to then gookay, now I understand why this
works.
The second thing reducing thebiggest step and it's actually
the biggest module in myclassroom management course for
(15:51):
that reason All of the thingsthat we can control to feel
confident in mitigating theunderlying factors of
challenging behaviors.
So you'll see a dramaticreduction in your low-level
behaviors through that part ofthe roadmap.
Then it's about responding.
So what we do in the moment.
So really feeling confident inco-regulating with our students,
(16:12):
making choices that arenon-threatening and regulating
and de-escalating with ourstudents and getting that buy-in
so we can get back to teachingin the moment and then be able
to resolve it after, which iswhere part four comes in Resolve
when the storm has passed,working with the students that
really really need thatadditional work with true
(16:32):
discipline, accountability,connection, getting those real
consequences happening in waysthat is going to shift behavior
and make a beautiful plan fornext time.
It really is about what we cando, what we can action.
We can't control behaviors.
It's as simple as that.
All we can do is influence them.
All we can do is just create anenvironment that's safe and
(16:54):
build our confidence in ourstructures and our routines and
our intentional, nonverbalteaching presence.
And you know, this is the stuffthat transforms practice.
So I just need you to know that,no matter where you're at in
your practice, no matter howlong you've been teaching, if
you don't feel confident in yourclassroom management right now,
it's just because you don'thave that compass, you don't
have the right strategies, theright support to be able to,
(17:17):
kind of, you know, go through itand grow through it.
So, yes, if you'd want to divedeeper into that, if you kept
listening to the podcast, maybebecause you were driving and you
couldn't stop this to go andwatch the training.
I highly suggest that you spenda bit of time going through
that training.
So the dash on teachablescomforward, slash, learn.
(17:39):
Make sure you go there andwatch that if you want to learn
a little bit more.
And I do go through some actionsteps so you know what does a
good teaching presence look likeand what are some routines and
what does the transformativetalk process look like.
So I do step you through thatin more detail and give you some
quick wins to take away intothe classroom in that free
training.
So please come and do that, sayyes to that.
(18:03):
But I promise you that it willput you in the right direction.
If you're feeling stuck andthat's what it's all about
getting unstuck and, you know,shaking off those feelings of
like completely lacking hope forthe future in our practice,
because that is a horrible placeto sit in.
And, yeah, I would just lovenothing more than to support you
with this big, confusing,convoluting, under under
(18:25):
supported area in our practice.
If you listened to my episode afew episodes ago, I talked to
you about how I got 20 minutesof classroom management training
in the whole five years that Iwas in teacher training, so it's
just so ridiculous how littlesupport we get.
Anyway, I cannot wait to helpyou bring out the most confident
(18:45):
, wonderful version of yourteaching self in the classroom.
You deserve to feel like you'rein control of what you can
control.
You went to university andstudied this career for bloody
four to five years, only to comeout thinking what do I do?
So one hour of your time is apretty good investment.
I really hope to see you therein any capacity.
If you watch the replaybrilliant um, come and drop me a
(19:07):
message on Instagram or send mean email at claire at the dash,
unteachablescom.
Let me know what you thought.
Uh, it would be wonderful,wonderful, wonderful to be able
to support you in the way thatyou deserve to be supported.
And with that I'm going to stoprambling and I hope you have a
wonderful week and I will seeyou at the same time in the same
place next week on theUnteachables podcast.
(19:27):
Bye for now, lovely teacher.
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 bouncers,
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, beautiful teacher,welcome back to the Unteachables
podcast.
I am Claire English, I'm yourhost and today I would love to
talk to you about yourconfidence in the classroom and
how you feel when you step intothat classroom in front of your
(01:05):
30 odd students.
How do you feel when you'refaced with behavior?
How do you feel when you knowthere's a bunch of chit chat and
you feel like you can't get thechit chat to die down Like how
do you feel in those moments?
Because building confidence inthe classroom it can come with
time, it can come withexperience, it can come with
(01:26):
personality.
I say can because sometimestime and experience still
doesn't lead to classroommanagement confidence.
I know this because a lot ofthe teachers that I work with
have been teaching for 10, 15,20 years and you know they don't
feel confident, they don't feelall over things.
They still feel frazzled andout of their depth when it comes
(01:48):
to standing in front of a classof 30 students who are all
chatting away and not listeningto what they're saying and
walking them out of the room andall have different behaviors
and all have different needs andlike it's just, it's a lot.
It's a lot to be a teacher,it's a lot to classroom manage
and, bloody hell, it does take alot of confidence to be able to
stand in front of a classroomand walk in and be like, yep,
(02:09):
I'm here and I'm going to leavethis room in the most epic way
that I possibly can.
But if you're drowning inbehavior, if you're struggling
with classroom management, youmight be thinking, bloody hell,
I can't keep doing this for theforeseeable, I can't keep
throwing pasta at the water, seeif it's cooked.
I can't keep continuing thecycle, not knowing if it's going
(02:30):
to end.
Like I just can't keep doingthis.
That's why I have a lot ofteachers coming to me and saying
I just don't know if I can keepteaching anymore.
Like I just don't know if it'sfor me, I just yeah, it's that
job, isn't it?
Where you know it can reallyshake your confidence.
It can really make you feellike you're not good enough.
It can really make you feellike you're not cut out for this
job.
And it doesn't help that whenyou go to get support, sometimes
(02:52):
you get told to build arelationship or to not take it
personally or you know, just towhat are you doing with your
teaching and learning.
Like it's just not helpful whenyou go to seek support around
these things and the supportthat you're getting is not
adequate.
So I just wanted to say that,like you know, it can be really
really hard to keep continuinglike keep, keep on, keeping on,
really without knowing ifthere's an end in sight and
feeling really hopeless.
That is why I do this work.
(03:15):
Yes, of course you need to gothrough it, to grow through it,
but you also should have someawareness of what you're doing.
That can change things.
And when I say go through it togrow through it, I mean like
get the experience and do themiles and actually hardwire the
skills.
Like I wasn't good at classroommanagement, overnight, it was
me trying and hardwiring andpracticing and having
(03:39):
observations with someincredible mentors and being
able to, you know, see where Iwas, you know, maybe needing to
tighten things up.
Or like recording.
I remember looking at arecording of myself teaching and
I'd be like my mentor wouldpoint some stuff out and I'm
like, oh my God, I am doing that.
I'm cringing right now becauseI am only teaching to one side
of the room accidentally or I am, you know, like shuffling
(04:00):
around on both feet and notlooking confident sitting at the
front of the room and myteacher presence need work and
you know there's so many things.
But you do need to go throughit to grow through it in terms
of experience.
But you can't just keep goingthrough it and growing.
You can't grow through whatyou're going through unless you
(04:22):
have the actual awareness andskills and strategy to what you
can do to change things.
I hope that made sense.
That was like a lot of mesaying go through and go through
.
But this is exactly why Icreated my classroom compass
method.
When it comes to my holisticclassroom management approach,
it's actual action steps thatyou can take to build your
(04:45):
confidence and know what tochange in your situation.
So, no matter if you've beenteaching for zero years or 20
years, you can use the classroomcompass method to be able to go
okay, this is where I'm at andthis can guide me in this
direction.
This can help me to change this, or I can use this to be able
to identify what the problem ishere.
That is exactly why I createdthis holistic approach so you
(05:08):
just can build your confidenceand know what to do to change
your situation and not feelhelpless and hopeless and stuck
going.
God, I'm just, I'm goingthrough it, but I'm not growing
through it, because I'm justending the day wanting to curl
up into a little ball under mydesk and cry I've been there,
I've done that.
So in this episode, I am goingto be introducing you to my
classroom compass method andstepping you through those four
(05:30):
steps.
However, if you want to divedeeper into this with me, I ran
my live training.
If you're listening to this inreal time.
I ran it this week, so it'salready done and dusted, but you
can still watch the replay atthe moment.
So if you would rather go andwatch the training around this
and dig deeper straight away,just pause this episode and head
to the-unteachablescom forward,slash, learn, and you can just
(05:52):
watch the live training there,where I step you through what
I'm about to step you through inthis podcast episode, but in
more depth and with visuals, and, yes, there's going to be more
information for you.
If you would rather pause thisepisode and go and watch the
training instead, so go and dothat now, or stick with me and I
will step you through theclassroom compass method that I
have established over my careerto make things a whole lot
(06:16):
easier for me and those that Isupport.
So let's crack on.
There are four steps to thispathway, or, if you want to call
it the compass.
There's four little prongs, thefour little directions.
You can tell that I wasn't youknow in some kind of
orienteering.
Four prongs to a compass.
There's four parts of this.
(06:36):
That's all you need to know,and each part of this makes up a
different module in theClassroom Management Lab.
So I've really tried tostructure it in a way that just
makes sense and you can just youknow kind of learn things and
apply them in your classroom andthen use them as that beautiful
compass to guide the way whenyou're struggling with things in
your classroom.
The first part of this model isprepare, that is, your behavior
(07:00):
backpack.
The whole purpose of prepare isliterally, as it says, the
behavior backpack is to fillyour backpack up with the
foundational and essentialbehavior theories and you know
the neuroscience behind thebrain and how it's shaped and
why.
You know behaviors happen andyou know knowing what's
developmentally appropriate, allof those things that are really
(07:21):
important for us to understand,to then be autonomous in our
classroom management, to thenhave an understanding about all
of the things to follow in thepathway, all of the things to
follow in the model.
Everything is then contextuallyrelevant and makes sense to
your understanding of behavior,because you could use all of the
(07:43):
strategies in my model withouthaving your behavior backpack,
but you'll never be trulyautonomous in saying, oh, that's
happening.
I understand why this ishappening and I can choose one
of these to make that better orto mitigate those behaviors, or
to support other teachers tothen mitigate their behaviors in
the classroom that arehappening.
(08:03):
With your behavior backpackit's like literally putting on a
behavior backpack, putting onyour backpack, putting things in
and then just carrying thatthrough with you for the whole
rest of the model.
With this behavior backpackyou're able to get curious, you
can understand the approach in adeeper way and you can make the
right decisions and respondappropriately.
In the moment, without thisbehavior backpack you're going
(08:25):
to really struggle to do thatbecause without the behavior
backpack you don't understandthe context around the behaviors
you're seeing.
So let's say you've got yourbehavior backpack on Brilliant,
you've got all of thatfoundational information around
behavior.
The second step is the mostcrucial in my mind and that is
reduce.
The most important classroommanagement happens before there
(08:46):
are any behaviors to manage.
I'm such a big believer in that, I'm such a big advocate for
supporting teachers to controlthe things in their classroom
that they can control tomitigate behaviors and
especially things like low-levelbehaviors.
A lot of those can be mitigatedby the things that we do before
the behaviors happen.
The goal for this step of themodel is to mitigate the
(09:07):
underlying factors thatcontribute to a lot of the
challenging behaviors thatmanifest in the classroom.
Doing the things we can control, which is surprisingly a lot.
So in this part of the model wehave things like our teaching
presence and how we strengthenour teaching presence and how we
develop a strong, confidentpresence in the classroom.
That's non-verbal, that'scompassionate, that is still
(09:30):
calm and self-regulating andco-regulating and all of the
things.
Then we have routines what arewe doing when we walk into the
room?
What are we doing intransitions?
What are we doing when we'reexiting the room?
All of those things are socrucial to the overall classroom
management that we areestablishing in our room and
being able to mitigate thebehaviors that we're seeing.
(09:52):
The next is buy-in.
How do we get buy-in Then?
Lesson design, differentiation,lesson delivery, expectations,
boundaries, rapport all of thesethings happen on a level of
mitigation, before the behaviorseven manifest in the classroom,
and, of course, we can thendrag those forward when
behaviors are happening in theclassroom.
(10:13):
These things are somethingthat's relevant.
However, having anunderstanding around the things
that we can control in ourclassroom these things are
something that's relevant.
However, having anunderstanding around the things
that we can control in ourclassroom is golden.
Like you will see, just bytweaking things in the reduced
phase, you will see asignificant reduction in the
challenging behaviors that youare seeing in your classroom at
(10:33):
the moment.
And I know that because I'vebeen there, I've done that and
I've supported hundreds ofteachers to do the same and see
incredible changes in theirclassrooms and actually make
them feel like, oh my gosh, I'vegot this, I can feel confident
walking in here because I am allover X, y and Z and I know that
when behaviors do pop up, I'vethen got a plan.
So, speaking of which, the thirdstep.
(10:54):
So you've got the prepare,you've got your behavior
backpack, you're carrying yourbehavior backpack, you've
carried it into reduce.
You know, with your behaviorbackpack, why the reduction of
behaviors are happening throughthese things.
It's not just like throwingspaghetti at a wall and going,
oh, that works, why does it work?
You'll understand why it works.
Then you've got the third step,which is respond.
(11:16):
Behavior is still going tohappen.
No matter what we do, no matterhow amazing our routines are,
no matter how incredible ourteaching presence is, no matter
what we do with differentiationand our expectations and our
boundaries, behavior is stillgoing to pop up and every single
choice that we make in theclassroom has the potential to
connect or disconnect, escalateor de-escalate, and the goal
(11:37):
with this step here of respondis to de-escalate and address
the behaviors which arise duringthe lesson so we can get back
to teaching.
So this part of the compass isall about co-regulation,
de-escalation, non-verbalcommunication and I take you
through my five P's roadmap.
If you've read my book or ifyou've been in any of my courses
(11:58):
, you'll be familiar with someof my P's of nonverbal classroom
management, the roadmap that Ifollow to actually responding to
behaviors in the moment.
But I take you through that.
But all of this is managingbehavior in a way that is the
palm and not the fist Anothermetaphor you might've heard me
talk about in the previouspodcast episodes which just
(12:19):
means managing behavior in a waythat is non-confrontational and
in a way that's actually goingto work, to get buy-in and to
support students to makedifferent choices Thinking are
you speaking to studentspublicly or privately?
Is your body languagethreatening or non-threatening?
Are things escalating orde-escalating when you address
them?
So all of those little thingsare things that we talk about
(12:40):
when it comes to respond and ifyou do want to go and watch the
replay of that live session,then you can go and do that and
I go into that in a little bitmore detail Then just say you've
got your behavior backpack on,you've beautifully mitigated so
many of those disruptivebehaviors that were causing you
to really struggle in theclassroom and feeling really,
(13:01):
you know, lacking confidence.
Then you're able to respondeffectively and deescalate those
behaviors that are popping up.
Then, when the storm has passed, if those big behaviors have
happened in the room, then youneed to resolve things.
When things are de-escalated,when the lesson's over, then we
can work with our young peoplethat need additional support.
(13:22):
What I love about the classroomcompass and the model that I
teach is restorative practice.
Right, a lot of teachers godon't like restorative practice
because it takes me a long time.
I can't have 20 conversations aday.
I can't have that manyconversations.
It's not going to be impactfuland no, you're right, it's not
going to be possible.
It's not realistic.
What is brilliant about thisapproach is you are addressing
(13:43):
and reducing the behaviors alongthe way that don't warrant that
kind of discussion.
The behaviors that are leftover at the end of the lesson
are going to be the bigbehaviors that really warrant a
proper resolution, and this iswhere we bring in things like
the education, that truediscipline, the accountability.
So I teach you mytransformative talk method in my
(14:05):
classroom management lab coursethe connection, so really
understanding what's going onwith our student, the repair,
like how do we give realconsequences, like logical
consequences in the moment, andreally getting that buy-in.
So that's what I go through inthe resolve part of my classroom
compass, because it shouldn'tbe that you're talking to
(14:26):
multiple students every singlelesson.
It should be that the work thatyou're doing is creating space
for that, because you're alreadydoing the work to mitigate and
resolve in the moment.
So it's only those things thatare, you know, you know, really
pertinent to be able to resolvewith that young person.
So the beauty of this wholeapproach is that it focuses on
(14:48):
the things that we can control,the things that get us back in
the driver's seat.
This is all about theconfidence that we bring into
the classroom.
If you aren't aware of thethings that are going to put you
back in control and put you inthe driver's seat, you won't
ever feel confident with yourclassroom management.
Again, it's all about justthrowing spaghetti at the wall
and seeing what sticks.
You can't keep doing that.
(15:09):
You need something to guide youin the right direction.
So I'm such a big advocate forthat.
So my model is, you know, havingan understanding around
behavior, those foundationalthings.
It's not death by theory, it'snot us going over theory time
after time.
So you feel empowered and walkaway and go actually, what the
heck do I do in my classroomLike it makes sense to me.
I want to support my students,I want to support my students'
(15:30):
nervous systems.
I understand their behavior isfrom trauma or needs meeting all
these things.
Then you walk away and goactually, what do I do in the
classroom?
It's not that.
So it's about putting things inthat backpack to carry into the
rest of the model, to then gookay, now I understand why this
works.
The second thing reducing thebiggest step and it's actually
the biggest module in myclassroom management course for
(15:51):
that reason All of the thingsthat we can control to feel
confident in mitigating theunderlying factors of
challenging behaviors.
So you'll see a dramaticreduction in your low-level
behaviors through that part ofthe roadmap.
Then it's about responding.
So what we do in the moment.
So really feeling confident inco-regulating with our students,
(16:12):
making choices that arenon-threatening and regulating
and de-escalating with ourstudents and getting that buy-in
so we can get back to teachingin the moment and then be able
to resolve it after, which iswhere part four comes in Resolve
when the storm has passed,working with the students that
really really need thatadditional work with true
(16:32):
discipline, accountability,connection, getting those real
consequences happening in waysthat is going to shift behavior
and make a beautiful plan fornext time.
It really is about what we cando, what we can action.
We can't control behaviors.
It's as simple as that.
All we can do is influence them.
All we can do is just create anenvironment that's safe and
(16:54):
build our confidence in ourstructures and our routines and
our intentional, nonverbalteaching presence.
And you know, this is the stuffthat transforms practice.
So I just need you to know that,no matter where you're at in
your practice, no matter howlong you've been teaching, if
you don't feel confident in yourclassroom management right now,
it's just because you don'thave that compass, you don't
have the right strategies, theright support to be able to,
(17:17):
kind of, you know, go through itand grow through it.
So, yes, if you'd want to divedeeper into that, if you kept
listening to the podcast, maybebecause you were driving and you
couldn't stop this to go andwatch the training.
I highly suggest that you spenda bit of time going through
that training.
So the dash on teachablescomforward, slash, learn.
(17:39):
Make sure you go there andwatch that if you want to learn
a little bit more.
And I do go through some actionsteps so you know what does a
good teaching presence look likeand what are some routines and
what does the transformativetalk process look like.
So I do step you through thatin more detail and give you some
quick wins to take away intothe classroom in that free
training.
So please come and do that, sayyes to that.
(18:03):
But I promise you that it willput you in the right direction.
If you're feeling stuck andthat's what it's all about
getting unstuck and, you know,shaking off those feelings of
like completely lacking hope forthe future in our practice,
because that is a horrible placeto sit in.
And, yeah, I would just lovenothing more than to support you
with this big, confusing,convoluting, under under
(18:25):
supported area in our practice.
If you listened to my episode afew episodes ago, I talked to
you about how I got 20 minutesof classroom management training
in the whole five years that Iwas in teacher training, so it's
just so ridiculous how littlesupport we get.
Anyway, I cannot wait to helpyou bring out the most confident
(18:45):
, wonderful version of yourteaching self in the classroom.
You deserve to feel like you'rein control of what you can
control.
You went to university andstudied this career for bloody
four to five years, only to comeout thinking what do I do?
So one hour of your time is apretty good investment.
I really hope to see you therein any capacity.
If you watch the replaybrilliant um, come and drop me a
(19:07):
message on Instagram or send mean email at claire at the dash,
unteachablescom.
Let me know what you thought.
Uh, it would be wonderful,wonderful, wonderful to be able
to support you in the way thatyou deserve to be supported.
And with that I'm going to stoprambling and I hope you have a
wonderful week and I will seeyou at the same time in the same
place next week on theUnteachables podcast.
(19:27):
Bye for now, lovely teacher.
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