The Unteachables Podcast

#138: Brain breaks that secretly boost behaviour (and help us reclaim a bit of teaching joy in the classroom)

• Claire English • Season 6 • Episode 138

Share episode

Ever feel like your class is one brain snap away from absolute chaos… or just asleep at the wheel?

In this episode, I’m giving you a front seat to one of the most powerful — and wildly underused — classroom management tools in your toolbox: brain breaks. But not just for the sake of fun. We’re talking strategic, rapport-building, energy-resetting magic that actually boosts learning, not wastes time.

This is Day 4 of the Kickstart (catch up on previous days if you missed them!) and today is all about what we do in the meaty middle of the lesson — when things can either hum along… or totally unravel. I’ll share the sneaky strategies I used (without knowing they were even strategies back then) to build connection, shift energy, and keep my most disengaged students coming back for more.

Spoiler alert: it's not about being the "cool teacher" — it’s about being a connected, present, values-led one.

Let’s roll the tape.

What you’ll learn:

  • What brain breaks actually are (and aren’t)
  • 3 go-to brain breaks Claire used to reset student energy on the fly
  • Why these simple strategies work (backed by brain science)
  • How to use them strategically to build rapport without losing instructional time
  • The “credibility flip” every teacher needs to know when transitioning from playful to teacher-led
  • Why this is classroom management gold — not fluff or filler

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

Memberships to The Behaviour Club now open until Monday 15th September!
Learn more and join us here: https://www.the-unteachables.com/tbc

RESOURCES AND MORE SUPPORT:

Connect with me:


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 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, fabulous teachers, and welcome back to day four of the kickstart.

Speaker 1:

I am bringing the kickstart from the official platform onto the podcast so I'm able to give you some snippets on the go. When I was in the planning phases of the kickstart, I'm able to give you some snippets on the go. When I was in the planning phases of the kickstart, I did put a little poll out and I'm like, how do you best learn? And I had a huge amount of teachers that said, like I need it on a podcast because I need to, you know, get in the car and go and I just don't have the time to sit down and do all of these things, which I totally get, I am just. I think most of the things that I have learned these days have been through podcasts or through something audio related. I'm a big audio book person as well. Don't tell me that's not reading. It's definitely reading, having an audio book Anyway.

Speaker 1:

So I wanted to make sure that you had access to the kickstart in whatever way works for you, because these five if you haven't been listening from the start, by the way, go back to day one, which is presence. It's a few weeks back now. We're on day four, but the whole goal of this is just to give you five really actionable quick wins that you can take into your classroom, immediately implement to the day-to-day, and it's just going to boost your classroom management and just be just. I like to call it like sprinkling a little bit of classroom management into everything that you do, because that's exactly what these little quick wins do. They're not the whole picture. Obviously there's so much that goes into classroom management. But I wanted to make sure that you had access to something that gives you that feeling of hope. And I know that sounds pretty extreme, but there were parts of like times in my career where I just felt so hopeless with classroom management and felt like there was nothing that I could do to change the situation that I was in. So I really do focus now on the stuff that is in our kind of circle of control, and these five things in the kickstart are exactly that. I'm kind of following the natural flow of a lesson. So the first part, the first session, was on presence, all about our teaching, presence and what we do before students even walk into our classroom, then entry routine, then setting up tasks, and now we're talking about brain breaks and like kind of building rapport and transitions and those kinds of things that are in the kind of, you know, the meaty part of the lesson because you get told to build a relationship and all that stuff. But what does it actually mean? What does that look like in the day to day? How can you do that in a way that's going to still leave you time for everything else that's on your plate? So I just wanted to give you a few little tidbits today around that.

Speaker 1:

First I want to tell you about one of the classes that I had in my first year of teaching that class. They were beautiful. They were an English studies secondary obviously secondary class. They were in year 11, going into year 12. And they were just like still, this is one of my favorite classes. You know those classes that just have a really big impact on you.

Speaker 1:

They were the class that, like everyone else would have called like, lazy or like, but they were just beautiful kids and I did a lot of leaning into what I felt was right, intuitively with that class. I didn't know what brain breaks were. I hadn't heard of upregulation or downregulation, I really was just following my guts. And this remember this was a class that other teachers said were like lazy and like hard to engage or hard to get involved in things, really hard to kind of build a relationship with because there was a lot of apathetic behaviors. And if you're a secondary teacher listening to this and you've got like those older students, you know that apathy can kind of set in and I can say a lot about that with, like, the development of the brain and like when teenagers brains are rewiring. That can seem like like apathy. Anyway, I'm not going to go all into that right, because I wanted these to be really quick sessions Anyway.

Speaker 1:

So I lent into the the idea of these brain breaks. Like I was happily kind of allowing them to have a bit of a game or sing happy birthday every okay, I know that's not a brain break, you know what I mean. Like I was leaning into things that were building the relationship. If I had noticed that things were getting a little bit, um, like low energy, I'd be up and doing a game with them or having a joke with them or getting them to move around the room in a certain way. Like I was just naturally kind of leaning into this stuff.

Speaker 1:

I had one student in that class that was just love doing handstands. So every opportunity, like after we'd done, like a big task of like okay, now is the time, come and show me your best handstand, like just little things like that. That I wasn't doing intentionally as a brain break, but just leaning into what I felt like the class needed at the time. Um, by the way, I was watching the door like a hawk, because you know leadership, walk in at that right moment, don't they like the worst possible moment for them to walk in to see you in action. And I remember my principal at the time walked in at the exact moment that I was sitting in amongst the students and one of my students was doing an impersonation of me which was pretty damn spot on. It was hilarious, but I like the fear that I had in me for allowing my students to do brain breaks.

Speaker 1:

I didn't know then what I know now, so I didn't know how to back myself and you know I just imagined getting like pulled into a room Claire why are we doing this with your students? And I probably would have sunk into a bit of shame or like felt like a bad teacher. But now I know that what I was doing, even though I was totally unconscious about the benefits of it, I know now that I wasn't wasting time. I wasn't just trying to be the fun teacher. I wasn't just like letting the kids mess around. I was getting them to do their work. I noticed that things were dipping. I noticed that they were struggling. They were a bit of a tough class and I was able to kind of like pave a way around to get to the next task. That's how I was kind of saying I'm like, okay, we need to get here, so let's like, let's do something first, or anyway, it really, really works. But not only was it brilliant for the students and their learning, because they were engaging in my class and I didn't know what I was bloody doing, but the relationships that I had with those students were just so phenomenal. Did we do our work? Yes, I did more work with those students than most teachers did, because they were really hard to engage. So I didn't know back then what I know now and I am in a position now to be able to support you with this, which is fantastic.

Speaker 1:

So for this day of the Kickstarter, I wanted to talk about rapport, how we can build rapport, how we can embed that into the day-to-day, and I wanted to talk about doing that through strategic brain breaks, and I'm using brain breaks as like a bit of a kind of blanket term for a lot of different things, and I know that there are. There's a lot more I could talk about with like specific brain breaks that upregulate at certain times or downregulate. You know there's a lot to do with that kind of stuff when it comes to brain breaks, but for the purposes of today's session. I'm just going to go into a few strategies that work to uh, you know, drop in some rapport throughout the day, but also do so in a way that's going to get students re-engaged in the learning and just be a little bit of magic. Uh, you don't need a huge, time-consuming plan to build a strong classroom culture, and classroom culture is also not built in a day at the start of the year. It's about creating small, intentional moments that foster that connection and community in a way that feels natural and sustainable. So I'm going to walk you through a couple of my go-to brain breaks that you can use daily to strengthen relationships, boost that energy in the room and keep your students switched on.

Speaker 1:

So the first thing I want to make sure you understand is that community and rapport is not a one and done. It's something that we do in the day to day. Because what building rapport isn't? It's not a one and done. It's not easy, it's not inevitable, it's not reliant on you being the cool teacher, it's not separate from learning, and I think that's really important to say, because when we get told to just build a relationship, it's almost like people are saying it's easy, you know, like, just just do it. Like are saying it's easy, you know, like, just do it. But it's so much easier said than done with students who are tough to engage or teenagers who don't trust you, like there's so much more to building rapport than just going hey, build a relationship, get to know them, ask them a couple of questions about themselves and their lives and then, hey presto, you've got a lovely relationship that you're going to be able to leverage for class year management. It just doesn't work that way. So us understanding that building rapport isn't a one and done, it's not something that's easy for like some.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes it will be easy for some students, just like I, might meet someone and instantly we connect and we're good pals and it feels like I've known them forever. But then other people I really have to work at Like it's, you know, it's not like as human beings we can build a rapport easily with everybody and it's not reliant on you being the cool teacher. You don't have to be I mean, I'm a dorky 36 year old woman Like I am not the cool teacher I, you know, I don't have to be, you don't have to be to have beautiful relationships with your students. I might. Maybe I was a bit cooler back then with those, those senior kids, but maybe I was pretty dorky. They knew I was dorky anyway and it's not separate from learning.

Speaker 1:

It is a part of learning. So if I was to be pulled aside now, if my principal walked in and said, what were you doing with those students, like, why weren't you teaching them anything? I'd be able to sit down and go, hey, yes, like, absolutely that was a crucial part of the learning process because of this, this, that and the other. Anyway, so a burden report isn't that, it is an ongoing investment, it is a crucial part of your classroom management, it is strategic, it's consistent and it's such a huge part of learning. Buy-in and engagement and brain breaks are just one way that I sprinkle that in. So sprinkle the community building, sprinkling the rapport building in a way that you know does a really great job to also boost that learning.

Speaker 1:

Brain breaks encourage small daily interactions that foster a sense of belonging and community and felt safety when you are able to go, hey, you know what, let's take a bit of a breather, let's recalibrate, let's do a little bit of a brain break. Students are hearing from you like that you care about them as human beings and not just about what they can robotically produce in that lesson. And I understand we've got so much to get through. But yeah, it's really important for us to be kind of taking that step aside because it then makes the learning time so much more valuable and the quality of work. I've spoken about on a podcast before about my senior classes and about the way that I was able to like the writing sucked like it was really hard, they were tired, and when I started to just like back myself a little bit and go actually I'm going to put some brain breaks in every now and again the writing that I got from them, the time that I was spending, was so much more valuable.

Speaker 1:

Because here's why brain breaks are a little bit of classroom management magic. The first thing is that they give the brain a bit of a reset. So short breaks give the brain time to rest and reset. It improves alertness. When students return to tasks, they're able to get into the task in a deeper way. They're more focused. It switches on the prefrontal cortex. So if students have just come back from recess and things are like oh, and the energy's low and they need a bit of upregulation, it can really get them switching on their prefrontal cortex. The second thing is it boosts energy. So novel or unexpected activities release dopamine, a neurotransmitter that fuels motivation and focus. This can pull students out of low arousal by sparking their interest, and then it gets them moving and movement activates the brain and increases arousal, which can then boost alertness and focus as well. So if we're thinking about low energy and students need to up-regulate, they can be brilliant for that.

Speaker 1:

But of course if we need students to down-regulate, that's a whole different kind of brain break and there are plenty of things that we can do for that as well. Like you know, five minutes of mindfulness do some. I like to do a little sketch competitions and I give them like pictures to either fill out, or I can do like doodle competitions, just things that get students to be mindful and present in that moment. There's plenty of things you can do for downregulation. The ones that I'm talking about are more kind of upregulating, but you can also use them as a down. I'll talk you through them anyway. So the brain breaks that I am going to hand over in. So the ones I'm talking about I'm going to be handing over inside of the kickstart as well. So if you're not a part of the kickstart and you want to grab these resources, make sure you come in and enroll in it. It's $1. You just head to the dash on teachablescom forward slash kickstart.

Speaker 1:

So these following brain breaks they're so brilliant for upregulating when students are feeling a little bit lethargic or apathetic, but they also just help to sprinkle rapport into the day-to-day. They help build that community, they help build that felt safety and building those things is going to help your classroom management so much. This is not me saying just build a relationship. This is me saying hey, here are three really actionable things that you can do every day to then help to foster those relationships and that rapport. The first one that I absolutely love is beat the clock. So in a beat the clock brain break challenge, I'll give them a little challenge that they need to complete quietly before time runs out. So, for example, list 10 animals with scales or list 10 excuses for being late, list 10 things that most kids would hate doing, list 10 things that have exactly five letters, something like that. Then I might depending on the age of the students, I might put three minutes on the clock and I'll say you have to do that before time runs out and if they finish it before that, if they do those 10 things, I'll say okay, keep going, and we're going to see who gets the most by the end of the three minutes.

Speaker 1:

Why this works? For a variety of reasons. First up, if they are feeling a little bit lethargic, it gets them turning on their thinking brains because then you can transition after that into your learning. But also if you need to down regulate, it's such a brilliant one for that as well because it's a really engaging, independent, quiet, pen to paper activity. So you're able just to get them sitting down, switching on their thinking brain, doing something that's really engaging, really fun. But they're doing so quietly in the moment. So, like I love it for both of those things I'll do beat the clock all the time, like I absolutely love it. So inside the kickstart you have a bunch of slides. I think there's like a hundred beat the clock slides and they're really beautiful, they're really engaging. You can use them every day if you want. That is a part of the kickstart.

Speaker 1:

The next brain break I love is doing and this is again Number one for upregulation if they're feeling like a little bit lethargic in their chairs and they're not really engaging with the writing or whatever they're doing. But I also love this one for channeling the energy and channeling that chattiness in the class. So the first one rock paper scissors. And I do like a battle, so I partner students up and we play rock paper scissors. The winners of each of those battles stay standing and challenges a new winner and that process continues until just the last champion remains. The reason I love, love, love this as a brain break number one it's always really engaging for the students and they absolutely love it. You can do some other novel things around it, like have the rock paper scissors champion up on the board, or, you know, give them a special task, like you know, rubbing off the board when everyone, or writing something on the board when everyone else is sitting down.

Speaker 1:

But why I love this? Right, it's particularly useful for when students are really restless. They won't sit in their chairs, they're really chatty because you get them up and moving. So you're kind of using the energy in it, like you're just, you're not having to nag at them, you're not having to, like you know, threaten them. You're not having to, like stand there everyone, I'm waiting, blah, blah, blah. You're getting them up and moving and, without needing to say a word, you'll then have them back in their seats for you to transition to calm, teacher led instruction. And there's just so much buy-in, like you just have everyone bought into it. You can transition to teacher-led instruction and you don't have to say, okay, everyone, my time, your time, you're wasting, blah, blah, blah. You'll be able to do it in a way that you can transition really nicely. Of course, that is easier said than done and you've got a really chatty class, like you'll have to, really. If you haven't listened to day one presence a few weeks back, please go and do that, because you will need to then transition from your approachable body language when you're doing the box paper scissors battle to then your credible body language when you're transitioning into teacher-led instruction. So go back and listen to that if you haven't done so already, because that's really important. That's why I started with that on day one, because that is the foundation for everything that you then do.

Speaker 1:

The next brain break I love is count to 20. So students take turns counting out loud, but only one person can say a number at a time. If two students say a number at a time, everyone has to start over and you win as a class when everyone finally reaches 20. So, for example, I'll say one, somebody else in the class will go two, but if two students say two at the same time we'll be like, okay, back to one. It's so hard. If you've got younger students, maybe count to 10 might be a better option. But it's brilliant, and why it works is that, rather than getting frustrated at the chattiness in the class, you can have a game of count to 20 and you're positively channeling that energy into a game that's fun but actually requires them to stop talking over each other and they get super competitive. There's a lot of buy-in and it's just golden for community building and rapport and that's just a bonus. But again, like the last one, don't forget to transition out of the game in a really calm and credible manner.

Speaker 1:

If you are in the kickstart, if you come and join the kickstart, you also get a bunch of classroom games, like it's got rock paper, scissors, battle and it's got counter 20, along with a bunch of other games that are really great to use as brain breaks. I call them classroom games. To use it as a at a pinch can't even talk today. Classroom games to use at a pinch, because you don't have to have anything prepped, you don't have to do anything else. They come in little cards, um, you can just pick them up and go. You don't have to worry about anything else. They're just brain breaks at your fingertips, nothing else required, which is why I love them. So they're also in the um, in the kickstart for you.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, just give it a go, just embed a few brain breaks, just give it a try, just look around the room and go hey, things are a little bit I don't know lethargic, tired, like hard to engage, or maybe a bit restless, and just give it a go. So pick one of those, use it, see how you go, see how you get on, use another one, but yeah, just sprinkle those little moments of connection and rapport into your lesson whilst also boosting their engagement. That's fantastic, isn't it? It's a little bit of a I was going to say double-edged sword, but that's probably not the right term for it. Anyway, I hope that was really, really helpful. I've said it a million times, but I'm going to say it again If you want those resources, if you want to watch through the whole Kickstart it's five sessions, 10 minutes each you get the resources to implement it immediately. Five sessions, 10 minutes each. You get the resources to implement it immediately. Come in and join the kickstart. It's $1, the-unteachablescom forward slash kickstart. I just want you to come in and see how the smallest of shifts in your classroom management, or just like a couple of things that you can pop into your day no extra work, just things you're already doing, but doing them with intention I give you everything to hand over as well. I just want to show you how powerful it can be and how incredible your classroom management can be if you just make a few changes. And I think that's what's missing in our teacher. Teacher training is what's missing in the support that we're getting. We're just not being told like, hey, just do this and things can be a whole lot easier. And especially with these brain breaks that we're talking about, I fell into a bit of a trap for a number of years where I felt so burnt out by teaching and I felt like the joy had been sucked out of it and I was resenting it. I was resenting my students. I just I lost the joy, I lost that spark. When I start to feel like that, I remind myself to bring back a little bit of joy and these things here. It just breaks up the day and it reminds me of how incredible and what a privilege it is to work with the young people that we work with, and that's going to benefit everybody, isn't it Like? Just anyway, I'll stop ranting. I really hope that was helpful and I will see you in the final Kickstart episode next week, which is all about your exit routine. We've gone through that whole kind of a lesson. You know the sequence of the lesson, and now we've gotten onto exit routine. We've gone through that whole kind of lesson, you know the sequence of the lesson, and now we've gotten onto exit routine. So next week is going to be a cracker as well. So make sure you are subscribed to the podcast so that can just drop into your feed. Okay, have a lovely week and I will see you next time. Bye.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Claire English

Host