The Unteachables Podcast
Welcome to 'The Unteachables Podcast', your go-to resource for practical classroom management strategies and teacher support. I’m your host, Claire English, a passionate secondary teacher and leader turned teacher mentor and author of 'It's Never Just About the Behaviour: A Holistic Approach to Classroom Behaviour Management.' I'm on a mission to help educators like you transform your classrooms, build confidence, and feel empowered.
Why am I here? Not too long ago, I was overwhelmed by low-level classroom disruptions and challenging behaviors. After thousands of hours honing my skills in real classrooms and navigating ups and downs, I’ve become a confident, capable teacher ready to reach every student—even those with the most challenging behaviors. My journey inspired me to support teachers like you in mastering effective classroom strategies that promote compassion, confidence, and calm.
On The Unteachables Podcast, we’ll dive into simple, actionable strategies that you can use to handle classroom disruptions, boost student engagement, and create a positive learning environment.
You'll hear from renowned experts such as:
Bobby Morgan of the Liberation Lab
Marie Gentles, behavior expert behind BBC's 'Don't Exclude Me' and author of 'Gentles Guidance'
Robyn Gobbel, author of 'Raising Kids with Big Baffling Behaviours'
Dr. Lori Desautels, assistant professor and published author
And many more behaviour experts and mentors.
Angela Watson from the Truth for Teachers Podcast.
Whether you’re an early career teacher, a seasoned educator, or a teaching assistant navigating classroom challenges, this podcast is here to help you feel happier, empowered, and ready to make an impact with every student.
Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode packed with classroom tips and inspiring conversations that make a real difference!
The Unteachables Podcast
#98: 5 questions to ask your students today to foster an attitude of gratitude!
As we near the end of the term, the classroom energy can get... let's say, a little extra. Sound familiar? 😉 That’s why this week, I want to share 5 powerful questions you can ask your students to foster an attitude of gratitude while bringing focus and positivity into the room.
IN THIS EPISODE, I DISCUSS:
- Why gratitude is powerful: The benefits for both students and teachers.
- 5 key questions to foster an attitude of gratitude: Easy, thought-provoking prompts that spark connection and reflection.
- How to make gratitude work for all students: Ideas for engagement, even for those reluctant to participate.
HERE ARE THE QUESTIONS IN ONE PLACE:
- What is something that you are glad for every day?
- Look around the classroom and find one object you are grateful for. Why?
- When was the last time you belly laughed?
- What do you most look forward to when you wake up in the morning?
- What’s one thing that makes you say, ‘I’m glad to be me’?
Pro tip: Model your own answers to these questions first—it helps students think creatively and feel comfortable sharing!
If you’re in the Behaviour Club, check out this month’s Gratitude Resource Pack! It’s packed with 29 conversation cards, gratitude bingo, and task cards to help embed these ideas into your classroom.
Not in The Behaviour Club? You can grab those resources separately here!
Have a question, comment, or just want to say hello? Drop us a text!
Resources and links:
- Take the "What's Your Teacher Type" Quiz
- 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
- Browse all resources on TPT
- Free guide: 'Chats that Create Change'
Connect with me:
- Follow on Instagram @the.unteachables
- Check out my website
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, wonderful teachers, welcome back to another episode of Anteachables podcast. I'm Claire, if you haven't been here before.
Speaker 1:I am the host of this podcast and I am focusing this month in December all about getting to the end of the year in one piece, because things start to take a turn for the chaotic in these final weeks of school. And today I'm going to be speaking about gratitude, specifically, five questions that you can ask your students this week, tomorrow, whenever you want to foster an attitude of gratitude. Why gratitude? Well, we know there are plenty of benefits of gratitude in general and adopting some kind of practice around gratitude of our own. You know it's shown to have a positive impact on our relationships, our emotions, our satisfaction in life, our self-concept, resilience In general. It is a great thing for us to be doing as individuals. I always try to do my things I'm grateful for, and then it always slips. I'm so horrible at keeping journals, but I do try to do it. It is quite nice. In general, it is a great thing to be doing as individuals, but it's also a really great practice to be embedding in our classrooms, especially at this time of year.
Speaker 1:Some students aren't excited for the holidays for a whole host of reasons I'm going to be speaking about in the behavior bite this week. So when I'm trying to do activities that feel a little bit more chilled and related to the end of the year, I will always opt for things like this. So rather than projecting forward and making that focus about what presence we're getting or what exciting things we're doing, I do things such as this, like these gratitude activities, to make sure we're kind of staying present in the lesson in school, and these questions around gratitude also open up opportunities for beautiful, positive discussions. They open up opportunities for us to have a few laughs and get to know each other a little bit deeper, open up opportunities for reflection like self-reflection, self-appreciation for students to show appreciation for others and school in general. And let me be very honest with you, it also helps to have something like this up your sleeve at the end of the year, because if you have, this is a task you can do when the energy is becoming a little bit out of control and you want to bring it in positively. Having these activities up your sleeve is always a good idea.
Speaker 1:I think I said in the I know a couple of episodes before this when I spoke about the games have as many things as possible up your sleeve that you can just pull out at a moment's notice. It's already photocopied, it's there or it's already. You know down in your diary already on a PowerPoint, whatever you have there to pull out at a moment's notice when things start to get a little bit challenging in the lesson, especially at the end of the year when things are a little bit looser and you don't have a lot of the kind of same motivational drivers that you do throughout the rest of the year, like assignments coming up or whatever it might be. So here are just five questions that I absolutely love because they inspire so much discussion. They open up many different viewpoints. They allow for students to share their stories. They provide that opportunity for students to find things that they might take for granted, that they're grateful for. They encourage that self-reflection. And just one more thing before I go through them. It might be really helpful for you to model these outside.
Speaker 1:You know for your students first with your own things that you're grateful for, to have them thinking outside the box. Because if you don't do that, then very often the first student will say what they're grateful for or go on the task and you'll get very similar answers. Students won't be really thinking differently about it. So the first one what is something that you are glad for every day? So often we can get lost in the day-to-day noise. We overlook things that happen in the everyday. It becomes a part of the mundane. I don't know if you've ever gone away on holidays and come back to all of a sudden you've looked at your house differently, like you've seen things differently Usually. For me it's like a negative thing, like, oh my gosh, look at that fence, like it really needs to be painted. It's that kind of insight and I'm telling you now the answers that some students give can be so enlightening. But also when students answer this question, in certain ways it also encourages other students to see things that they might not have usually seen. The second one look around the classroom and find one object that you are grateful exists and explain why. This one here encourages students to look at things in a different way and it puts a different lens on the things that they usually see in their day-to-day. So some students might look at a pen and then just see a pen, and then all of a sudden they see how grateful they should be that they can write at all or have the opportunity to express themselves in that way. Maybe they look at a water bottle and see the ease of being able to access fresh water from a tap or their lunchbox. That's why I love to model these first, because when we start to think about things outside of the box and it encourages students to do the same thing.
Speaker 1:Question number three when's the last time you belly laughed? This is just a really great opportunity for getting some funny stories out of students who want to share, who choose to share, but it's also an opportunity to celebrate those moments in life that really light us up and how those moments generally aren't based around you know the things that we own or you know all of those things Like. It's usually like really genuine moments of joy, and when I'm modeling this for students, I always tell them about the time that I was about 10 and I was playing a dare game with my cousins in the street and I laughed so hard that I completely wet myself. It's super embarrassing, but it also normalizes the embarrassing and again celebrates those times of pure joy that we have and it also reminds us of the things that stick with us, the memories we have and how precious they are, and that particular question, that particular example that I give. It also just gives students a bit of a laugh, thinking about me wetting myself, and it shows I'm willing to be open and vulnerable and it boosts those relationships. So everything we do when it comes to this stuff is also just because I speak about the credible and the approachable a lot don't I I always talk about as teachers, we need to, at the right moments, balance, being that credible teacher, and being that credible teacher means we aren't going to be talking about those particular moments like wetting ourselves, it's not going to happen. So when we do have opportunities to be the teacher that is approachable and be able to open ourselves up vulnerably and talk to our students is only going to do incredible things for those relationships for now and the future.
Speaker 1:The fourth one what do you most look forward to when you wake up in the morning? This helps students to get really down to the nitty gritty of what brings them the most joy. Is it seeing their friends? Do they love having breakfast? Is there a sport they love playing? Does learning light them up or a certain subject light them up? Do they yearn for those moments of quiet after they get off the school bus, like you can really dig down into them. And the fifth one what is one thing that makes you say I'm glad to be me? This final one is just about recognising that we're all beautifully unique people and showing the appreciation for who we are.
Speaker 1:Some students in the past have absolutely, absolutely blown me away with their responses. I had one student tell me about a family tragedy, but then they were so glad to be able to reflect on that because they had their sister in their lives, or that they're glad to be themselves because they can listen to music or play music or express themselves. Once a girl said that she was glad to be her because there are girls in other parts of the world that aren't allowed to have an education. You just don't know what this question is going to open up, and as students hear other people's answers to this gratitude question, it starts to open up things for them that they wouldn't have thought of, and that's such a beautiful part of a practice like this. Now let's talk about the students who don't want to participate. You know there's going to be students who don't want to answer. You can't force them. They might be going through stuff that's making it really hard to see the silver linings, but remember, just by them being in proximity of these discussions, we're opening them up to this attitude of gratitude for them to see things differently and things will get in. You know they start. They will start to think about things and if they're not able to, if they're not capable of doing that right now, in that moment maybe they just have things going on that we just have no comprehension of.
Speaker 1:So how do we actually ask these questions? Because you can ask them in the way that I kind of just talked through, which is like a group setting, and have a chat about them. But you can also use these questions, you know, you can pop them up on the board and students can journal with them. You can pair students up to have a chat and pop them on so you can pop the questions on a powerpoint presentation and pair students up to have a chat about them. You can use them as a starter activity to reflect on. They're honestly just so great to have a positive way to fill in time when needed and when it comes to the end of the year, as I said, we just need to have as much of that as we can, as many things as possible to do that with. So go in, have a chat with them about these questions, pop them up on the board, pair students up, use them as like a prompt for journaling or a starter activity, whatever way you want to use them. It's so brilliant at the end of the year to be able to again not necessarily project forward into the holidays going.
Speaker 1:What are you excited about for the break? What family traditions do you have? And you know all those things are okay. You know if you know your students and you know like that stuff is naturally going to come up amongst students anyway. You can't stop that from happening. But as much as possible for us as educators to be able to reflect on the positive things in the moment, be present with our students and focus on the positives in school in our lesson, I think the better it's going to be for those students who have those big behaviors, who are really struggling, who are feeling really anxious and I will talk about that in the behavior bite this week, just so we have a little bit more awareness around that. And I'm sure you already know you know that some students don't have a great break, but I will speak about that this week.
Speaker 1:But, yes, go and try to encourage an attitude of gratitude in your class with those questions, just so you know if you're a behavior clubber, in this month's pack, this December pack, you have a gratitude resource pack. So you have 29 gratitude conversation cards, a gratitude bingo activity, gratitude task cards and you can embed those in a variety of ways. I am all about doing things once, so you don't have to replicate it hundreds of times. I would rather do it once. So then many teachers get to benefit from that. So go and download those if you're in the Behaviour Club.
Speaker 1:If you're not in the Behaviour Club, I will pop the link in the show notes to download that separately, or come and join the Behaviour Club, because it's so much more worth the value that you're getting from the same amount of money if you're buying just one resource and then actually having access to this whole library of resources, but also like the training you get to have me as your mentor, you get the resources, you get all of the things to take the guesswork and the pressure and the isolation out of classroom management.
Speaker 1:So it'd just be brilliant to support you, especially as we head into 2025. And, on that note, I'm going to leave it there, and I can get very passionate about the resources that I create, which is super nerdy, um, but I guess, doing this work, I have to. Uh, okay, I'm going to leave it there. I hope you have a brilliant week and I will see you next. I've only got a couple of episodes left before the end of the year, which means that you're nearly finished as well. So I am sending you all of the coffee and the love and the solidarity and all of the other teacher things that you need all the toilet breaks, all the sleep, all of the wine, all the things. So all my best teachers, and I will see you next time.