The Unteachables Podcast

#156: Why forced icebreakers don’t build trust or community (and what does)

• Claire English • Season 8 • Episode 156

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In this episode, I’m giving you a front-row seat to how I break the ice with my classes without forcing kids (or me!) into anything awkward, loud, or fake.

Whether you’ve got a class full of students with complex needs, or just want something low-stakes and actually useful — this is the episode for you. I’m walking you through the exact back-to-school icebreakers I’ve used for years with huge success. These are tried-and-tested with mainstream AND complex classrooms — and they do more than just "get to know you." They start building classroom culture from day one.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • Why traditional icebreakers often flop, and what to do instead
  • How to balance fun, structure, and behaviour foundations from lesson one
  • My 3 go-to first-day activities (that double as classroom management tools)
  • What I do instead of “stand up and introduce yourself” 😬
  • How to make a class playlist that builds community (and teaches expectations!)
  • The icebreaker games I use with students who are not here for your card sort

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SPEAKER_00:

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 behaviour nerd on a mission to demystify and simplify that little thing called classroom management. The way we've all been taught to manage behaviour 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've seen 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, welcome back to the Unteachables Podcast. It is that time of the year again, friends, where I talk about walking into our classrooms and doing what we can to foster that classroom community and make it a space that students walk out of and think, heck yes, I've got Miss English this year, or insert your name here, and I can't wait. It's going to be a great year in English. Well, that is the goal, isn't it? But there have been many a year where that has not been the case. And I have felt like the biggest dud. I have felt like an uncle loser auntie who looks at other teachers who are like really exciting and like magnetic with their students and immediately build that rapport. And I just feel like, yeah, like uncle, auntie, like I just don't know how to do it. I remember being very fresh in the classroom and being told from all directions that relationships are important, rapport is important, and just absolutely freaking out at the thought of that first lesson. Number one, because I didn't feel like I was magnetic and cool and all of those things. So I didn't know how I was going to like immediately capture their attention. But I felt like there was this window. And if I missed that window, if I didn't capture them and build that rapport and get to know them and all of those things, that I'd just miss the boats and that would be it for the year. And I'd just have to crack on with content. And, you know, like I there was a so much pressure on that first couple of lessons. I just remember feeling that heaviness about it and just always walking out feeling like I was failing. Like I tried to go deep and get to know students in the shortest possible time. And I'd always walk out feeling like I'd fallen short of that. Mainly because the things that I would do I was doing with students, like the things I was asking them, the kind of things I was playing with them, and all of those things, right? The answers I was getting or the responses I was getting from students were really superficial, or students weren't answering properly, or students weren't engaging properly. And I just walked away like not really knowing anything about them. Like they did engage in the kind of things that I was doing. Like, you know, they did come along for that ride most of the time. But I really always walked away going, well, was that okay? Like, did they get anything from it? Did I get anything from it? Like, not really. I didn't really know anything about them. I hadn't really done anything to lay the foundations for a solid class community. So I wanted to share how I approach it now. With 15 years under my belt and a lot of those years working with students who are the hardest to engage students, students who have disorganized attachments. So they don't let me in very easily, like they don't let anybody in very easily, students who are jaded, students who have had really negative experiences of education. So the students who are least likely to be like, hey, yeah, let's do some cool icebreakers. Like these are the students that are the hardest to do that with. But also, I've done this with students in mainstream classes who haven't had those complex needs as well. So these are the kind of things that you can do no matter who your class is, who's in your class, what you're doing, just to make that rapport building, that icebreaking as effective as it can be, and just to think about things in a little bit of a different way. So here are three things I generally do on the first day when I'm trying to break the ice. And when I'm talking about this, I want you to understand that when I'm doing the icebreaking and the rapport building and all of that, I'm balancing that with embedding things that are going to help me with behavior and with like expectations and all of those things as well. So I'm kind of doubling up on certain things here. So just be aware of that. The first thing I start with is a starter task. From the very beginning, I am embedding that routine. Before I say anything to them, I'm getting them in, I'm handing them a starter task. Whether that starter task is them doing a pen to paper version of it, or I'm getting them to like talk through the starter task. Either way, I give them a starter because I want to make sure that from the very beginning, I have started to create the rhythm and the heartbeat of my lesson. If you didn't listen to the last two episodes, because I've been back in January doing the back to school focus, please go back and listen to those because that's where I talk about routines a lot more. And I think I noted out about those for probably about half an hour across the two episodes. But I start with a starter task, starting that routine, starting the heartbeat. The kind of icebreaker, sorry, the kind of starter tasks that I do use at the start of the year are things like me in a nutshell with five little boxes students can write something about themselves in, or a little slip with two truths and a lie, like option, like little um spaces for them to write two truths and a lie, or a check-in slip, like I enjoy using my visual SEL check-ins. So I might put a couple of those into the first day. So on the crayon scale, how are you feeling about the year ahead? And there might be like, you know, a magical like box of crayons that's untouched, and then the scale goes down four steps. The next one maybe it's like a couple of labels are falling off. The one before that, it's, you know, a couple are broken, and then the next one is just like a box of like mismatched, you know, how they get really scummy. So those kinds of visual check-ins. It's funny, it's fun, it's engaging. You'd have to, you know, change that depending on the kind of student you're teaching, of course, or choose from one of those depending on your context, or make something up of your own. But it is something very low stakes. It's something that every student can do. And then you can decide what to do with that. Like you can get students to hand them in to you depending on the kind of study you've done. You can get students to talk to one another about it. You can use these as a doorway into an icebreaker whilst you're still kind of setting that routine up at the start of the lesson. So, for example, you might do the two truths and a lie slip and then have a game of that where they get into groups and they have to do that of their like one of their own. Or you use that to then, because that's scaffolding. What I hate about icebreakers is when we say to students, let's play two truths and a lie. Or if like in a meeting, we do that as well as staff, because I can never think of anything for myself. So instead of actually like listening to other people's two truths and a lie as we're going around the room, or the two facts about themselves, or whatever it is that you're doing for your icebreaker, instead of listening to other people, I'm too busy feeling anxious, thinking about, and this is me as a 36-year-old woman, by the way, not me as a student. I'm feeling anxious the whole time, going around in my head, thinking, what am I gonna say? What am I gonna say? What am I gonna say? What am I gonna say? And then when I think of something to say, I'm thinking, keep that in your head, keep that in your head, keep that in your head, because I'm really about at remembering things. So by the time it comes to me, I say my piece, I'm all sweaty about it, and then I haven't listened to anything anybody else has said because I've been so anxious about saying the one thing that I have to say. So doing a starter activity based on the icebreaker that you want to do, whether it's, you know, you going around the room based on your seating plan or alphabetical order, just going around introducing themselves, or you're just doing it as like another icebreaker, it is such a great way to scaffold that so students have something tangible in front of them to share. And you're not getting those like, because I'm telling you now, like if that's not you, a lot of people are like that. And if you are like this, I know you're nodding along right now, going, oh my god, that's a great idea because I find it really hard. So do that. Really low stakes. Every student can do it, and it just scaffolds the doorway into the icebreaker. So that's the first thing, a starter task. The second thing, another favorite, I absolutely love this. It is a class playlist. I get students to write down one of their favorite songs on a post-it note, they pop it in a box, then I take all of those, I make sure that they're appropriate, I make a Spotify playlist based on those choices, and then I label that playlist with the name of the class because, you know, in any given year, I've got like six classes, and I use that playlist for transitions for students entering the classroom. I use it for like creative writing time, like whatever the situation is, I can start circling through that playlist. I have games based on that playlist, so I might use one song per day for transitions, and then at the end of the lesson, instead of an exit task, I might say, who can guess what today's um song, who's who today's song was chosen by? There are so many ways you can use the class playlist, but I find this to be such a beautiful way for my students to share something that's meaningful for them. I mean, you can get students to talk about in that first lesson, you can get students to talk about why they chose that song and why that's meaningful for them. You don't have to do that, you can just do whatever you want with that class playlist. But I find it such a beautiful way to start building the foundations for that community that you can then bring through the rest of the year as well. The next thing I love to do is a game of beat the clock, but one that is specifically about getting to know you. I put three minutes on the clock and I give them a prompt. So something like uh 10 boring things about me or 10 words that sum me up as a person, and then they have to write, like come up with 10 of them before the clock runs out. Again, this can be done in any way, depending on your context. You can have a different amount of time for them to do it, you can have a different number of things, you can have three things if it's for a younger grade, or five minutes for a younger grade, so they have longer times to think, or you know, you can really challenge them if they're an older class. And then again, this is scaffolding discussions. So really low stakes. You're not expecting students to come up with things off the top of their heads when they're talking to somebody. You're reducing that social anxiety of the whole thing. Can you tell that I'm a socially anxious person when it comes to these things? I can never just think about things about myself. 10 boring things about me. I've got no idea. I wouldn't know how to say anything about that. But if I was to like have three minutes and write some things down, I would be able to think about it. Um, so beat the clock is another brilliant one that I absolutely love doing with my classes. Works for all students. Honestly, I have taught the most complex classes and they always love beat the clock. It is such a winner across the board. Um, I do these as starters very often as well. Like I'll get students to come in, I'll put three minutes on the clock, they'll know, they'll see the beat the clock and they'll be like, okay, sweet, we're doing this. Uh Beat the Clock will be up there and it'll just be something, even like related to the lesson or the subject or something just super random, like, you know, name 10 foods that are read. Like it can be anything, but beat the clock is always a surefire like starter activity or a brain break to get students. Just if you've got like a bit of like chaos humming, like a bit of chattiness, and you need to get students back in. I love beat the clock for that. The next things I do as icebreakers, I have my icebreaker card games that I use depending on the year group and depending on the classes that I have. There are four games that I love to use as an icebreaker. So I'm I'm not giving a lot of context here. So the icebreaker card games I use, I have a version where you can print out cards for it. So you can give cards to different students or a deck of cards to students, or I've got a version you can have as a PowerPoint so you can do it whole class. But there are things like would you rather? So I think I have like 27 really engaging would you rather questions. You can have students, you know, stand on one side of the classroom or the other side of the classroom, or stand up and sit down to represent whether or not they would rather one thing or the other. This is a great one because it is um like again, low stakes. Students are just, you know, they just have to respond to a question. They're not expected to tell people their whole life story when they don't know them yet or don't know you yet and don't trust you yet, especially with the more complex needs that we might have in the classroom. So would you rather is a great one just to get a bit of movement, just to get students to have a bit of a laugh, um, you know, get to know a little bit about each other and their personalities without it being, you know, like really demanding on them to think about things. The next one is never have I ever. Again, a really fun one. You can get students to represent that by standing up and sitting down as well, or hands up, hands down. The reason I absolutely love Never Have I Ever is because games like this get students to share things about their lives and themselves, tell funny stories in a way that's incredibly organic. You're not sitting there saying, okay, tell us about a time that you X, because then students will be like, oh God, okay, and trying to think of things. This opens up opportunities for students to organically share things if they choose to, if they've got something to say. Again, low stakes is the word of the day here because it's a way that we naturally build community. We're not building community by force, we're building it by just opening up the door for connection and for sharing, which is such a wonderful way to approach icebreakers. The next one that I love using is speed greetings. Speed greetings is just a series of really interesting questions that students can discuss. I love using them in concentric circles. So students can have like two circles, one in the middle, one on the outside, and then they rotate based on that's why I call it speed greetings. They can rotate based on like a timer, but the questions again aren't like tell me a deepest, darkest secrets, or like let's go deep, tell me about your family. They're really like interesting questions, like, what's one thing that you know children know more about than adults? Or, you know, questions that will get students talking and thinking and responding to certain subjects, but not in a way, again, that's like forcing students to overshare with certain things. The next one is, and the final one that I want to talk about is blobs and lines. I love this again because it gets students moving, anything that gets students up and kind of like moving around and doing things like that. Um, students have to line up based on things like the time they woke up in the morning or the time they went to bed at night, or like, you know, things like that, like lining up by their height or the amount of siblings they have, or like, you know, those kinds of things. Or they have to blob into groups. So blob into like your favorite seasons, for example. And the reason I love this is because you can you can do it so you don't have to like for the lining up, you can go like, okay, we'll do it without talking, or um, whatever you choose to do. But I like it because it forces them to communicate, but again, it's low stakes. They can have a bit of a laugh, they get to know something about each other, low stakes, low stakes, but engaging and you know, something that all students can get into, and there's no real barriers to that. But whatever you choose to do, whether you choose to do the starters or the class playlist or beat the clock or an icebreaker game that I've discussed, it's really important you remember the purpose of icebreakers. They need to open the door for discussion, they need to be authentic and natural and student-led sharing opportunities, like authentic discussions. Some students will love telling stories. These will support those students to do that. They will allow students, if you've, you know, kind of done a mix of them, to then talk to people in a quieter way. But another thing that's so important for a successful icebreaking session is your enthusiasm and your energy. If you don't want to be doing it, if you're like poo-pooing it, which is fine, if you're not an icebreaker person, like I'm not an icebreaker person when I they're trying to break my ice. I don't like my ice being broken, but I know that I need to do it in my classroom. But if you don't want to be doing it, if you go, I actually hate the idea of doing blobs and lines. Don't do that. Like if you're not into it, there's no way your student will want to be doing it either. So do something that you're excited about, do something that you're into, do something that feels natural to you. If icebreakers are not your thing, then they're not going to be your student's thing either. Also, just be a bit cheesy and dorky, like lean into it. Don't take yourself too seriously. You're a teacher, so I think I'm preaching to the converted anyway, but I really play up the dog factor. I get really vulnerable. I laugh at myself and don't take myself too seriously when they're playing these games. It is infectious and it gives your students permission to do the same thing. What are the purpose of icebreakers? They're just to break the ice, to make students feel more comfortable with one another, to open up avenues for discussion and vulnerability and all of the things that are really important to then go into the learning and feel a bit vulnerable because it's a very vulnerable thing to have to be in a classroom learning with our peers. So think about the purpose of it and then lean into that. If you are in the behavior club, by the way, all of my back to school goodies are there for you inside the resource library. Everything that we just discussed, all of my card games and everything are in there. On top of that, you have so many back to school goodies, like an escape room that is a lot of fun, pig pen cipher, like mystery messages for the start of the year, uh, a 2026 flipbook that helps students to, you know, make goals for the year, to write themselves a letter. It's a really great little flip book that'll take the whole lesson up if you want to do something that helps them to think about, like, you know, about me and all that kind of stuff. Um, there is the expectations lesson in there, every icebreaker mentioned, a chatter box. You also have the back to school boot camp waiting for you in the current month because that will help you put all of those pieces together and help you see when to do things, how to do things in the easiest, in the best way possible. If you're in the behavior club, go and look at it. It's literally a roadmap, click on it, there's the resource, print it, done. Like go and enjoy your time on holidays. That is what that's there for. If you are not in the behavior club and you are wanting in, doors are currently open for new members in 2020. For only about one more week. So come in and join us. It would be bloody brilliant to support you in 2026 in the way you deserve in your classroom because classroom management is no easy feat. And to be able to have a community there to support you, me as your mentor, all of the resources, all of the training that you could possibly ask for, and more being added every single month to just become a pro at classroom management little by little, then I just can't wait to support you in 2026 if that sounds like a bit of you. If it doesn't sound like a bit of you, if you're like, oh yeah, but I'm not too sure if it's for me just yet, and you just want the back to school goodies, I will pop that link in the show notes for you as well. But it is the unteachables.com forward slash TBC to join me inside of the behavior club. Uh until next week on the podcast, everybody. I hope you have a wonderful time. If you're finishing up the holiday, sending all my love, and I shall see you on the next episode of the Unteachables Podcast. Keep sprinkling all of that classroom management magic. Bye for now.

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Claire English

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