The Unteachables Podcast

There are so many things that I wish somebody had told me before having a baby. 

Returning to work post-maternity and all of the waves of emotion and challenge involve is one of them.

This episode is important not just for those mums needing a bit of solidarity, but for EVERY SINGLE PERSON.

We all need to do better at supporting new Mums in the workplace, and an awareness of the struggles is a good place to start. 

So listen in as I have quite a candid conversation about the past term of work after 10 months home with my little chicken egg.

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

On today’s episode I have the pleasure of talking to Marie Gentles, you might know her best as the expert in BBC documentaries Don’t Exclude Me and Helping our Teens, and now as the author of the book Gentles Guidance: How to Understand, Inspire and Empower Your Kids which has been recently published in June this year. She has also developed Gentle Guidance, where she delivers her own digital Behaviour Training Programme for schools/services and families.  To say that this woman is moving mountains in this space is an understatement.

So… when this incredible woman talks about what we need to be doing in the classroom to best support our young people, we all need to be listening, and what a privilege it was to be able to talk about some really important things in the educational space. 

In this episode:

• We discuss the importance of felt safety (and how we can provide that for our young people).
• We debunk some of the common (but understandable) assumptions we can make about the students who display the most challenging behaviours.
• Marie shares a crucial strategy on how teachers can care for themselves first, so they have the capacity to better support their students.
• + a whole range of other valuable bits and bobs!

Where to go to get further support from Marie:

Website: www.gentlesguidance.com

Course: gentlesguidance.thinkific.com

Book: Gentle Guidance - How to Understand, Inspire and

Empower you Kids

TV Documentaries: BBC iPlayer: Helping our Teens, Don’t Exclude Me.

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

Do you ever give instructions for a task to a class full of students, only to have a bunch of hands go up or confused faces looking back at you? Maybe you have low level behaviours buzzing and a disengaged hum the moment you send them off to do their task? Teachers, the answer to tackling these things could be in your clarity of instruction.

This episode is designed to arm you with practical strategies to enhance clarity of instruction and student engagement. I delve into the complexities and challenges of teaching in a room filled with 30 different humans with diverse needs and learning styles and uncover strategies to overcome hurdles that can impact a student’s ability to follow instructions. From demonstrating tasks to scaffolding, using real-life examples, encouraging questions, and reflecting on our practice, this episode has you covered.

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

In this episode, I delve into the pivotal role of felt safety in classrooms. You'll learn how to craft a climate of felt safety that hushes unpredictability and amplifies familiarity, helping students to stay calm and regulated, ultimately reducing and mitigating disruptive behaviors.

One game changer when it comes to increasing this consistency, is the humble seating plan. 
 
It's more than just curbing low-level disturbances; it's about offering students a consistent, predictable space that silently communicates expectations. 

Listen along as I give you a step by step walk through of why seating plans are so beneficial, and why increasing the predictability and consistency in your classroom is golden for a calm teaching and learning environment.

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

This week's "pillar" episode of The Unteachables Podcast explains the concepts at the core of my approach to classroom management; coregulation, regulation and dysregulation. 

I uncover how our survival instincts contribute to our emotional landscape and the implications it holds for teaching, and set the stage for future episodes where I delve into actionable classroom management underpinned by the need for co-regulation. 

Listen in as I discuss the role of the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex, the crucial relationship they have, and how this is established. As well as answering the question, "why are some individuals able to better coregulate than others?" as I explore the influence of early childhood experiences, attachment, temperament, and traumatic events on our ability to manage emotions.

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, this episode I speak through the 5 mantras I use in my everyday practice to stay calm, stay connected, and ultimately, protect my peace!

I made this a quickie so you could return to this whenever you needed it as a bit of a pick me up. 

Write them down, pop them up on your wall, in your planner, on your desk, share with a teacher friend! Just have them in the forefront of your mind as you enter the school year (or the week) ahead.

Claire x

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

In this episode I speak to the incredible Robyn Gobbel, and when I say you’ll want to listen to this, you should really trust me on this one.

Robyn is a former therapist turned author, podcaster, educator, and community creator, supporting the grown-ups who care for kids with vulnerable nervous systems and big, baffling behaviors. Her work has been with children with histories of complex trauma, through which she takes a relational neuroscience approach to understanding what behaviour REALLY is. 

She draws from interpersonal neurobiology, attachment theory, the neurosequential model of therapeutics, polyvagal theory (and more).

We dive deep into two concepts that will flip the way that you see the big baffling behaviours in your classroom, as well as revealing some really fundamental problems with how we are able to work with our students with trauma: Connection or protection, and the owl, possum, and watch dog pathways of the brain.

Oh, and teachers, want some help in working with challenging parents? Robyn helps you with that too. She really is that good.

This episode is full of information that every human being needs to bring more compassion to yourself, and to others in the world. 

If you want to see more of Robyn and her work (which is a big hell yes from me), you can do so by following her over on Instagram @robin.gobbel or heading to the links below:

Host- The Baffling Behavior Show podcast

Creator- Being With {an immersion course for parenting professionals}

Creator- The Club {a virtual community for parents of kids with big, baffling behaviors}

Author- Raising Kids with Big Baffling Behaviors: Brain-Body-Sensory Strategies that Really Work (forthcoming September 21, 2023}

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

Today, we're diving deep into a common saying in the behavior management world: "Behavior is communication." But let's be honest, it's so broad that it often leaves us wondering, "What are they really trying to tell us?" Well, in this episode, I've got you covered!

In this episode I will be:

• Unraveling the true meaning behind "Behavior is communication" and how it relates to our students' unmet needs.
• Understanding the concept of Choice Theory and how our students' choices are influenced by five fundamental needs.
• How challenging student behaviour is a result of them trying to meet their unmet needs (and how to use this to help us proactively classroom manage)

Grab a cuppa and tune in!

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

Once a mentor said something to me that changed the way I viewed teaching:

We teach students, not subjects.

I am an English teacher. I love English. I wanted students to love English as much as I did, to enjoy it, to be inspired by the concepts, to read a book and discuss it as a class and be thinking wow I was just transported into a dystopian land and I can see connections between that and out current society and wow mind blown!!!

Now? This is the furthest thing from my job.

Teaching doesn't mean to stand there and teach our subject. With the existence of the internet, every bit of information we could possibly need is accessible with a simple google search. As such, teaching has changed. 

Once I came to this realization, I stopped getting so precious about my subject, and I started thinking about how English was a ‘way in’, a ‘doorway’ to these children engaging with their education, to feel successful, to learn how to think critically, to problem solve, to be creative and to find enjoyment.

In today's (very short and sharp) episode of The Unteachables Podcast, I take you through a bit of a mindset shift, and dig into why this means it's even MORE crucial for teacher training to change with the times.

Join me this episode for a mindset shift, and if you want to come and have a chat about it, don't be shy. Send me an email [email protected] or message me on Instagram @the.unteachables

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

I am sure I don't need to tell you this, but as a teacher, there is SO MUCH TO FREAKING DO! This is why some of the BIG questions I get asked from teachers, particularly newer teachers, is about things like prioritising, time management,  and how we can do allllll the things that are required of us.

The answer is simple.... We can't.

At least, we can't do everything well and still have a bit of balance.

As an experienced teacher and now a senior leader I absolutely don’t do it all - I set boundaries for myself, I do the work that’s important, I accept not everything can and will be high quality, but what matters will be done right. 

However it has taken years and years to learn how to ‘be’ as a teacher/leader in a way that works for me and protects my peace. It has taken a lot of boundary setting, letting go of things that don’t matter, learning how to prioritise and letting go of the idea of perfect. And FYI: It also took working around the clock and then burning out in my 6th year of teaching and never wanting to go back. 

In this episode of The Unteachables Podcast, I give you a reframe around workload, time management, and how to master the art of dropping the balls that really don't matter all that much.

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