The Unteachables Podcast

On today’s episode I talk to Jess Steadman who is an experienced Australian primary educator. You might know her as @thesydneyteacher on Instagram where she develops resources for teachers, but I brought her on the podcast today because she recently went on a study tour of Finland!  Finland routinely tops rankings for education, yet what we know is that there is very little homework, mandatory tes...

Classroom management is nothing if not confusing. One of the things I have been told along the way is that we need to be picking our battles with behaviour. Another thing I have ALSO been told along the way is that we shouldn't be letting things slide. I have also given both of these pieces of advice at different times in my career.  So what do we do? Where do I stand? Well the reality is tha...

Today I am joined on the podcast with Em Gentle, a graduate teacher mentor, fellow edu-podcaster, and founder of the grad guide where she supports new teachers adopt a trauma informed approach to teaching.  In today’s episode we go on all the rants including: What teachers should be taught in teacher preparation programs before entering the profession Our 'inherited' classroom management...

Today on the podcast we will be talking about working with the students who are the hardest to teach, and the hardest to reach.  The students who you are told to try to build the relationship with, but they resist it and throw it back in your face.  The students who need a hell of a lot of support, and let’s face it probably need a placement that is more therapeutic, but are still working with you...

In today’s episode, I am going to be giving you a visual metaphor to approaching challenging classroom behaviour that can be a game changer.  This is something that I was taught way back in my first year of teaching and it has stuck with me ever since. It is one of the things that started to really build my own classroom management approach to what it is today. I use it in my own classroom, I disc...

 I spent the first 5 years of my career feeling like I needed to be ‘all over’ every single facet of the lesson to contain and reduce challenging behaviours. This meant working through almost every weekend and break that I had. Yes, it helped my classroom management! I was able to create lessons that were well-resourced, pitched right, scaffolded brilliantly so students could access them, relevant...

2023 has been one of the biggest, and most transformational times in my life. Both professionally, and personally. It has been a year where too many dreams decided to show up at once (I understand how much of an oxymoron that is).  So I just had to lean into the beautiful chaos of it all and MAKE it work. I had a baby. I wrote a book. I ran my business. I got married. I was a senior leader. And al...

As the year draws to a close, things start to get increasingly challenging. You have your head teacher telling you that you need to keep learning until the last minute, even though you KNOW your students are checked out (and let’s be honest, we’re teetering on that edge too).  Your students are becoming more and more unsettled. The energy shifts. The disruptions, and the general volume, within the...

One of the things that used to really grind my gears as a teacher was when I was trying to teach a new skill to students, whether it be an analytical response or a piece of creative writing, and they would say something like the following: “I know how to do this already” “This is baby work, I did it in Year 3”, Or the worst one… “Why do I have to learn English, I already speak the language!!” Of c...

The first 5 minutes of a lesson can absolutely be make or break for behaviour. What you do in this time and how you prepare for it can be the deciding factor between a productive, calm, controlled space where students can learn, and a lesson that very quickly continues to descend into chaos. So how to make sure those first 5 minutes are absolutely on point with what is needed to ensure the best su...

Ever wondered how you, as an educator, can foster and nurture a positive and productive relationship with the parents of your more challenging students? This episode guides you through the hurdle-filled journey of positively engaging with parents, even when resistance or blame are at play.  This podcast episode dives into four actionable steps that will help shift the overall sentiment of your par...

There are so many things that I wish somebody had told me before having a baby.  Returning to work post-maternity and all of the waves of emotion and challenge involve is one of them. This episode is important not just for those mums needing a bit of solidarity, but for EVERY SINGLE PERSON. We all need to do better at supporting new Mums in the workplace, and an awareness of the struggles is a goo...

On today’s episode I have the pleasure of talking to Marie Gentles, you might know her best as the expert in BBC documentaries Don’t Exclude Me and Helping our Teens, and now as the author of the book Gentles Guidance: How to Understand, Inspire and Empower Your Kids which has been recently published in June this year. She has also developed Gentle Guidance, where she delivers her own digital Beha...

Do you ever give instructions for a task to a class full of students, only to have a bunch of hands go up or confused faces looking back at you? Maybe you have low level behaviours buzzing and a disengaged hum the moment you send them off to do their task? Teachers, the answer to tackling these things could be in your clarity of instruction. This episode is designed to arm you with practical strat...

In this episode, I delve into the pivotal role of felt safety in classrooms. You'll learn how to craft a climate of felt safety that hushes unpredictability and amplifies familiarity, helping students to stay calm and regulated, ultimately reducing and mitigating disruptive behaviors. One game changer when it comes to increasing this consistency, is the humble seating plan.    It's more...

This week's "pillar" episode of The Unteachables Podcast explains the concepts at the core of my approach to classroom management; coregulation, regulation and dysregulation.  I uncover how our survival instincts contribute to our emotional landscape and the implications it holds for teaching, and set the stage for future episodes where I delve into actionable classroom management u...

Teachers, this episode I speak through the 5 mantras I use in my everyday practice to stay calm, stay connected, and ultimately, protect my peace! I made this a quickie so you could return to this whenever you needed it as a bit of a pick me up.  Write them down, pop them up on your wall, in your planner, on your desk, share with a teacher friend! Just have them in the forefront of your mind as yo...

In this episode I speak to the incredible Robyn Gobbel, and when I say you’ll want to listen to this, you should really trust me on this one. Robyn is a former therapist turned author, podcaster, educator, and community creator, supporting the grown-ups who care for kids with vulnerable nervous systems and big, baffling behaviors. Her work has been with children with histories of complex trauma, t...

Today, we're diving deep into a common saying in the behavior management world: "Behavior is communication." But let's be honest, it's so broad that it often leaves us wondering, "What are they really trying to tell us?" Well, in this episode, I've got you covered! In this episode I will be: Unraveling the true meaning behind "Behavior is communication&...

Once a mentor said something to me that changed the way I viewed teaching: We teach students, not subjects. I am an English teacher. I love English. I wanted students to love English as much as I did, to enjoy it, to be inspired by the concepts, to read a book and discuss it as a class and be thinking wow I was just transported into a dystopian land and I can see connections between that and out c...

I am sure I don't need to tell you this, but as a teacher, there is SO MUCH TO FREAKING DO! This is why some of the BIG questions I get asked from teachers, particularly newer teachers, is about things like prioritising, time management,  and how we can do allllll the things that are required of us. The answer is simple.... We can't. At least, we can't do everything well and still h...

On today's episode I dive into how our beliefs and assumptions about our students have a direct correlation with either their success, OR their failure. These are the Pygmalion and Golem effects. The self-fulfilling prophesy. The 1968 Rosenthal and Jacobson study concluded that when a teacher expects a student to excel, that student is more likely to perform well, while students who are expec...

If you would like a printable cheat sheet of the steps found in this episode, click here. Have you ever had to address comments from students that were homophobic, racist, misogynistic, ablest, or problematic in any other way?  If you're a teacher, it's likely the answer to that question is yes... Annnnd it only seems to be getting tougher. With male 'role models' in the social...

In this episode of The Unteachables Podcast, I talk apologies, and the conundrum of forcing them. It feels like a knee-jerk reaction when a student has done something harmful... "What do you say?" or "Say sorry." It makes sense why we do this. As the teacher we want to get to a resolution. We want to make things better! However simply forcing a student to say sorry is definitel...

Join me in this week's episode of The Unteachables Podcast as I dive into the power of an actionable approach to restorative practice. Through this ep I will help you to discover how accountability, reflection, and restoration can transform those frustrating behaviour challenges into golden teaching opportunities. Get ready for a refreshing approach that focuses on respect, support, collabora...