Summary
Got a class that just won’t stop talking? The kind where the chatter keeps creeping back in, no matter how many times you settle them? We feel your pain!
In this episode, we explain why the problem isn’t talk itself, but unstructured talk - and how to turn your class’ social energy and exuberance into focus, rather than frustration.
You’ll discover the T3 Method: a simple way of structuring your lesson, so pupils get the connection and verbal processing time they need, while keeping your lesson productive and the learning moving forward. You’ll also learn how to teach talk routines and support pupils who rely on social interaction to stay regulated.
So if you’re tired of battling chatty classes, this is your blueprint for working with your students’ energy instead of against it.
Important links:
Get our FREE SEND Behaviour Handbook: https://beaconschoolsupport.co.uk/send-handbook
Download other FREE behaviour resources for use in school: https://beaconschoolsupport.co.uk/resources
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Show notes / transcription
Simon Currigan
Are you working with a class that just won't stop talking and it's unproductive, off-task chatter that slows the pace of your lesson? So teaching feels like wading through treacle? I get it and it's frustrating.
I feel your pain. I've been there. My name's Simon Currigan and in over 18 years I've helped hundreds of schools improve SEMH and behaviour and today I'm going to give you my T3 for managing and directing the energy of exuberant classes so pupils stay engaged and lessons move forward without crushing your students' natural enthusiasm. Hi there my name is Simon Currigan and welcome to School Behaviour Secrets and I'm the kind of man who wonders where all the Sunday people go on a Tuesday. I'm not even going to explain what that means if you know you know. Now today we're tackling a really common classroom issue the talkative class the group where the talking just never ends. You get them quiet and then the chatter creeps back in.
You pause to make a dramatic point, they pause and then the whispering returns before you've even turned round. You tell them I'll just wait until you're ready and it's your time you're wasting and then 20 minutes later you realise it was your time being wasted after all. It's exhausting, it's boring and the thing is if we don't manage talk well with these classes it can derail our lesson. It pushes up everyone's stress and leaves everyone everyone feeling drained and annoyed. But here's the key idea for today's podcast. The problem isn't the talk itself. The problem is unstructured talk.
And when we learn how to structure that talk, focus it in a positive direction, we stop fighting our class and start harnessing the energy that's already there. So we're working with that energy rather than against it. And that's what my T3 framework is all about. Before we jump in, if you haven't already, remember to subscribe to the School Behaviour Secrets podcast in your app so you never miss another episode. And while you're doing that, if you could leave a quick rating or review within your podcast app, that really helps us reach other teachers and school leaders who need this kind of support. Okay, real talk, honesty time from your Uncle Simon who's been there and made all of the mistakes already. When we hear that a class is talkative, there's often an underlying judgement that goes with that, that something about the class is wrong, that they're disrespectful or deliberately ignoring boundaries or being deliberately difficult for us.
In our heads it's easy to jump to saying that talkativeness that it represents kind of like an identity flaw. And what's worse is we then paint every child in that same class with the same brush. We say they all talk too much, no one's focused on their work and we start to stereotype them. But in reality, talking is rarely about disrespect. Talking is usually about need and most often it's not every child in the room. So how we frame that talking, those behaviours we're seeing in class, in our minds, as the teacher is super important. So here are some kind of examples and counter examples of the things we might think.
Some classes are talkative actually because the kids in them have strong relationships with each other. Well, those strong relationships are a resource that we can use and direct. Some kids process information verbally. For them, talking is thinking. And that is a learning style that we can use and direct, not just fight. Some kids regulate their emotions through social talking and connection with others. For them, that's a coping strategy and that's something we can work with and refine.
And actually, if we take that away from them, then we see more explosive emotions in the classroom. Sometimes we've just set up a classroom environment where kids actually feel safe enough to speak. So that's a partial success, but we need, of course, to course correct. So the room is both safe but also a productive learning environment. Or it might just be this bunch of children are super excited and really engaged and then that spills over into too much excitable chatter. Not enough work. Well, okay, well they're motivated.
Let's work with that motivation. So talking can actually indicate something positive in the group culture. Connection and safety and enthusiasm. And we need to be careful as teachers not to squash that because when students when we're working against their energy, then learning actually gets harder, not easier, and our teaching actually gets harder and not easier. So let's compare that mindset, which is kind of like a positive needs-led one, to the myth of the silent classroom. And that myth is a silent classroom is a good classroom, a productive classroom where lots of work is getting done. But I can tell you, after observing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of lessons in hundreds of classrooms, sometimes that silence just actually reflects disengagement.
As in the student is saying to themselves, I'm not interested or engaged in this work. I'm just showing up to this lesson and I'm going to do the minimum possible work while keeping my head down and hoping that no one notices. I've seen it represent confusion with the work, but the child's afraid to ask for help. So they just kind of sit there pretending to work. Some kids might be silent because they're masking an anxiety or learning difficulty or they're overloaded and they're just kind of shutting down. If pupils are quiet because they're anxious or overwhelmed or disengaged or lost, that silence isn't productive. It's counterproductive.
And let's face facts, right- as an adult in the real world, where are you expected in the workplace to work in total silence? Prisons and libraries. And that's it. Most adults work together on projects in teams and they can still learn skills as they do that. Adult talk represents processing, collaboration, learning in motion. We expect to see that and we don't judge it. And kids are humans too.
So the aim isn't always silence. The aim is productive sound, noise with purpose, not noise without direction. Now, I'm not saying there's never a time to work in silence. Spelling tests, exams, sometimes you do need quiet, focused individual work. And you're probably thinking as you're listening to this, are there exceptions to that rule right now as well? Silence does have its place when we're intentional with it. But if we're using silence as the default for a class whose needs don't match that then we're setting both them and ourselves up for a daily battle which no one wins.
And we have to ask then why are we as the adult day after day trying to push this square shaped class through this silent circle shaped hole? No one wins. But obviously there are pros and cons to chatty classes. The strengths are strong peer connections, a willingness to contribute verbally, sometimes overly willing, but I'll leave that there for a moment. And they're obviously motivated to interact and engage in social learning. Those are all assets, but there are challenges too. And I'm not viewing these classes through rose tinted glasses.
You've got to be realistic. Too much chat robs your lesson of pace. You end up repeating instructions and information over and over and over. You might feel like the control of the room is slipping away from you. And for some kids with sensory needs or language processing needs, you might see them becoming overwhelmed or stressed. So what we need is not necessarily less talk, it's more structured talk. And here's the thing to think about for these classes, and by that, I don't mean all classes.
For these classes, talking helps these pupils regulate, to connect, to think and feel safe. When we remove that, it's a bit like turning off the oxygen in the room for them. It feels wrong. It feels stifling. And they start to push back. They start quietly talking secretly, covertly whispering like no one can hear it. And then each time you bring them back to silence, what you find is after a short while, the noise level in the room starts to bounce back up again anyway.
So the truth is battling the talkative nature of these classes ends up fueling frustration and it still results in more chatter anyway, Groundhog Day. So instead of trying to stop talk, what we need to do is think about designing our lessons to implement talk on purpose in a planned way, predictably and in a way that's signposted so that the kids know that those talk times are coming.
And that's where my T3 method comes in. And no, it's nothing to do with a gadget magazine. In this context, T3 stands for Task, Talk, Task. It's a simple cycle that gives pupils a period of focused, quiet work. Then they get a planned kind of outlet for their interaction for feedback and for verbal processing and that social connection. And then a return to independent focused quieter work. This matches how attention naturally works.
So think of it like this, right? That quiet focused work builds up pressure in the classroom. You can feel it with these classes. So then we give them a short directed period of talk that releases that pressure a bit like a safety valve. And that structured talk - not you've worked hard for 10 minutes, let's just have a chat for a moment. So the class get the time to talk that they need to get that talk out of their system before we then refocus them back to another task. For these classes, keeping them focused for long periods without those release times, it ends up with them just not sustaining their focus in the real world.
Their focus just collapses and then you're going to get off task talk anyway. So instead of fighting it, what we do is we schedule that talk. When pupils know that the opportunity to discuss their work is coming, they can then regulate their need for social interaction. They know that they're not going to have to hold in that need to chat forever and they can see the finish line. And that's powerful. So here's a step by step on how to implement my T3 approach. Firstly, we've got to actively teach talk routines to the kids.
Do not assume that your students know what productive talk looks like, whatever their age, primary or secondary. We need to actively teach what a reasonable volume level sounds like for this class. So you might want to use like a one to four scale or a noisometer with an arrow on it that you move up and down on a display. We need to teach them how to listen to others, how to take turns speaking, how to hold the floor and then hand back the floor to someone else. So talk is fair. We need to make it clear what these actions actually look and sound like. We need to tell them the exact words and actions people say and do.
And then you also want to cover your classroom routines for ending talk clearly when do the adult signal that talk time is over and we're going to come back together as a group and we're going to settle to a focused task. And when I say teach it, don't just talk about it, model it, practise it, rehearse it, reinforce it, coach it, then reinforce it again. And then when we're developing those skills and the children are making progress with them, we need to expect it. We need to expect them to follow those routines. So remind them of the expectations at the start of every single lesson. Don't assume they've remembered anything. Explain the expectations, then reinforce them.
Then you chunk your lesson into T3 rounds. They get task time, they get talk time, they get task time. So a T3 cycle might look like five to eight minutes working on an independent task quietly, three minutes of a mini plenary, where the students share their work or you ask them questions or they do some talk pair work. This is focused directed time and from your end it should have a clear objective and support your lesson structure and your lesson objectives. Yes, those three or four minutes are more relaxed. Yes, it's a release valve, but that time should still be purposeful and structured. Then it's back to the task for more focused time.
This rhythm helps prevent overload and actually regulates the people's need for social interaction. A couple of other things to bear in mind using the T3 method, you need to use predictable signals for bringing the kids together. So some schools use a hands up signal. Some use signals like a call and response or musical instruments to say, bring your attention back to the centre of the room for whole class time. All that matters is what works with the children in your school and your class. I've never met your kids, so I'm not going to tell you what that signal should be. You are the expert in the students that you teach.
Do what works. Next, be strategic with your seating plan. Your job is to prevent chain reactions of off-task chatter, not separate kids like rival mafia families. Montague's on this side of the room, Capulet's over there. So just to be clear, right, we're not exiling anyone.
We're managing pupil energy. We're putting pupils together where their energy is going to be managed. So pair talkative students or ones who need to, you know, talk through ideas and concepts along with calmer, lower energy peers. This keeps the energy in the conversation lower, more productive instead of like two talkative students whipping each other up into a frenzy. And for kids who get overwhelmed and struggle with talk time, offer them a quiet area, not as a punishment, but as a way to refresh and reset in a supportive way, an area where they can regulate. And finally, obviously consider your students with SEND needs. When I think about the pain framework we discussed in previous episodes, so pain stands for the primary areas of internal need.
We're talking here mostly about physical needs. So that's the sensory element of talk, but also the social and pro-social needs depending on the task. If you want a summary of that or an explanation of how the pain framework works, head back to episode 246, where I introduced the pain framework in detail. It's a super useful, super simple way of understanding your pupils SEMH needs and putting in place adaptations for them. So in terms of steps forward with your class, here's your your way forward. Step one, think about why additional talk is happening in your classroom. What's actually driving it?
Two, think about your lesson. Is the format of the task that you're giving them actually responding to their needs as a group? Is there a need for silence in this task or could the learning continue in a slightly more social way? Three, start implementing the T3 method to respond to their need for regulating their social interactions but in a way that's focused and is productive. Task, Talk, Task. The problem isn't talking, the problem is unstructured off-task talking. When you plan the talk using the T3 method you make learning smoother, calmer and more engaging for everyone and the talking stops being the problem and starts being something to exploit to create greater engagement in learning and actually improves learning outcomes in your classroom.
And that's what I've got for you today. If today's episode is helping you think differently about behaviour or your pupils SEMH needs, then you are going to want to download our free SEND behaviour handbook. It helps you link classroom behaviours to possible underlying needs and gives you practical strategies you can use in your classroom to support children with those needs today.
Just go to beaconschoolsupport.co.uk/SEND-handbook. That's beaconschoolsupport.co.uk/SEND-handbook to get your copy or click on the link in the episode description in your podcast app. And obviously if you found this podcast useful, don't forget to share School Behaviour Secrets with two friends or colleagues who'd find it useful or even with all your staff in school so you can start to develop a standardised whole school way of supporting chatty classes where you work. And finally, make sure that you hit that subscribe button or the follow button in your podcast app so you never miss another episode. Thanks for listening and I hope you picked up some useful strategies for managing chatty classes and maybe change the way you think about teaching those classes.
My name's Simon Currigan. It's a Wednesday as I record this so I'm off out to find out where all those Sunday people have gone.
You know what I mean? Have a brilliant week and I can't wait to see you on the next episode of School Behaviour Secrets.
(This automated transcript may not be 100% accurate.)
