If you can grab them in the first five minutes, everything feels easier. That's the magic of a great starter activity — and this episode is Claire's full Q&A on how to do them well.

Starter tasks are one of Claire's absolute favourite things (her words). Done right, they communicate your expectations before you've said a single word, shift whatever energy students are walking in with, and create the kind of consistency and predictability that makes your classroom feel safe — for your students and for you.

In this episode, Claire covers:

• Why starter activities are classroom management magic — not just a nice-to-have
• The guard dog analogy — why routines are "friends for the amygdala" and what that means for your most dysregulated students
• The most frequently asked questions about starter tasks: 
  • Do they have to relate to the lesson? Claire's honest answer
  • What if students don't take them seriously? How to get buy-in by explaining the why
  • What actually makes a quality starter? Claire's criteria — achievable for every student, no extra input from you, pen to paper, three to five minutes, no prior knowledge required
• Five starter activities you can try this week: 

Resources mentioned:

• 📦 [Routines Bundle]— entry routines, transitions, exits, early finishes, starters, and more — every routine your classroom needs in one place

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

RESOURCES AND MORE SUPPORT:

• Shop all resources
• Join The Behaviour Club
• My book! It’s Never Just About the Behaviour: A holistic approach to classroom behaviour management 
• The Low-Level Behaviour Bootcamp
• Free guide: 'Chats that Create Change'

Connect with me:

• Follow on Instagram @the.unteachables
• Check out my website

Teachers are constantly being told to move away from punitive approaches — but rarely given the actual, practical skills to replace them with. And that gap? It's leaving teachers feeling disempowered, lost, and like restorative practice just doesn't work.

This episode is Claire's answer to that.

She's breaking down her exact framework for helping students build real accountability after big behaviour moments — in a way that's realistic, respectful, and actually works in a real classroom.

In this episode, Claire covers:

• Why restorative conversations alone aren't enough — and what's actually missing
• What real accountability looks like (hint: it's not a forced apology or a lunchtime detention)
• Her four-step framework: Regulate, Reflect, Repair, Record
  • Regulate — why you can't skip this step, and how to support a student's nervous system before any conversation happens
  • Reflect — getting students to genuinely understand what happened and why, using scaffolds that don't feel like an interrogation
  • Repair — letting students choose their own pathway forward so there's real buy-in and ownership
  • Record — why documentation isn't punitive, it's protective — for you and for them
• Why students shut down in behaviour conversations — and how this framework changes that
• The difference between compliance and genuine change over time

Resources mentioned:

• 🛠️ [Reflect & Repair Toolkit] — think sheets, regulation tools, reflection scaffolds, repair notes, and Claire's Classroom Management Digital Hub, all in one place

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

RESOURCES AND MORE SUPPORT:

• Shop all resources
• Join The Behaviour Club
• My book! It’s Never Just About the Behaviour: A holistic approach to classroom behaviour management 
• The Low-Level Behaviour Bootcamp
• Free guide: 'Chats that Create Change'

Connect with me:

• Follow on Instagram @the.unteachables
• Check out my website

Classroom management can feel like this big, intangible, confusing beast that no one can seem to nail down. Claire gets it — and this episode is her antidote to that.

Five non-negotiable moves. Five things she'd hand you immediately if you came to her tomorrow and said "I'm struggling, what do I do?" No fluff, no theory — just the actual things that are within your control and that you can take into your classroom today.

Because here's the thing: you can't control your students' behaviour. You can't control what they're dealing with at home, or how they're showing up. But there is so much you can control — and that's exactly where this episode lives.

In this episode, Claire covers:

• Why classroom management feels so overwhelming — and the one reframe that changes everything
• The five non-negotiable moves Claire comes back to again and again: 
  • Ready-to-go scripts — one-liners that keep you regulated when a student pushes every button you have
  • Routines — not just toilet passes, but the actual bones and heartbeat of your lesson
  • Buy-in first — why engagement and connection have to come before everything else
  • Community building — dripping in little moments of felt safety and belonging every single lesson
  • Crystal clear expectations — and knowing exactly how you'll respond when behaviour happens
• Why leadership telling you to "get your class under control" is the wrong ask entirely — and how to feel proud of what you are doing

Resources mentioned:

• 📥 [Calm Scripts PDF] — 20 ready-to-go one-liners for tricky behaviour moments
• 📦 [Routines Bundle] — everything you need to build routines that work the room for you

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

RESOURCES AND MORE SUPPORT:

• Shop all resources
• Join The Behaviour Club
• My book! It’s Never Just About the Behaviour: A holistic approach to classroom behaviour management 
• The Low-Level Behaviour Bootcamp
• Free guide: 'Chats that Create Change'

Connect with me:

• Follow on Instagram @the.unteachables
• Check out my website

Mentioned Resource: The Engagement Bundle

Engagement slumping? You're not alone. Whether you're in the final push to summer or just hitting that mid-year wall where motivation has quietly packed its bags, this episode is for you.

Claire shares four no-prep (or low-prep) whole class games that gamify your lessons, bring back buy-in, and make the last stretch of the year actually fun, for you and your students.

And yes, she's also addressing that "hard pass, kids don't need more dopamine" comment she got on Instagram. Spoiler: these aren't video games.

In this episode, Claire covers:

• Why engagement gets so hard towards the end of the year (and why it's not your fault)
• Why gamification is a great way to boost engagement 
• Why neurodivergent students thrive with novelty — and why what works for them works for everyone
• Four whole class games you can use today, no prep required: 

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

RESOURCES AND MORE SUPPORT:

• Shop all resources
• Join The Behaviour Club
• My book! It’s Never Just About the Behaviour: A holistic approach to classroom behaviour management 
• The Low-Level Behaviour Bootcamp
• Free guide: 'Chats that Create Change'

Connect with me:

• Follow on Instagram @the.unteachables
• Check out my website

What does it actually mean to be a professional in teaching? Not just "treated like one" — but what does professional knowledge, professional growth, and professional community actually look like in practice?

I got to sit down with one of the most cited education scholars alive — the incredible Andy Hargreaves — and honestly, I could have talked to him for hours. Andy is an author or editor of 40 books, an education advisor to governments across multiple countries, and the co-creator of the concept of Professional Capital — a framework that has genuinely changed the way educators and systems think about what it means to invest in teachers.

This is one of those episodes that I think is going to hit differently depending on where you are in your career. Whether you're in your first few years wondering if it's all worth it, or you're a seasoned teacher who's lost a bit of your spark, or you're a school leader trying to figure out why your staff keep burning out — Andy has something for you.

Here's a taste of what we got into:

In this episode, you'll learn:

• What professional capital actually is — and the three types every teacher already has (and needs to grow)
• Why staying in teaching longer than three years isn't just "getting expensive" — it's where the real expertise is built
• The chess metaphor that will completely reframe how you see your early career (and honestly, any career stage)
• What Andy believes schools are profoundly getting wrong about teacher wellbeing right now
• Why "wellbeing add-ons" like yoga and meditation won't fix what's actually causing teacher ill-being
• The three biggest causes of ill-being in schools — including one that hits way too close to home for Australian teachers
• What collective autonomy means and why individual autonomy alone isn't the answer
• Why the most powerful thing you can do as a teacher might be to fight for your autonomy together, not alone
• What Andy will be sharing at EduTech Sydney — including his fascinating "teaching as repair work" framework

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

RESOURCES AND MORE SUPPORT:

• Shop all resources
• Join The Behaviour Club
• My book! It’s Never Just About the Behaviour: A holistic approach to classroom behaviour management 
• The Low-Level Behaviour Bootcamp
• Free guide: 'Chats that Create Change'

Connect with me:

• Follow on Instagram @the.unteachables
• Check out my website

Okay, I'm going to say something that might surprise you.

The most powerful differentiation strategy I know is also the most boring one.

No fancy tech. No elaborate lesson design. No creating multiple versions of anything. Just one simple, evidence-backed approach that, when you actually use it, has the power to dramatically reduce the low-level disruptions, work refusal, and off-task behaviour that's making your days harder.

Welcome to Part 3 of the differentiation series, and today I'm giving you a front seat to scaffolding, what it actually is, when to use it, and the dead-simple framework I use to implement it in any lesson, in any subject, with any group of students.

Let's roll the tape on the I-We-You model, because once you get this, you're not going to be able to unsee it.

If you haven't listened to Parts 1 and 2 yet, I'd really encourage you to start there, this episode builds on both of them and will make a lot more sense with that context in place.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why scaffolding is the "boring" strategy that's actually classroom management magic
• What scaffolding actually is, and the stepping stones analogy that makes it click
• When to use scaffolds and what they can look like across different subjects and tasks
• The I-We-You model: the three-phase teaching framework that builds student skills and confidence before they ever work independently
• Why assumptions about what students "should" be able to do are quietly making your classroom harder to manage
• How the I-We-You model reduces the constant stream of "what do I do?" questions during independent work time
• Why this isn't extra work, it's just really good teaching
• How to access Claire's full Differentiation Toolbox and 50+ Canva scaffold templates inside the Behaviour Club

Resources mentioned:

• The Behaviour Club — full differentiation training + 50+ Canva scaffold templates: https://www.theunteachables.com.au/tbc

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

RESOURCES AND MORE SUPPORT:

• Shop all resources
• Join The Behaviour Club
• My book! It’s Never Just About the Behaviour: A holistic approach to classroom behaviour management 
• The Low-Level Behaviour Bootcamp
• Free guide: 'Chats that Create Change'

Connect with me:

• Follow on Instagram @the.unteachables
• Check out my website

Let me be real with you for a second, the word "differentiation" has a bit of a reputation problem.

For most teachers, hearing it conjures up images of three separate lesson versions, colour-coded ability groups, and a to-do list that never ends. No wonder it sends a shudder up your spine.

But here's the thing: that version of differentiation? It's not what I'm talking about. And it's not what's actually going to help your students, or you.

This is Part 2 of my differentiation series, and today I'm giving you a front seat to what differentiation actually looks like when it's done in a way that's realistic, sustainable, and genuinely effective. We're busting the biggest myths, reframing the whole concept, and I'm walking you through my Differentiation Toolbox, the strategies I actually use to embed adaptive learning into lessons, not on top of them.

If you haven't listened to Part 1 yet, I'd recommend starting there, because it sets up the whole behaviour-learning link that makes this episode make sense.

But if you're ready to stop feeling guilty about differentiation and start actually doing it? You're in exactly the right place.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why the way we've been taught to differentiate is setting us up to fail — and what to do instead
• The biggest misconceptions teachers have about differentiation (and why they're holding us back)
• What "true differentiation" — or adaptive teaching — actually looks like in practice
• Why differentiation needs to be hardwired into your lesson design, not added on afterwards
• The ladder analogy that reframes scaffolding in the most practical way possible
• The tools inside Claire's Differentiation Toolbox: scaffolding, success criteria, learning maps, starter activities, visible learning, and more
• How one lesson can meet every student at their level — without creating multiple versions of anything
• What's coming up in Part 3 of the series (spoiler: it's all about scaffolding and modelling in detail)

Resources mentioned:

• The Behaviour Club — differentiation training + 50+ Canva scaffold templates: https://www.theunteachables.com.au/tbc

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

RESOURCES AND MORE SUPPORT:

• Shop all resources
• Join The Behaviour Club
• My book! It’s Never Just About the Behaviour: A holistic approach to classroom behaviour management 
• The Low-Level Behaviour Bootcamp
• Free guide: 'Chats that Create Change'

Connect with me:

• Follow on Instagram @the.unteachables
• Check out my website

Every teacher has been there. The class that makes you want to crawl under your desk. The student who seems hell-bent on dismantling every lesson you've planned. And the horrible, shameful moment when you realise you've snapped, yelled, or just completely lost the plot… and it didn't help at all.

Here's the thing: it's not because you're a bad teacher. It's because you're a human with a brain, and that brain is doing exactly what it's designed to do under stress.

This week, I'm joined by the incredible Jessica Sinarski, award-winning author, innovative educator, and founder of Brave Brains, who has spent more than 20 years translating complex neuroscience into practical, I can actually do this strategies for educators and child welfare organisations around the world. Jess is one of those rare humans who can take the most brain-melting research and make it feel completely accessible. And honestly? This conversation gave me goosebumps more than once.

We get into why chaotic classrooms aren't a discipline problem (and what they actually are), the surprising sensory input that could completely change your most challenging class, and the mindset shift that will help you stop taking student behaviour personally, even when it feels very personal.

This one is a must-listen, friends.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• Why YOUR brain goes on autopilot when students kick off, and why that's completely normal (not a character flaw)
• What's actually going on neurologically in a class that feels constantly dysregulated and chaotic
• The "pack leader" concept and why calm authority is your most powerful classroom tool
• How to shift your internal narrative from "this kid is out to get me" to something that actually helps you respond well
• The anchor phrases that will help you stay regulated when students push every button you have
• What proprioception is, why it's the hidden classroom management tool you didn't know you needed, and how to use it today
• A super simple movement break that works even with secondary students (yes, really)
• Why connection between students, not just between you and your students, changes classroom behaviour
• The "brain builder" mindset shift that will transform how you see your most challenging students

Where to find more from Jess:

• Free Teacher's Guide to Proprioception
• Light Up the Learning Brain (also available at all major online retailers)
• Behavior Rewired 

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

RESOURCES AND MORE SUPPORT:

• Shop all resources
• Join The Behaviour Club
• My book! It’s Never Just About the Behaviour: A holistic approach to classroom behaviour management 
• The Low-Level Behaviour Bootcamp
• Free guide: 'Chats that Create Change'

Connect with me:

• Follow on Instagram @the.unteachables
• Check out my website

When a student pushes a piece of work off their desk, puts their head down, pulls out their phone, or starts cracking jokes, it can feel personal. Like, really personal. Especially when you've poured your heart into that lesson.

But here's the thing: none of that behaviour is random. And it's definitely not about you.

In this episode, I'm giving you a front seat to something I wish I'd known back in my second year of teaching, when I planned what I thought was an epic observation lesson, complete with immersion stations, bells, whistles, the lot… and watched it completely fall apart in real time (yes, a kid literally jumped out the window).

This episode kicks off a three-part series on differentiation, and before you click away because that word makes you want to lie down on the floor,  stick with me. Because this is not the differentiation that has you creating 180 individual lesson plans. This is the real, doable kind.

But first, we need to talk about what's actually going on in your students' brains when they see a piece of work and decide nope. Because once you understand the link between the learning you're designing and the behaviour you're seeing, everything starts to shift.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why "work refusal" behaviours (avoidance, disruption, withdrawal, escalation) are almost always a stress response — not defiance
• What actually happened in my chaotic observation lesson and why it was always going to go that way
• The four ways students' stress responses show up when they feel set up to fail
• Why you cannot separate classroom management from teaching and learning, and why that's actually good news
• Why differentiation has such bad PR (and why that's making things harder for all of us)
• What's coming up in parts 2 and 3 of this series (spoiler: it's practical, it's doable, and it's going to save you time)

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

RESOURCES AND MORE SUPPORT:

• Shop all resources
• Join The Behaviour Club
• My book! It’s Never Just About the Behaviour: A holistic approach to classroom behaviour management 
• The Low-Level Behaviour Bootcamp
• Free guide: 'Chats that Create Change'

Connect with me:

• Follow on Instagram @the.unteachables
• Check out my website

What if the biggest shift you could make for your most complex students had nothing to do with behaviour charts, consequences, or reward systems — and everything to do with the way you see them?

In this episode, I'm sitting down with the incredible Verity Harvey — an educator with over 20 years of experience in inclusion and disability, a passionate advocate for neurodiversity, and one of the keynote speakers I'll be joining at EduTech 2026 here in Sydney (more on that soon!). Verity brings a wealth of experience from early childhood through to complex disability settings, and she is now working in mainstream schools to help educators do inclusion really well.

Verity's whole philosophy is built around the idea that behaviour is a message — and that if we can shift from a "behaviour management" lens to a "problem-solving" lens, everything changes. She's deeply influenced by the work of Dr. Ross Greene and his Collaborative Proactive Solutions model, as well as Dr. Bruce Perry's neurosequential framework, and she brings all of that together in a way that is warm, practical, and genuinely actionable.

We talk about what Universal Design actually looks like in a busy classroom, why regulation has to come before reasoning (every single time), and why the iceberg analogy isn't just a metaphor — it's the key to depersonalising behaviour and showing up calm for your students.

Verity also shares a deeply personal story about her son — a moment at swimming lessons that perfectly illustrates how systems still have a long way to go in understanding and accommodating neurodivergent kids. You're going to want to hear it.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• What Universal Design for Learning actually looks like in a real classroom — not the theory, the tangible stuff
• The three R's from Dr. Bruce Perry: Regulate → Relate → Reason (and why skipping steps doesn't work)
• What's really under the surface of big, concerning behaviours — and how understanding it helps you depersonalise and stay regulated yourself
• How the iceberg analogy applies to kids AND teachers — and what to do with that
• The one mindset shift that will change how you walk into your classroom tomorrow
• How school leaders can build systems that actually support teachers to support their most complex students
• Why "just be kind" isn't quite enough — and what gets in the way of that for even the most compassionate teachers

Come and join us at Edutech Sydney 2026! Use code UNTEACH26 for a discount on your event pass.

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

RESOURCES AND MORE SUPPORT:

• Shop all resources
• Join The Behaviour Club
• My book! It’s Never Just About the Behaviour: A holistic approach to classroom behaviour management 
• The Low-Level Behaviour Bootcamp
• Free guide: 'Chats that Create Change'

Connect with me:

• Follow on Instagram @the.unteachables
• Check out my website