The Unteachables Podcast

#132: The No-BS Back to School Breakdown! Exactly what I do lesson-by-lesson in Week 1 to build rapport, set expectations, and create routines that stick.

• Claire English • Season 6 • Episode 132

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Back to school?! Whaaaaaaat?!

If your first thought seeing this episode pop up was “Claire, I am still sipping margaritas and pretending I’ve never even heard of a seating plan,” I get it. 😅

But if you are gearing up for the next school year or term, this episode’s for you.

I’m giving you a front seat to my no-BS, non-negotiables for the first week back.

Not the Pinterest fluff. Not the cheesy icebreaker where you have to use an adjective that starts with your name (I can feel the eye-rolls already). I’m talking about real, actionable, upper-primary and secondary-friendly stuff that actually builds buy-in, community, and clear expectations from the jump.

This is the stuff that’ll have your students heading home thinking:
"Okay. I know where I sit. I know where I stand. And I think this year might actually be pretty good.”

Let’s roll the tape.

What you’ll learn:

  • Why I don’t start the year with expectations (and what I do instead)
  • The underrated power of seating plans (nope, not in a controlling way!)
  • My go-to “getting to know you” activities that actually work for older students
  • The structure I follow across my first 3 lessons—exactly what I teach, when, and why
  • How I sneak SEL, regulation, and wellbeing into the mix without it feeling like another PD script
  • What makes student expectations actually stick (hint: it’s about buy-in, not behaviour charts)

Have a question, comment, or just want to say hello? Drop us a text!

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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 bouncers, 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 in 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 teacher friend, welcome back to the Unteachables podcast. It is wonderful to have you here with me. Thank you for tuning in again.

Speaker 1:

I want to start by apologizing profusely in advance. If this episode has popped up on your feed and you're like back to school, what the hell. Or maybe you haven't even put this episode on, but it was like playing in the next, the next podcast, and uh yeah, not ideal If you are actually not going back to school and you're trying to enjoy your summer and it's like a shock to the system, like when you walk into a shopping center and you've just started summer holidays and you walk in and you've got that big old back to school display with lunch boxes and books and pens and all of the stationery and you just want to crawl into a hole. She's like I've just started my summer. Can you please leave me alone. So if you are thinking that I am sorry, you can pause this. You can come back to it when the time is right.

Speaker 1:

My Aussies and Kiwis I know that we're in the middle of the school year, obviously, but I have a lot of you out there who are in the Northern hemisphere, so I try my very best to support all of you, depending on the seasons. Yeah, I try to spread myself across that. So anyway, without further ado, I'm going to be talking about going back to school and I wanted to kind of give you my non BS negotiables, non BS negotiables, the non, no BS non-negotiables for the first week back, because there's so much out there that you could find Like you could pause this episode and you could Google right now first week back of school and you could get some pretty good advice or you could get some pretty rubbish advice, and the problem with the kind of stuff you might find on Pinterest or Google or on ChatGPT is that it's not necessarily aligned with our approach or it might be quite outdated or just stuff that's quite cheesy, overdone and doesn't really get to the heart of what we actually need to be doing to lay the foundations for a really strong start. It's usually quite performative, usually quite I don't know like tick a box, like hey, let's throw a ball around and say one thing about each other. That stuff isn't obviously like breaking the ice and doing all that stuff. Great An expectations lesson, great. But we really need to be thinking about how we can approach those first days back.

Speaker 1:

So your students go home. They're like you know what's going to be a good year, I know where things are, you know, I know where I stand, I know what's going on and you know I think my teacher's going to help me out. Like you know, that is the goal. You want them to be going home and having a really good foundation of understanding around you, around what they'll be doing. You know, building community doesn't take a day, it doesn't take a week, but it's, you know, a really good start anyway.

Speaker 1:

So, and also, the stuff that you might find on Google is not going to necessarily be appropriate for upper, primary and secondary kids. Um, because, my gosh, the eye rolls. You don't want the eye rolls happening the second you get back to school with these kids because you want the buy-in, you want that, like you know, community, you want a bit of fun, you want a bit of novelty. And, gosh, if you start with something like hey, my name's Claire, use your first, you know first name and come up with an adjective to describe yourself, then they're going to be like, oh, the audible groans around the room. Anyway, so I will be doing that was a very long intro to that, so I'm just going to be. I've just dealt with a lot of groans from my school students not wanting to do things in the past and trying to, like you know, bring a bit of energy back into that first week, anyway. So I'm going to be doing a very quick overview of the things that I now focus on in that first day or week back A week for me, by the way, it's not five days, I'm thinking in like three 75 minute lessons in a week with each class.

Speaker 1:

So the first three days back, really, if you're primary. But yeah, just what I do in that first week with my secondary classes. So day one let's step. By the way, thank you so much for one of my behavior club has asked this question. They're like you know, I've got so many things here in the club that like are so exciting and so great for the first week back, but where does it all fit in, like when do I do what? When do I talk about certain things? And then you know, when do I introduce, like social, emotional learning stuff? So, um, if you're listening, props to you for asking that question, because that did inspire this episode of the podcast. Okay, so day one I do not start with expectations.

Speaker 1:

On day one, I actually start with a seating plan. I guess it's not in a punitive way, it's not in like a boring way. It's just that I need to know names because names are powerful, names are important to people and, as secondary teachers, my gosh and with my brain the way that it is with names, like it just leaves my head the second it enters we can use all of the help that we can get. So I genuinely need a seating plan to be able to know everybody's names. And then I do some getting to know you activities and I'm not talking like boring, let's sit around and let's come up with some magic tips to describe ourselves. I'll get them into their seating plans. By the way, I usually do this by popping on like a post-it note on everyone's desk. I usually do it alphabetical because you know it's just easier that way and the kids are kind of used to stand, like you know, sitting in alphabetical order and they'd be doing that whole schooling. But I put a post-it note on each desk with their names and I project I just have like a really basic kind of you know model of my classroom up on the board and I just put their names on that model map. Just their tables, um, I just project a table thing up on the board where, um, I write their names where they're sitting. So this is really clear where they're sitting. There's no you know um, umming and ahhing. You know they come in, they sit down, sweet, um.

Speaker 1:

I then do some getting to know you activities, and here are some of the ones that I absolutely love. One of the ones I do all of the time with my especially, like the older students, because I find it really hard to engage them in certain other things. I do a playlist activity and that is always something that I do because it always engages the students. It's always something they're really proud to share in, really excited to share about, and then that forms something that we do for the rest of the year as well. So for the playlist activity, I just get them to write their favorite song or a song that represents them or a song that's meaningful to them, on a post-it note and I pop it in. And they get them to pop it in a box. They can hashtag their name on it, they can write their name on it, they can do whatever they want with that. Um, depends on what your students are like.

Speaker 1:

But then I either take them away quietly and don't share them in the moment and what I'll do is I'll collate, kind of like a, a class playlist, and then I will use that playlist you know in most lessons to and I'll just label the playlist like you know, year 10, english or whatever if you've got multiple classes, but I'll label that. I will use it for transition, so I might choose one of those songs each week to be the transition song, or I might choose one of those songs to be the entry song for when they're coming in and sitting down and unpacking and, you know, getting started on their starter activity. I might use that same song for like an exit routine, for when they're cleaning up, or I might use it to non-verbally signal times to pack up or clean up. You can use it in whatever way you want, but those songs are such a great way for us to use. You know, the personality of our kids and the identity of our kids, Like music is so important to so many of us and that way we can kind of bring in the personality of our young people and it's just such a beautiful way to build a community. And you can even go as far as like hey, like the transition song today or the song that we had today, guess whose it was? Like, can anyone guess? Can anyone remember? Maybe they don't even remember that it's theirs, but please do look over them first and just check that they're safe for work, because I have had situations before where I'm like, no, that can't go on. I'll have to go back to the student and say, hey, can you please choose one? That is a little bit more appropriate. So that's a playlist activity which I love. You can go around the room and get them to explain their song and why it's important to them, if you want. But yeah, it's up to you how you use it, but I just love that as a kind of ongoing community thing.

Speaker 1:

The next one that I love is Never have I Ever, and that is it's just. You know, it's just a bit of fun, like even recently I went to a conference and they did like a Never have I Ever thing, like a teacher version, and it was like four questions. But I was looking around the room, I'm like I was gauging it, cause, you know, teachers were like hard to hard to impress when it comes to things like oh God, here we go again, getting to know you stuff. Um, I think we're, yeah, we're hard, we're hard to impress, uh anyway. So I was looking around the room like, oh, this is interesting. Let me just like see how everyone responds to this, because obviously I use never have I ever so much in my own practice with my, like you know, tough teen crowds and everyone was really getting into it, everyone was loving it and I'm like, okay, like that just proves that. I think you know it is a bit of fun.

Speaker 1:

Obviously, keep it nice and classroom safe. So the kinds of things that I might do chuck out. There are things like never have I ever left my lunch in my bag until it went moldy. Never have I ever worn my clothes inside out all day accidentally. Never have I ever tried to quietly open a bag of chips during class. Never have I ever cut my own hair. You get the point. Just make it appropriate for the age group that you are teaching.

Speaker 1:

The next one that I love is speed greetings, and what I do is I just have, like you know, two students, like two circles, concentric circles. You know an inner circle and outer circle. One stays put, the other rotates around. I'm sure you've done something like that in the past, and I have little cards with questions on them and each pair just has 30 to 60 seconds to answer a question Questions that I put out. There are things like you know, if you had $500 to spend today, what would you buy? What's your perfect three-course meal? What's something that kids know more about than adults, which I think is a really interesting one? What do you think the best thing about being your age is right now. If you had to save a few things in a fire, what would they be?

Speaker 1:

Just things like that that get students talking, but it's not something that has a lot of social risk, which is the problem. With a lot of icebreakers we think, oh my God, we only have one day to build this community, so we have to get students to like know each other and be vulnerable, and when there's too much social risk, students just opt out and all you get are answers like oh, my favorite thing is shoes. You know like you won't get a depth of response anyway, so you might as well do something a little bit fun where naturally, things are starting to kind of come out and you know they're having a bit of a laugh, they're forming bonds and all the rest of it, but in a way that's supernatural and normal and doesn't feel like it's being forced. The goal really is to open up opportunities for authentic discussions and a few laughs and just you know, I think of it as breaking the ice, but then over the year we're warming that ice into a nice cup of tea. That is our community anyway.

Speaker 1:

So getting to know your activities done day two, so that's day one. I want day one to be like I'm trying so getting to know your activities Done. Day two so that's day one. I want day one to be like I'm trying to get to know your names. I try to make a little bit of a task for myself and I'm going to get to know everyone's name by the end and I'll kind of go around the room and I'll say things and as they're leaving the room I'll try to, like you know, get their names and I'll apologize profusely if I don't get it and I will really like just prep them and say, hey, like I'm really. I've really struggled with names and I've got not only your names to learn, I've got like 150 other names to learn. So please give me a break, but know that I'm trying really, really hard. So that is the goal for the first day getting to know their names and then doing something that's just fun, low stakes and opening up opportunities for those authentic discussions, a few laughs, all the rest of it.

Speaker 1:

Day two is where I'll do my expectation setting. It's not just like me setting out a bunch of rules, it is more of a set of collaborative kind of classroom norms and I run this like I would, a proper lesson which is like concept driven and focused on buy-in, because that way we're going to have a better chance at getting students on board with what those expectations are, rather than them switching off and going oh here we go again. It's just what I can't do, what I should be doing. I hear this every year Like we want it to actually connect with them and mean something for them. So the concept, for example, expectations. Do they know what expectations are? Do they know where they are in the real world? Do they have expectations outside of the classroom? Of course they do. It's about connecting them with that idea. What expectations do they have in sports or at home?

Speaker 1:

And the whole idea of this is for students to go okay, expectations aren't just something that you expect of us, you know. It's not something that just the school expects of me. It is something that makes the world function and makes life function, and it's how we engage with our communities and with everything that we do. So you know I play football and the expectation is that I'm a team player and that I share and that I'm playing. You know, in I'm not a football player, I'm not a team player in terms of like going and playing in a team sport. So I've never done that before, but you get what I mean.

Speaker 1:

So what is expected of me by my coach at home? What's expected of me, like, when I come home from school? What's expected of me? What's expected of me around bedtime, around dinnertime, around getting up for school? Like, what do I need to do? What is expected of me? And then you can dig deeper into that and say, okay, well, if those expectations weren't there, how would my football team run? How would my home run? You know, how would I if they have jobs outside of school? Like what would happen to my job if no one expected anything of me or if I didn't expect anything of myself?

Speaker 1:

Because it's not just about externally what people expect of us. It's like, what values do I hold? Like, what do I expect of other people? Like, what do I expect of my parents, parents, of my brother, of my friends and all the rest of it? So, starting with expectations as a concept, number one allows us to see if students actually know what expectations are and teach them what expectations are, because it might just be something they're like okay, like I kind of get it, but I've never really dug into the what and the why, depending on their age and their ability levels and all the rest of it. So that that's the first thing really getting them to have a clear understanding of expectations before we go into the lesson, which is important. And then having the buy-in of oh okay, it's not something that's just forced upon me at school because you guys suck, it is something that actually is very important for my world and everybody's worlds. So once I go and dig into the concept of expectations and I do that through, like you know, where do we see them in the real world? What would happen if we didn't have these expectations in place?

Speaker 1:

I then go to the modeling of expectation setting. So I start with me. What do you expect of me? You know, like, say, you expect me to turn up on time. You expect me to treat everybody with fairness. You expect me to treat everybody with fairness. You expect me to be prepared, All of those things that a teacher, you know it's our job to do. What is important for us? To embed ways for students to authentically contribute to that discussion, and that's where we can try to teach them that in this part and model it for them in this part. So if you want to use post-it notes or digital boards or whatever works for you like, go through them, vote on them, get students to propose these expectations, to talk about them, to even challenge them if they want to like no, I don't agree with that and tell them. You know okay why, and they can explain that to you.

Speaker 1:

The point of this is for us to vulnerably show students that expectations aren't just something that is for them. Again, it's reinforcing that concept that expectations are just something that in the real world we have to do. So that's where we model it. So model sharing, model, you know, maybe voting or challenging or just having that list up there. And once you've got a list of really nice expectations, you might even say, like, can I add some that I haven't seen up here, you know, and really have it as this beautiful collaborative process and try to get the kids to share, who maybe you know are sitting up the back, they're not saying anything. You don't have to do that verbally, like, get them to write something on a post-it note and really make a point of them sharing what they should expect of you, because again, it's about the buy-in. When you get to the next part, which is the structure of the student expectations, then they're going to be more willing to share. So you've done the student and the teacher expectations. You've modeled it. Now you just go through that exact same structure with your students. So what should the expectations be of them? They can use post-it notes, they can use a digital board, they can use whatever works for you in your context to go through and say what their expectations should be. You can vote on them, you can discuss them, you can have a lovely list there.

Speaker 1:

I also like doing an activity where I have like a Venn diagram and I write down in the middle of the Venn the expectations that are just that, you know, have popped up for both of us, for teacher and student, and it just shows us that their expectations that we just have of each other as human beings, like fairness and kindness and effort and showing up you know all of those things. So I like doing the Venn diagram part like part of the lesson as well. I think it's really helpful. Okay, that's expectations Day three. So that's day two. Day one you know, breaking the ice, remembering that it's not about, like you know, going too hard on it. It's about opening up those opportunities for authentic connection, discussion, a bit of a laugh. You want them going home thinking, okay, this year is going to be good. Day two that's where you do your expectation, setting really coming at it from you know, a place of collaboration and buy-in, and modeling that for them and getting them to understand like the values behind it and why it's important. And then day three so let's just say we're on a weekly schedule of three lessons a week.

Speaker 1:

On day three I will start teaching things. I'm going to start to introduce daily routines, but I'm going to be doing that through the lens of still building that community. So, for example, I do a like my entry routine will always have a starter activity. I might introduce that starter activity to students but instead of having one that's driven by the curriculum, I might do a. Do now that is, a chit chat question or a beat the clock question, and then explain after we've had that laugh and we've had a bit of a. You know we've done a fun activity as a starter.

Speaker 1:

I will then explain how every time we come into the lesson I'm going to have a starter up on the board in the same place that they're going to do. Then I will scatter in some brain breaks, then I will finish off the lesson with a community builder. But they're the kind of things that I do every single lesson. I'm going to do an entry routine, I'm going to do a transition routine. I'll be doing all of those things but I'm going to be really strategic in this third lesson of explicitly introducing them, not in a way that overwhelms them, like not too much, but, you know, just really naturally starting to weave these things in. So I'm still continuing to build the community.

Speaker 1:

I will still start to do some learning in that lesson, like I'll introduce the subject for the term, but I will still kind of sandwich in the teaching of routines through that lens of community building. Remember that community building is no one and done. We want to break the ice but then we're going to be warming that tea throughout the whole term. And this is how we do it. We start to scatter things in like that. So the do. Now it won't be a usually a community builder. Usually that would be really relevant to the lesson, same as the exit routine. But those little snippets of brain breaks I will scatter them through and I will explain to them explicitly in that third lesson, that this is what I do. You know, sometimes we need to get up and move, sometimes we need to, you know, use our brains differently to have a bit of a break so we can then get back to the writing. So I'll explicitly explain all of those routines that I will be using throughout the year and teaching it, modeling it, and day three is such a great time for me to do that.

Speaker 1:

And then the final part of that question for my behavior club was like how do I start the year strong? But then also, how do I and when do I bring in things like SEL lessons and regulation resources and all of those things that are really important? But like, when do you actually introduce those? I introduce those throughout the year and I do so in a way that's really natural and kind of responding to the needs in the room or when I see an opportunity arise. So if there has been, you know, a student with specific behaviors, I'll be introducing those concepts, maybe one-to-one.

Speaker 1:

If I noticed that it's like a big thing in the class that there's a lot of dysregulation, I might pause and I might start teaching my flipping your lid lesson, and I'll do that throughout the term, you know in little parts. Or I might introduce a regulation resource once a week, or I might start to do some journaling in the morning. Like you know, if I've got three lessons a week, I might do every lesson that week. I might just do a starter of gratitude or mindfulness or something like that and start to explicitly explain what's happening in our brains and you know what's happening in the stress response. So it's more of a natural kind of weaving in, of teaching those skills when, and you know, if that arises, and really responding to the needs of my class, because one class might be fine with their regulation, they might, you know. I mean, if you listened to my last episode, you'll know that that is not necessarily the case with a lot of classes. Most, you know most classes will have one in three students that are experiencing significant symptoms of depression or anxiety, which is why this stuff is so important for us to be weaving in when we can. Even if it is just like a three minute breathing exercise at the start of one lesson a week, you know, even something like that can make a bit of an impact.

Speaker 1:

But some, so some classes might need more in terms of their regulation, or I might prioritize that, whereas another class might be really struggling with their mindset, like they have a really fixed mindset and I'm really getting a lot of pushback when it comes to actually putting the effort in and I might have to do the lesson on growth mindset or, you know, have a bit of like a focus on that. So I'll put like a display up on the wall and I'll start to talk about the quotes up on the wall. It really is dependent upon what's going on in your class. So if you are in the behavior club and you're wondering when to kind of sprinkle these things in, just come and let me know in the community and I can point you in the direction of the exact resources that you can get started with. So you're not kind of throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks, you're actually being targeted in the resources that you can use and you know when you should use them. So please make sure you're using that resource.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, I'm just going to leave it there because there is a lot that I've covered. If you want that all done for you. By the way, if you want all of the icebreakers and the expectations lesson, I've even added in a um, an escape room, which is a lot of fun for that first day back because it introduces values and, uh, in a way that's, like you know, really collaborative and fun. Then I'll pop the link to my back to school mega bundle so you can go into the holidays or come back to school feeling so much more relaxed because you don't have to do all of that yourself. It's taken me weeks and weeks and weeks to put that together and I'm making it better all of the time.

Speaker 1:

So if you want to grab the back to school mega bundle, I'll pop that link in the show notes for you. But of course, if you're a behavior clubber, that is already in the community for you in your resource section. Just pop in. It'll be under back to school resources and you can download that and just crack on with it. Anyway, I hope you have a lovely, lovely school year. If you've gotten to the end of this podcast episode, it means that you are going back to school, or maybe you're just interested in how I approach things, but if you are going back to school, I am sending you so much love for the year ahead. I am so excited for what this school year will bring and how I can support you in any way that I possibly can. And yeah, until next time. Big love and bye for now.

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Claire English

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