The Unteachables Podcast

#92: The (seemingly) simple strategy that has the power to MAKE or BREAK the start of your lesson.

• Claire English • Season 5 • Episode 92

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You’ve finally set the stage for a productive lesson… and then the chaos begins!

This month on the podcast, we’re honing in on those critical first five minutes—the bedrock of an engaging and settled classroom environment.

I’ll be outlining key strategies to help you create a smooth start, including how to shift students’ energy with entry routines and effective starter activities.

But what happens if you don’t engage your students right away? Something else will!

In this episode, we’ll explore the importance of starter activities and how they can either make or break your lesson’s flow.

IN THIS EPISODE, I DISCUSS:

  • The role of starter activities: These brief, independent tasks serve as the hook to draw students into the lesson. They need to be achievable, explicit, and timed perfectly to set a positive tone.
  • Common mistakes with starter activities: I highlight pitfalls to avoid, such as relying on prior knowledge, requiring too much explanation, or lacking relevance to students’ interests.
  • How consistency builds trust: Establishing a predictable routine helps students feel secure and ready to learn as they enter the classroom.
  • Effective starter activity examples: I share ideas like imaginative prompts that connect students to the lesson and concept-based tasks that allow for differentiated engagement.

GRAB MY 250+ AGENDA SLIDES WITH STARTERS HERE!




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Speaker 1:

Oh, hi teachers, Welcome to Unteachable's podcast Congratulations. You have just stumbled across the best free professional development and support you could ask for. I'm Claire English, a passionate secondary teacher, author, teacher mentor and generally just a big behavior nerd, and I created the Unteachable's podcast to demystify and simplify classroom management. I want this podcast to be the tangible support, community validation, mentorship, all those pretty important things that we need as teachers to be able to walk into our classrooms feeling empowered and, dare I say it, happy and thrive, especially in the face of these really tough behaviors. So ready for some no-nonsense, judgment-free and realistic classroom management support? I've got your teacher friend. Let's do this. Hello, hello, welcome back to the Unteachables podcast.

Speaker 1:

Wonderful teacher, if you've been listening along, this month I have been talking about that first five minutes of every lesson. It can be chaos. We're at the whim of the previous teacher. We're at the whim of the moon, the weather, that fight that has happened out on the playground that had every single student in the school running to see what was going on. We're at the whim of that time of year, at the time of recording. It's just past Halloween and so many of you reached out about how unsettled your students were. It could be that we're coming to the end of the year and things feel even more chaotic and energetically draining than usual. We can't control any of that, and I think that's been the theme of the last three episodes. We can't control that. We can only control what happens when they arrive to our little patch of the school.

Speaker 1:

And a couple of episodes back we spoke about a few non-negotiable start of lesson routines that can create that invisible barrier to have students walk through the door to shift their energy from high energy or anxious or playful or unproductive, to energy that is more productive and positive and calm and settled. Then last episode I spoke about the late comers and what to do with that old chestnut. But let's just say you have done a brilliant job at doing those things. You've done a brilliant job of creating that invisible barrier that they walk through to shift their energy from something that's more chaotic and unproductive to that really lovely, calm, productive energy. But what are they then walking into? You could do the most world-class performance of co-regulation, use non-verbals like a pro, be an absolute dynamo at all things entering the room in that first five and crafting that beautiful, settled start. And all of that work can then be undone if you don't engage them from the moment they walk through that door. Because guess what? If you don't engage them, if you don't engage your students from the moment they walk in the door, something else is going to, something is going to catch their attention and engage them. It could be their friends, their phone, some gaming console they pull out of their bags, whatever is going on outside the window, that marker that's sitting there on the board that they want to start scribbling on the board with anything. As you're trying to funnel the rest of the students in as you're doing your beautiful work, with energy shifting, they are walking into a space where they're not engaged straight away, and then anything could happen. So how do we make sure when they're walking into the classroom, they are going to be engaged from the moment they sit down, they're going to get started, they're going to be able to keep that beautiful energy that you've set?

Speaker 1:

I'm going to get super nerdy in this episode and I don't know if you've listened to episode 79, one simple tool to tackle low-level behaviors, increase engagement and bust dysregulation. It was all about task cards and in that episode I get so passionate about this one tool, and this is. Consider this like number two to this really nerdy toolbox that I am just ridiculously passionate about. It is the humble starter activity. Yes, a starter activity. And you're probably thinking what the hell, claire, come on, I know how to do a starter activity. I know I've always got a starter activity there. It is so seemingly simple, but done right, and you'll have such a wonderful start to the lesson. But done wrong, and things are going to be just as tough, if not tougher, for you for that first part of the lesson. So let's nerd out on all things starter activities. You call them bell ringers or lesson warmers, whatever you want to call it. Do nows I call it a do now. It is just a short, independent activity at the very start of the lesson to hook students into the concept and content that you will be teaching them. It is a task that is achievable for every student. It is quick, it is simple, it is explicit, it is timed. All of those things that I have just said need to happen. If it's not achievable, if it's not quick, if it's not simple, if it's not explicit, if it's not timed, then it's not a starter that is going to work.

Speaker 1:

First, I want to talk about why they are a bit of classroom management magic, just like the task card. I went through three reasons why they are absolute magic when it comes to classroom management and supporting, you know, really calm, settled behaviors. The first thing is when students come in to a starter activity that meets all those criteria points, they come in every lesson knowing that they can be successful at something straight away, no questions asked and absolutely no doubt in their mind. Your starter activity or do now might be the only opportunity they have that day to feel that level of true success. And when it's done consistently, they always know that when they walk into Miss English's classroom that is going to be something that they will be able to do and it's going to absolutely transform the way that they see that lesson.

Speaker 1:

The second reason why they are a bit of classroom management magic is that there's something the student can expect every lesson. So not just the fact that they are going to be successful, but the consistency in itself supports the nervous system, it makes them feel calm, it makes them feel more primed for learning. When they come in, they know that when they walk through that door they are going to be met with a short five minute pen to paper activity. That is achievable. That is interesting. That is engaging. That is going to help them start the lesson. That is always going to make them feel calm and more primed for learning. That means that they have the time to look up at the board and see what they're doing that lesson, or just gather their thoughts or, you know, just have a bit of breathing space. They're not going to be thrust into something they're not aware of. The third thing is that when they're used as an entry routine, students know to enter the room and get started immediately. It cuts down on so many of those disruptive and unsettled low-level behaviors when they walk in through that door.

Speaker 1:

As I said, if you don't engage them from the very start of the lesson, when they walk through that door, something else is going to every single time. Even if that's something else that's engaging them isn't something that you can see. Maybe they're sitting there engaged with something in their own brain, but really engaging them from the get-go when they sit down. But I see them done wrong a lot and this magic that I'm talking about is something that isn't a given just because you've got to start an activity In order to spread their magic. They need to be achievable, they need to be explicit, they need to be timed, they need to be clear. They need to get buy. They need to be timed, they need to be clear, they need to get buy-in from the students. They need to be consistent for the students.

Speaker 1:

Yet a lot of starters that I see require a lot of teacher input or further explanation. A lot of starters that I have seen hinge on prior learning from the previous lesson or, you know, just their prior learning in general. A lot of starters I see are too lengthy. They have no relevance to the students and get no buy-in. They're not clear, they're not visible, they're not explicit, they're not something that is just a given.

Speaker 1:

In fact, a behavior clubber wrote into the community this week about the fact that she is always covering this one teacher's classes and the students hate their starter activities with a passion. They see that starter activity, they roll their eyes, they disengage, the disruption goes up and she said I've actually wanted to stop giving them their starter activities because I know it's going to make the rest of the lesson so much harder. They're useless, the students hate them. So of course I got really curious and I asked her a little bit more about these starters and what they're involving and you know what kind of activities that they've given. And she said that they're always about the lesson previous, like a little quiz or a question that hinges on their knowledge from the previous lesson. And she said the students who disengage the most are the ones who either weren't there that lesson or struggle academically or like they're just disengaging. They just they can't retain that information or for whatever reason it's a struggle for them, so they immediately roll their eyes and they disengage.

Speaker 1:

Now please know that I am actually a huge fan of hinge questions, questions that help me to understand where students might have misconceptions around a topic. So it could be like a quick multiple choice question that says you know, is the following a metaphor? And then it's like yes or no and then explain why. So I love those kinds of questions because they show me whether or not a student's understood a concept or you know they have some misconceptions or whatever it might be. I use them as activities before activities, I use them as exit slips, I use them for a bunch of reasons, but A starter activity is not the place to do it.

Speaker 1:

It's not the place to do it because you don't want that starter to be an opportunity for students to disengage and feel like they're unsuccessful from the get-go. Because if that student doesn't understand the question they're given right at the start of a lesson, they are going to think if they're struggling already, they're going to think, oh my gosh, if this is the first part of the lesson, how am I going to understand the rest of it? If this is just a starter, what might the rest of the lesson hold? So I would like to give you a little action step for the week, a little bit of homework. I've been doing that this month. Actually, I don't usually explicitly give you homework, but I would like to give you homework from this episode.

Speaker 1:

I want you to really reflect on what you are giving your students as they walk through the door, to really engage them. What is the activity that you're giving them? Is it explicit, timed and clear? And I'm talking three to five minutes, anything longer. And it's not really a starter task, it's a task task. Ask yourself can this task right here stand alone? Or do they need to remember something from the previous lesson, even if they weren't present for it, or a lesson a week ago, or you know something that you're assuming that they understand or know. The next is it consistent and expected? Is it something they know they are walking into? And, the most important thing, is it going to make them feel success? Can they achieve it? A lot of the students who have the biggest challenge settling at the start of the lesson are going to need to feel that success, to have that buy-in.

Speaker 1:

So a couple of examples of a starter that does this is an imagine task. So tasks that ask students to imagine personally, connect students to the concept or content you're giving them. So things like imagine you've been told that or imagine you were given the job of, and then you're asking them a question. That's getting them to think about the concept in a way that's personal to them. It's like real world applied to them, but it's not asking them to actually, you know, explain certain concepts or content.

Speaker 1:

And another go-to for starter activities for me, I love doing keyword or concept-based tasks Like what are 10 words that come to mind when you see this word or see this image or you know anything else? In that way, getting students to really just brainstorm concepts, content, you know, keywords, something that they can do independently, that doesn't require previous learning previous knowledge. We're not assuming they know anything, just something that is going to come straight from their brain that they can all achieve. And every student can be successful at these. But they will be successful at them at totally different levels in your subject area and that is okay. One student might approach a do now by writing a paragraph in that five minutes, because they're totally capable of that. Another student might just brainstorm five words in that five minutes and guess what? That is still meeting the outcome for that starter activity. They will just achieve them in different ways and if you can get to that point then you're golden.

Speaker 1:

I think it's a wonderful way to start your lesson. I cannot shout from the rooftops enough about how much I back a good quality, well put together starter activity to be magic for classroom management, for disruptions at the start of the lesson, for low-level behaviors creeping up, for keeping that energy and that vibe at the start of the lesson and having the flow on effect for the entire lesson to come. It is just brilliant for all of those things If you are in a subject area where you struggle. I was actually talking to someone that was in my course that I'll teach in this morning that messaged me on Instagram and he was saying that he loves the idea of starter activities but he's struggling. And if you're listening to this, hello. But he struggles with starter activities because he is a languages teacher and he's like I just I really struggle to think about starter activities that are accessible for every student, especially in languages where you know it's. I mean, I remember doing French class, but anyway, that's another story for another day. And here are a few suggestions that I gave him, because if we can start to apply starter activities to really challenging subjects like maths and languages and I think other subjects are a little bit easier because there's a lot of like, even science science is very concept driven. But these are the suggestions that I gave him.

Speaker 1:

I said you could do some imagine tasks. So imagine you were an exchange student, who? Or keyword tasks what are five words that come to mind when? Or a starter where you're using a visual prompt so that you could ask students what are some words you'd use to describe this image to somebody from the country of the language that you're teaching them? Or maybe some scenario ones. So you have just been caught out at a cafe alone in the country of the language you're teaching? How would you ask where the bathroom is? How might you ask them? And if you don't know the words, how else might you ask them and get creative with that? And this is one last thing. I want to talk about starters, and this is a really great way to talk about it as well as read out what I said to him.

Speaker 1:

I said that I also do starters that aren't explicitly related to the content, just so I have something consistently ready for them when they walk in. So if you can't think about a starter for your subject area, don't think that you just can't do starters. In general, I put words up that relate to the content. So I said to him maybe you could put up a word in the language that you're teaching them and ask them to make as many English words out of those letters as possible. I actually often do this. I've got a bunch of slides that I call word hunter and I will sometimes put them up as a starter activity. I mean it's easier for me because I'm in English, but you could do that for any subject and have just a keyword from the subject. Get them to make up as many words as they possibly can, and then you can lead into the lesson by talking about how that word or that keyword is going to be relevant to that lesson. You could do something like beat the clock, beat the clock challenge, so list 10 things associated with this. It could be something related to your subject, or list 10 things you'd see at this Like, so it could be anything.

Speaker 1:

So it doesn't necessarily for me have to be about the lesson and, of course, if you can create a starter that is a brilliant conceptual introduction to the lesson that you're teaching. That is the ideal, however, for the classroom management and for having like a really smooth start to the lesson. If you can't think of something, if you're struggling with that, it is far better to keep consistent and keep that predictability of the lesson and just have something that is loosely related to your subject, that is going to engage them, that's going to, you know, get them thinking and get them warmed up for the lesson. Get them in. Have that five minutes of quiet pen to paper work. That is always going to be beneficial over just scrapping it because you think your starter isn't good enough.

Speaker 1:

In the November training inside of the Behaviour Club the first five I go into starter activities in detail and step you through how to craft a successful one. It is actually one of the four sessions that will help you nail that first five minutes of the lesson. And if you're in the behavior club as well, like remember that I want you to come into the community and give me your starter activities and we can workshop them together and I can answer your questions around that. So if you are listening and you're one of my brilliant behavior clubbers, come in and workshop those things with me. That's what I'm there for. As your mentor.

Speaker 1:

I also hand you over a PowerPoint with 250 plus I think it was like 280 something agenda slides with pre-filled engaging starters and printout sheets students can use. So at a pinch, especially at this time of year when things start to get a little overwhelming and routines start to slip and energy starts to dip and you know like you just have so much to do you have these on hand to do the heavy lifting each and every lesson at the start. So if you're a behavior clubber, come in and download those. I have those as like one of my must download resources. Please come in and download those and have them in your toolbox, because you just don't know what a pinch when you're going to need them. And if you're not, a behavior clubber, come and join me if that's your thing. But if you would rather just access those agenda slides, you can do that separately and I'll pop the link to that in the show notes for you. It is a tool that you can use all year round.

Speaker 1:

Hence why I have developed 250 plus of them in all different categories, all different engaging tasks, all different kinds of games and stuff that they can use at the start of the lesson. But I've also popped some holiday themed ones on there that'll keep your students engaged as you move towards the summer or the winter break. I've got summer ones on there and I've got some winter ones on there. Just keep your students engaged but still excited. So that is there for you if you would like those done for you without any of the hassle, without any of the work I mean that was a lot of work, so I would rather me do that once and then you have access to that if you choose to invest in it than everybody going away and doing that.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that is all. Wonderful. Teachers on the fabulous starter activities that I just get passionately nerdy about and I trust that you have gotten something from this episode that you can take away and action immediately. Go and do your homework and let me know if you do do something in your classroom that is really beneficial and you've seen the impact of that. Always feel free to email me or pop over on Instagram and let me know. Even better if you want to give me a lovely review on podcasts or Spotify, wherever you want to give me a lovely review on podcasts or Spotify, wherever you listen to this. It would mean the absolute world and help me reach more teachers just like you who would like a little bit of extra support with their classroom management. Okay, wonderful teacher, have a fab week and until next time. Remember probably the biggest takeaway from this episode if you don't engage them from the second they walk through that door, something else will Bye. For now,

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Claire English

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