The Unteachables Podcast

#115: Brain breaks are my secret sauce for student engagement. Here are my 3 I can't live without!

• Claire English • Season 6 • Episode 115

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As a secondary English teacher, I used to struggle with the idea of brain breaks. The pressure to get through content and prepare students for exams felt too overwhelming to justify stopping for “games.”

But my classroom culture was suffering. Students were stressed, disengaged, and burnt out—especially during heavy writing sessions leading up to exams. So I decided to try something different.

When I started embedding brain breaks into my lessons, I immediately saw positive shifts.

  • Students focused better and produced stronger writing.
  • Transitions became smoother because I could use movement-based games instead of battling student resistance.
  • Apathy decreased, and energy in the room improved.
  • Rapport and community strengthened as brain breaks became a consistent, positive routine.

The result? Better engagement, improved learning, and a classroom that felt lighter, happier, and more productive.

Listen in as I discuss:

  • Why brain breaks matter in secondary classrooms. Overcoming the pressure to “just keep going.”
  • Three types of brain breaks you can use today. Upregulation, downregulation, and movement-based games.
  • How brain breaks improve engagement, learning, and classroom culture. Small shifts that make a big impact.

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Speaker 1:

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 old behavior nerd on a mission to demystify and simplify that little thing called classroom management. The way we've all been taught to manage behavior and classroom manage has left us playing crowd control, which is not something I subscribe to, because we're not dancers, we're teachers. So listen in as I walk you through the game, changing strategies and I mean the things that we can actually do and action in our classrooms that will allow you to lean into your beautiful values as a compassionate educator and feel empowered to run your room with a little more calm and, dare I say it, a lot less chaos. I will see you in the episode. Hello there. Welcome to the Anteater Girls podcast. If you're a newbie, if you're just tuning in for the first time, welcome. I'm Claire, I'm your host and I hope you get so much from this episode. And if you're a long time listener, then welcome back. It is so lovely to have you here today.

Speaker 1:

I am talking about brain breaks. I'm talking about my favorite brain breaks and when I use them, I actually really struggled with the idea of brain breaks throughout my career. I'm a secondary English teacher and because of the pressures the constant pressure of getting through content and getting students exam ready, I just didn't want to waste time doing things that weren't going to directly impact the learning in the room. And my classroom culture was crap. My students were stressed. I just felt like this sense of disconnection with my students and between my students and there was no sense of like community. There was no joy, there was no, I don't know, there was no light in the room and I just felt like it was just. It was just constantly trudging along through the mud, you know, just trying to get from one lesson to the other or trying to get through content or trying to get writing out of them, and it was just this constant push and it was so stressful.

Speaker 1:

And then there was one particular day we were doing heavy writing work in the lead up to the exams and I looked around and I'm like everyone is so burnt out. Everyone is like they were just kind of looking at their books and their writing was, you know, really poor compared to what their capabilities were, and I was like, okay, this is something that needs to change. So I decided to stop and I decided to get them up out of their chairs and I started to do like I just played a really silly. I think I played like heads down, thumbs up with them or something, because that's the only game in my head that I could think of at that moment, cause that's a game that I used to play when I was at school, in primary school, and I used to be school and these were year 11 students. But I'm like stuff, this, I'm going to get them up and I'm going to have a little bit of fun with them. We're going to get them moving and we're going to see if we can get some of that energy shifting, because what's happening right now is not working. You can tell I'm an English teacher, can't you? What's doing?

Speaker 1:

So when I did that, there were immediate positive shifts with my class, and when I then started to do it consistently, it was so, so powerful. The things that I recognized pretty immediately is that students were focusing better. I got way better writing out of them. In the time that we spent Then for other classes, I was realizing that I was able to channel the chaotic energy in a way that had more novelty and more buy-in, and often without the students even realizing I was trying to get them back to their seats and trying to get them engaged, and I realized that I could either spend 10 minutes telling them to sit back down in their chairs and get started stressing myself out, or I could play a three-minute rock paper scissors battle and get students sitting down as they lost, getting them re-engaged and getting them ready for the next thing. So I realized that this was a superpower that I could use to get buy-in, to have novelty, to give them a break, but then also just to get the best out of them. I was struggling with a lot of teenage apathy and this was a way for me to break through that and get some energy back into the room, some life back into the room, and get them really wanting to work. I was able to develop rapport consistently and realize community building wasn't just an icebreaker at the start of the year, and I'm such a big advocate for this.

Speaker 1:

You cannot just do an icebreaker at the start of the year and expect people to feel vulnerable and feel happy and feel connected and feel like they're able to take risks in your classroom. It is a day-to-day commitment. It doesn't have to take a lot of time, but it is an ongoing commitment to community building in your classroom. Whether you teach primary which is wonderful because you're able to do that on a wider scale, like you see these kids day in, day out but as a secondary teacher, it might just be two, three, five minutes every single week, but it's a constant commitment to that community building.

Speaker 1:

So, all in all, when I started to do brain breaks, the results were better. Their learning was better, they listened more, they had more buy-in. The community became more positive and students were actually happy coming to class. They'd walk into the lesson hey, miss, give me a fist bump. They'd be so excited to get started. Not always, obviously. There's not like some utopian land where you know it, not always, obviously. There's not like some utopian land where you know everyone all of a sudden wants to study Shakespeare. You know like it's not that easy, but it was so, so, so much better and so much easier and so much lighter going into class every single day.

Speaker 1:

So if you want to make brain breaks something that you do in your classroom and do it really well and do it in a way that doesn't feel like you're taking time away from really crucial learning. That's obviously a big thing, especially if you've got senior leadership that are putting the pressure on a lot and don't really want you to give time to this stuff. This is the stuff that I use and it really doesn't take that long. Before I go into this as well, just remember to read the room and just do what feels good for you at the time and right for you at the time. Reading the room is a skill that you cannot discount. Okay, so these are three things that I do.

Speaker 1:

In my toolbox I have a big list of whole class games that I use when I need to upregulate the energy in the room or when I want to redirect the energy and press that reset button and be able to get students back on track. So the first thing is, when my year 10s come in or my year 11s come in and they're really apathetic and tired and the energy is like super low and they just want to put their heads down, I'll get them up, I'll get them moving and I might do a rock paper scissors battle to get them up and moving and to get that energy flowing and to get them talking and moving. And to get that energy flowing and to get them talking and and really starting to shift that energy from low and tired to. You know, we're all of a sudden implementing movement and we're getting them talking and we're getting them excited. So when they sit back down in their chairs and the winner is crowned, uh, and you can do fun things with this as well. Like, just give it a little bit of novelty and it literally takes three minutes. By the time they sit in their chair, they're more engaged. They've been moving, they've been engaging in something. So it makes it so much easier to then use that energy and focus that energy on what you want them to be doing for that lesson.

Speaker 1:

The second thing is, if I just say I have my year eights and I'm struggling to get them to listen, I'm struggling to get them to follow instructions and they're just chatty and they're loud, I might play a game of from this same whole class games list. By the way, this list is just my bread and butter. I can't do anything without my games. As a supply teacher a casual teacher as well it is just brilliant to have these up your sleeve in any circumstances, really. So if my students are chatty, they're loud, I'm struggling to get them to listen and follow instructions. I might play a game of count to 20. So in this game, students need to take turns saying a number and counting up to 20. But if they speak at the same time they have to go back to the start. So they have to as a team, as a class team, they have to reach 20. But if they talk over each other, if two students say the number at the same time, they have to go back to the start. It can get very frustrating, but it can be a lot of fun and it's always such a big hit with students. This is a great one because instead of pushing crap uphill, trying to force them to sit and listen, this game naturally lends itself to students listening and engaging. Then, when the game is over, I can calmly and credibly transition into teacher-led instruction through all of my credible non-verbal body language that I can use in my teacher presence. So really thinking about how you can confidently use these games, confidently use brain breaks to then transition into learning in a way that works for you Reading the room, playing to your strengths.

Speaker 1:

I also have really specific brain breaks for downregulation, such as gratitude tasks. Where they have prompt questions around gratitude and mindfulness. They can sit there and do that for three minutes. I use three minute meditation videos. I use calming music. I might get them to do a breathing exercise as a group just something that is a few minutes long, that resets things. So I always just keep like a cheat sheet in my Google drive of links to YouTube videos that I find really helpful with students, whether it's a meditation, whether it's a breathing exercise, whether it's like a bit of a stretching, like a yoga or something like a chair yoga or anything that I think is going to help with downregulation With prompt questions. Around gratitude, if you're in the behavior club, I have got a gratitude bundle there that has task cards and it has like conversation cards. It has a bunch of different resources that are perfect for using for a five minute down regulation brain break. So if you're in the behavior club, go in there, go into the resource section, go into your bundle. I'll give you the information in the show notes anyway, or you can just pop into the community and ask me where they are and I can post it in there. But yeah, just brilliant things for down regulation during a five minute brain break.

Speaker 1:

Then the third kind of brain break I use are question based games like would you rather, because I can then incorporate movement. I can then incorporate a bit of discussion. I might have students standing and sitting, depending on their answers, I might have them going to opposite sides of the room, depending on their answers, or hands up, hands down, just whatever I feel like is appropriate in the moment to get them kind of like moving or talking or like just engaging, whatever I feel like is needed at that moment for them to then refocus on their learning. It is always a bit of fun, it's a bit of and, honestly, you can just use one question in the lesson to have a micro brain break between sessions, like maybe it's you're transitioning from a group activity to an independent task and you just feel like they need something to you know, split up those two tasks, just do one single would you rather question you know, like something really really simple, um, and that's a micro brain break community building, you know, movement, a bit of a laugh, a bit of a chat and then straight back onto the next activity. So just having a list in front of you of some would you rather questions is great, even just Google it to say would you rather questions and you can get a bunch that come up.

Speaker 1:

Um, so just give it a go and embed a brain break into your lesson this week, even if it's just one small thing, you know. So, whether it's a game of rock paper scissors, whether it's the count to 20, whether it's something that helps with downregulation, like a bit of breathing, mindfulness, chair yoga, a bit of gratitude, whether it is, you know, know, a couple of would you rather questions or something like that, just give it a go and if you need more ideas, you can download my free list of games. So those games I spoke about in that first point, I've got a list of 13 whole class prep free games that are honestly just such a must have in my classroom. So you can just I'll put the link in the show notes, but you can just head to the dash on teachablescom, forward slash games, and that's just a free resource that you can download and just keep in your folder or keep in your diary, and that's there for you If you need to pull something out of the bag for just a really quick brain break.

Speaker 1:

Um, or, better yet, if you're in the behavior club and you go to the resource section, you have more engaging brain breaks in there than you would ever know what to do with for years and years and years. So heaps of slides, heaps of games, heaps of tasks cards, cards like just gratitude cards, mindfulness links and so much more. And if you're not in the club, I'll pop the link to either join the club to grab that or the link to just grab those brain breaks separately as a bundle in the show notes for you. And that is a resource that will just pay off year on year on year on year. It definitely has for me and it's something that I've developed over many years in my own teaching practice and stuff. That is just. It's just transformative when you're able to read the room and you have a bunch of resources at hand that you can go.

Speaker 1:

Okay, right now I know my class is not going to engage with what I've got in front of me, so I'm going to have to just change my tact and throw something in the mix. It's going to get them more engaged. It is just magic to be able to do that. Okay, wonderful teachers, I will stop nerding out on brain breaks now and let you get on with your week. I'm sure you have plenty of things to get on with, and I will see you at the same time, in the same place, next week. Bye for now.

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Claire English

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