1. Know your students - As they enter the room greet the students and touch base with them about something you know they have been doing; find out about their interests; learn the names of their friends; comment on things you have heard they have succeeded in outside your classroom. I begin each lesson in a circle (easy when you teach drama!) and finish each lesson in circle. This gives me the opportunity to make eye-contact with all my students, smile at each and everyone of them and check in and out with them as they come to and from the space.

2. Practice gratitude daily - There are many ways you can bring gratitude to your classroom. (Check out The Up Jar for one awesome way.) Make gratitude a daily practice. Give students an opportunity to thank each other for their contributions in the lesson and make sure you thank them too. Reflect on your lesson by making a gratitude list (either in your chronicle or just in your head). Eg. Today I was grateful that John asked Alice to work with him. Today I was grateful that the technology worked! Today I was grateful the Katrina actually made it to class for the first time this week. Today I was grateful for the effort Lauren applied when completing her written work. You will start seeing your students in a new light. 

3. Use music as a way to set the tone of your classroom - If you walk past my classroom you will often hear music seeping through the door. If I want my students to be energetic and full of life for the lesson I will play upbeat music as they enter the classroom. If I want my students to be calm and focussed, the music they hear as they enter let’s them know this. Classical music signals that they need to write quietly, mellow music is used to accompany serious group discussion. I have music for all moods, all occasions and all classes on my computer waiting to be played whenever I need it. I also get students to make music suggestions (things they like or listen to), which forces me to expand my library and gives me another way to connect with them. Of course there is time for silence and listening too. My all time favourite thing to do though is have a dance break. Yes, a dance break. When my students have been working really hard, have hit a creative wall or need to a moment to reconnect with each other we dance…. dance = joy. 

4. Create a space that brings out their happy - Make the environment a space they like coming to and don’t want to leave. Decorate with bright colours, inspiration and your students work, A space that brings out happiness, celebrates creativity and oozes life will help your students feel happy, be creative and ready themselves for learning. Where would you rather be - a brown brick classroom with desks in rows and a whiteboard up the front or a colourful, collaborative space that celebrates learning and creativity? Primary teachers are great at this, but secondary teachers generally need to step it up!

5. Build in student choice - When students have a choice about how they learn, what they learn about and who they learn it with, then I find they a much happier. Yes we are governed by curriculum, but there are ways to creatively differentiate tasks and build in student choice. Check out the Learning Matrix for some starting ideas. It also forces students to take responsibility for their own learning and establish self-directed practices that will assist them long-term. 

If you would like to contribute 5 ways that you bring joy into your classroom I would love to hear from you. Please email me or comment below. 

This is what Austin reminded me as a teacher:

1. Ok is not good enough - Always expect the best from your students. If your expectations are high yet realistic and they know you believe in them, they will do everything in their power to reach those standards. So believe they can achieve butterfly six and never settle for butterfly one unless you know it is the very best they can do.

2. Provide meaningful, ongoing feedback - For some students, providing meaningful, ongoing feedback is easy. They want to know how they are going and they seek help along the way. However, I was concerned for the students that wouldn’t show me their work prior to the due date. Usually this was either due to disorganisation or perfectionism. I have had students say “I don’t want to show it to you until I have it perfect.” My question back to them is how do they get it perfect if they are not consciously striving to find ways improve their work? The solution is to build a culture of constructive feedback into your class and insist that students share their work openly no matter what stage they are at. In all my assessments I have now built in progress dates where they must show me their work at different stages so that I can provide them with explicit, ongoing and meaningful feedback well in advance of the final due date. 

3. The importance of a daily ‘I like…’ / ‘I wonder…’ practice - In order to acclimatise my students to a classroom environment where a culture of constructive feedback was thriving, I now have a sharing session at the conclusion of the majority of my lessons. During this session students share the work they have completed that day. The remainder of the class provide them kind and specific feedback using the phrases ‘I like…’ and ‘I wonder…’. Sometimes we do this as a whole class discussion; sometimes we give 1:1 verbal feedback; sometimes we provide the feedback via post-it notes that the students can refer back to later; sometimes we use gallery walks. The result is a non-competitive class open to sharing and receiving constructive criticism. By practicing ‘I like..’ and ‘I wonder..’ daily, students are more open to meaningful, ongoing feedback from me as a teacher even when the stakes are high. 

4. Aim for a personal best - Not all students are going to be able to achieve butterfly six no matter how many drafts they complete. Some students will achieve butterfly six on their second attempt. This is why we must continue to differentiate in our classes and focus on the students personal best rather then the grade at the end. If a student has taken all their constructive criticism and attempted to apply it, but only reaches butterfly three then we as teachers need to look at ways to scaffold tasks for them, revise concepts or actively guide them in their next project so that hopefully they can reach a butterfly four next time. Similarly, if a student achieves a butterfly six on the first attempt then we need to raise the bar and have them aiming for something beyond a butterfly six. We must differentiate and we must make their personal best our overall goal. 

Further to these four points I conducted an experiment last week. I showed Austin’s butterfly to my daughter in Year 1 and a student I teach in Year 12. My daughter was drawing butterflies last Sunday (as little girls do) and I invited her to watch the story about Austin and his butterfly. She was engaged the entire time. When the video was over she asked me to put Austin’s butterfly on the screen, grabbed a pencil and some paper and began drafting, seeking feedback and redrafting. She didn’t get it in six attempts (to be honest she went through a whole ream of paper), but she understood the concept and began to understand the need to receive feedback in order to improve her work.

Our school operates under a vertical tutor group system. This means that each morning I get to spend a short period of time with a wonderful group of girls from year 7 through to year 12. I am meant to mentor them through their schooling years and provide them with pastoral and academic care. I view this as a privilege and an honour and I want to ensure that my students flourish under my care and guidance. However, this can be challenging when I only see them for 20 minutes, 4 times a week.

At the start of this year I asked my students what they wanted to use their tutor group time for, the answers were varied, but one struck a deep chord with me. A quiet year 12 student said, "I would love to have more meaningful conversations... deeper conversations... about the world and stuff." Yes, the world and stuff.... deep huh? Then I realised, when do we ever give the students a chance just to reflect on their week, their day, their lives, the world? When do the just sit together and listen to each other without the pressure of completing work or being graded? So, I decided to do something about it.

This term we have embarked on The Tuesday Project. On a Tuesday the girls come into tutor group, sit in a circle and ready themselves to listen. I have a jar which holds a number of conversation starters. I draw one out of the jar and we begin. The results have been amazing. This week one student, who appears to be confident and self-assured, shared that she is lonely in her classes. The other students in the group gave her strategies to try and alleviate her loneliness and also discussed how they could help others that might be in lonely in their classes.  Last week, the question was 'What do you love about yourself?' and two of the students in my group couldn't answer. The other students responded by listing what they loved about these two girls.  Meanwhile, another question led one student to concede she wanted to be a lobster farmer when she left school!

I believe that deeper conversations in the classroom can lead to more self-awareness, care for others, resilience, the development of active listening skills and a more mindful and nurturing school environment.

This term I am sourcing my conversation starters from Momastery's Key Jar as a starting point. Next term I am going to ask the students to write two of their own questions to place in our jar. I am excited about this project and the deeper conversations we are yet to have.

Playbuilding can be the perfect opportunity for students to share their stories. Mark Twain wrote, "Write what you know" ... but let's be honest, Mark Twain clearly did not teach teenagers! How do students write 'what they know' without presenting mere teenage angst? This was the challenge I was faced with last year. I wanted students to create beautiful pieces of theatre that shared their stories without the angst.

As a result I created these prompts for playbuilding. I set up various stations in the drama space, chose some reflective music and invited my students to respond either privately (in their logbooks) or publicly on post-it notes, butcher's paper or the iPad. The result was a beautiful collage of thoughts to stimulate the playbuilding process.

This character wall is my favourite feature of my physical classroom. Some of the pictures on this wall have been with me for over 10 years now and I feel I am still learning about the people in the photographs. You see, my character wall is a source of inspiration for in-depth characters, playbuilding, compositions and creative writing in my class. Over the years I have seen these images come to life and each time I am able to glimpse briefly into the world in which they live. Occasionally I add different photos to the mix and it surprises me how quickly the kids notice our new visitors.


The photos consist of people of various age, gender, socio-economic status and cultures. You can do it the old school way (cut and laminate) or make a board on Pinterest for the digital classroom. Students love it as it pushes them to think outside teenage stereotypes and assists them in conceiving complex characters. Character wallshave a place in the English classroom, the Geography classroom (an opportunity to write about different cultures), the History or Science classroom (think anthropology) or even a primary school setting.


So get snipping or pinning!