Summary
Teachers are often told they need to be “more assertive" in the classroom.
But what does that actually mean when behaviour starts to wobble, pressure rises, and everyone’s watching?
In this episode of School Behaviour Secrets, you’ll learn what assertiveness really looks like in practice - and why it isn’t about being louder, stricter, or more dominant. Instead, it’s about clarity, calm and making better decisions before you even open your mouth.
You’ll explore why many behaviour confrontations escalate because adults are focused on “winning" the moment, and how redefining what success looks like can lead to calmer classrooms and fewer repeat issues over time.
The episode breaks assertiveness down into clear, practical strategies you can use straight away, including how to steady your body language, adjust your voice, give instructions that don’t invite debate, and choose the right moment to follow things up.
If you work in a classroom and want behaviour to improve without damaging relationships, escalating situations, or feeling emotionally drained, this episode will give you a simple, usable framework to take into your next lesson.
Important links:
Download your FREE copy of the Classroom Management scoresheet.
Download other FREE behaviour resources for use in school: https://beaconschoolsupport.co.uk/resources
Share this podcast with your friends:
Show notes / transcription
Simon Currigan
When low-level behaviour becomes a problem in a lesson, do you ever notice how quickly things can slide from being calm to confrontational with a student? Not because you don't know what to do, but because in that moment you're under pressure to win the interaction in front of the other 30 kids. We've all been there, and that's why in this episode I'm going to show you a practical way to look and sound more assertive in the classroom without having to raise your voice, without damaging relationships, or without feeling like you have to become someone you're not.
My name's Simon Currigan, and for almost 20 years I've worked alongside teachers and school leaders in real classrooms helping them manage behaviour under pressure. Not with theory that sounds good in training rooms, but with strategies that actually work when things get messy. And by the end of the episode, you're going to walk away with a clear, repeatable plan you can use in the moment: how to get learning back on track, how to select your body language and tone, and how to give instructions in a way that increases the chances that your pupils will listen the very first time. So if you want calmer classrooms for your power struggles and behaviour that improves in the long term, not just in the next 30 seconds, this episode's for you.
Hi there, welcome to School Behaviour Secrets. My name's Simon Currigan, and I've been thinking this week: teenagers now are drinking less than teenagers back in the '90s. They're having less sex, they're doing less drugs, and what do the figures tell us? That they're unhappier and more depressed than ever. Which surely makes the solution obvious in terms of what we as adults should be encouraging. Or am I underthinking that? And before you email me or DM me to tell me that I am, please make sure you look up the word "irony" in the dictionary. It is there still. Just anyway, that's got nothing to do with today's show because we're going to look at assertiveness. What it is, how to be assertive, why it still matters. Because even in a world where we all care about digging into the underlying why behind student behaviour, if you want to improve how calm and productive your classroom is, learning how to be assertive is still one of the places where you'll get the biggest return for your buck in terms of time and skill.
But before I get into that, if you're enjoying this podcast and you want to help it grow, the quickest and easiest way of doing that is to subscribe or follow it in your podcast app and share it with a colleague or a friend who'd find it useful. Some leaders I know use clips from the show as part of their staff meetings to promote debate or as part of mini training sessions. So feel completely free to do that. I want this information to get out there and help as many teachers and school leaders and parents because they're important too, as possible.
And if you want something practical to take what I'm about to talk about in this episode a step further, I've put together what I call the Classroom Management Scoresheet that's completely free that you can use to reflect on what's really happening in your classroom. If things aren't quite working, it helps you step back and look at things like clarity of expectations, consistency, emotional tone, and follow-up. So you can spot what's supporting calm and focus in your classroom right now and where some small tweaks might have the biggest impact. It's not an inspection tool. It's not about trying to attain perfection in the classroom. It's about giving you a clearer picture of what's working and what to prioritise. Just head to the link in the show notes or visit beaconschoolsupport.co.uk/resources. That's beaconschoolsupport.co.uk/resources. Download the scoresheet, fill it in, and use that as a starting point for reflection in your own classroom. Or maybe it's the basis of discussion with a colleague about what's happening in their classroom if you're a school leader. It's completely free. It's practical. It's already helped thousands of teachers make sense of what's happening with the students in their classrooms when behaviour isn't quite working.
Okay, enough of all of that. Let's dig into assertiveness, which is why you're here. One of the most unhelpful bits of advice teachers get about behaviour if they're working with a tricky class or a student that pushes the boundaries is this: just be more assertive. But on its own, that advice is basically meaningless. It sounds sensible, it sounds professional, but if no one ever explains exactly what assertive practice actually looks like, it doesn't help you when you're standing in front of 30 kids at 9:00 in the morning, one student's talking over you, maybe another's telling you that they're not interested in the work and they don't have to listen to what you say. And you can feel the calm in the room starting to fray, and you've got 30 pairs of eyes looking at you, waiting to see what you're going to do next.
So today I'm going to get very practical and tactical. I'm going to talk you through a clear, usable way of thinking about assertiveness in the classroom. Not as a personality trait that you're born with or not born with, and not as a volume setting as in loud equals assertive, but as a set of decisions that you make before you even open your mouth to make it more likely that your students will listen to and follow your instructions.
And I want to say that this episode is about making you the best possible you in the classroom. I'm not going to try and force you into a certain way of speaking that makes you sound inauthentic or like someone else, or that you feel that you have to emulate me. It's about adapting how you look and you sound when the pressure increases in the classroom so that you have the maximum impact while still staying true to yourself. This stuff sometimes sounds old school and as if it isn't trauma-informed, but these techniques do bring about calm and focus. They reduce chosen boundary-pushing behaviour, and it actually creates the conditions for success in the classroom for a trauma-informed approach. Because needs-led strategies can't work in an environment that's unsettled or unfocused because it dysregulates your students. So these techniques actually create the conditions for a successful trauma-informed approach in the classroom.
I'm going to give you a handful of simple keys and strategies that you can use to look and sound more assertive without escalating situations, without damaging relationships, or feeling like you have to become someone you're not. So let's take a situation that's running out of control. Let's say we've got a student talking back. They're escalating. Their behaviour isn't really about an underlying need. It's low-level. The first thing that you need to do in your head when you're handling a situation like that is to decide, in this situation, what does "winning" in inverted commas look like? In classrooms, winning often gets defined as succeeding in this moment right now in the short term. So that might be the pupil stops talking, you look in control, no one else challenges you, and you look like, again, you've won in front of the other students. And we've got "won" there in inverted commas because I don't really believe in behaviour management there's such a thing as wins and losses.
But the problem with thinking like that is, and I've personally been caught in this trap, so I'm speaking from the trenches and from painful experience, is that it encourages you to approach every problem by talking louder, by talking more, by shutting down arguments publicly all the time, becoming ever stricter. And sometimes that works in the moment, but it stores up problems for later. Because in that moment, with that approach, a successful outcome looks like how do I squash any behaviour in the room? How do I win in a zero-sum game where I win you lose in a way that makes me look powerful and puts the student in their place? And that all kind of reinforces in your head messages like, "I don't want to look weak in front of the kids. I need to shut down arguments now before they grow." Or, "I can't let the student get away with this." Or, "Everyone's watching me, so I have to save face and win." Now, those are all understandable human reactions under pressure, but they're not necessarily positive or constructive definitions of what a win looks like in the long term.
We need a better definition of what a positive outcome looks like. We need to visualise this in our heads before we start to respond. So instead of setting up a I-win-you-lose confrontation, it can be better to frame the outcome you're after more neutrally. So visualise the outcome like this: I want this behaviour to stop so learning can continue in the classroom. I want to avoid escalating this pupil because right now, rightly or wrongly, they don't know how to stop. I want to deal with this privately rather than publicly to keep the classroom calm and maintain my relationship with the students. I want fewer repeats of this tomorrow rather than just steam rolling conformity today. And here's the key point: sometimes the right outcome does not make you look like the victor in front of the class in the moment, and the outcome is subtler than that. It could be about redirection and removing focus on the incident that gives you a bigger win over time. Because assertive adults are willing to trade a short-term appearance of control for long-term consistency and trust.
Once your objective is clear after choosing what a win looks like in a neutral way, what do you actually do and say next? Well, the second key is to be still before you start talking because assertiveness starts in the body, not in the mouth. When adults feel under pressure, they move more. They pace. They lean in. They gesture. They talk while walking or pacing across the room. But that movement, what it does is it adds emotional intensity, and that can look frantic. But stillness, that communicates confidence and control. And when behaviour starts to unravel in the classroom, this is what all the other students are looking for. They want the adult to look and sound confident and competent, like they've been there before and they know what to do, so they can feel emotionally safe. That means before you speak, stop moving around. Plant your feet about a shoulder's width apart. Face the pupil you're talking to, and then pause just for a second or two. And that pause does two things. It gives you a moment to bring that objective to mind about where you're trying to get this situation to safely, and it signals to all the other pupils that what comes next matters. That stillness projects a calm authority. It doesn't project panic. You're showing the kids you're not on the back foot, you're not threatened, you are not reacting emotionally. You are choosing deliberately what comes next, and that sets you up for success.
The third key is to cut down on the words that you use and then deliver your speech more slowly and in a slightly lower tone. Not talking like you are in slow motion or moving your voice right down here, but we're looking for a slightly more measured pace in a slightly lower serious tone, just like I did there. Think about how newsreaders present the news. They use a lower register because they want you to know what they're saying is serious, and it's the same here. So slower slightly and lower slightly. And fast speech, it sounds like panic and anxiety, not like authority. When adults speed up, they often start overexplaining and giving loads of justification, and then they start negotiating accidentally. Assertive language cuts back on all that. It's all about using short sentences, clear expectations, a calm, steady pace, a slightly lower tone than your everyday voice. So formulate the words of what you're going to say in the shortest possible phrasing while still being polite. And here's the thing a lot of people miss about volume. Adults in class shout when they feel the situation is slipping out of their control. I've been there too. I used to do loads of shouting at the start of my career. But confident people don't shout. They don't need to. Yes, you'll probably speak at a slightly higher volume when you're being assertive, but not by that much. So you don't need to sound angry. You don't need to sound stern. You need to sound certain and positive and sure as if you have a conviction that the person listening will follow your instruction, even if you don't feel like that on the inside. But having that clear objective in your head will help you find the right form of words to reach that objective and the right way of saying them rather than making things up as you go along, and then you tend to be in a panic and stumble over your words.
Now, the one thing you will notice in this podcast, or if you've ever seen me on video, you might be thinking, "That guy speeds up and talks quickly all the time." But in those situations, I'm deliberately choosing that pace because I want to inject excitement into my voice. On a podcast or on a video explaining, I don't know, sensory needs, I want to create this wave of excitement that pulls in the audience. But that's very intentional based on the context that I'm in. In the context of a pupil pushing boundaries or the class needing settling, I'd make a very different choice about how I sounded. We as teachers are like actors. We need to choose the register and pitch and volume and pace of our voices, varying that based on where we are. Like an actor would change them based on where he was in the script or what scene they were in. We should leave none of this to chance. We need to be really intentional because it makes a huge difference to how our instructions and our messages are received.
The fourth key is giving instructions rather than asking questions. And this is a small shift that actually makes a big difference. Questions invite responses and choices, whereas instructions communicate expectations. So in concrete terms, here's the difference. Imagine a child keeps shouting out and interrupting a discussion during whole class time. Now, you could ask a question like, "Can you stop shouting out, please?" But that would invite any manner of answers like yes, no, I don't want to. The conversation can from that point literally go anywhere, and it puts a lot of power in the conversation in the hands of the person answering.
But when you give an instruction like, "It's time to stop shouting, thank you," that doesn't open up the conversation for a response. It closes the conversation down, and it makes the expectation clear. So here's another example. "Can you sit down, please?" is a question. It almost sounds like begging, actually. Compare that to "Sit in your chair, thank you."
Now, that's an instruction. Same intention, but with very different phrasing and outcomes. One invites a debate. The other closes it down. If the behaviour isn't optional, then our language shouldn't suggest that it is. And again, context matters. When I'm saying we want to close down a debate, this is about situations where we're managing low-level behaviour or off-task argumentative behaviour.
The aim at this point isn't to have a philosophical debate about why the expectations are in place and whether they're valid or not. The aim in that moment is to get everyone focused and the learning back on track. And other times, by all means, ask open questions during a class debate that's focused on learning. In those situations, get the kids exploring all sorts of avenues and creative thought. So again, this isn't using this technique all the time. It's picking the right technique for the right time. The fifth key to assertiveness is alignment.
And by alignment, I mean, are your face, your body, and your words all saying the same thing? And this is where you've got to multitask here. You've got to think about the way you are holding your body and the way you are speaking your words and the words that you are using. All of those things have got to line up and reinforce the same message. If you're saying, "It's time to sit down now, thank you," but your body language says, "I'm massively out of my comfort zone. I'm nervous. I'm afraid you're not going to do that at all."
Well, your body language is undermining your words. And it works the other way around too. If you're standing assertively, but you're using phrases like, "I'm sorry, can you please sit down now, please? I've asked you four times already." Again, those aren't reinforcing each other. The quickest way of making sure you get this right, well, I've said this before and I stand by it, practise in front of a mirror or ask someone to film you doing it in a classroom. That way, you can hear and see exactly what everyone else sees.
And the gap between the two, when you watch the playback or see yourself in the mirror, well, it's genuinely horrible. It's shocking, and it's a painful way to learn. But you will learn fast from that 60 seconds of video or seeing yourself in a mirror about what's working and what isn't with your presence than any other way, and you will fix it fast. The sixth key to assertiveness is emotional neutrality. Assertiveness isn't about being emotionless, but it is about staying grounded and regulated. Strong emotion pulls interactions with students that are heated into power battles, power struggles where no one wins. And when people sense frustration in you or irritation or anger, the focus then shifts from the expectation that you are giving the student to the emotions that you're feeling as you say your words.
The answer is to aim for a neutral delivery, not an emotional one. And again, we're going back to being intentional. This is especially important for pupils with SEMH needs, where your emotional intensity can quickly trigger their threat response. Calm adults help people stay regulated even when they don't comply with instructions immediately. So you want to aim for a neutral tone that depersonalises your response, that focuses on rules and expectations rather than power battles between you and them. The conversations are about the rules and expectations, not whether they're a good person as a student for following the rules or a bad student for not following the rules. That keeps incidents shorter, sweeter, which is good for the student, and it's good for you too.
The seventh key is to understand that the follow-up after the student changes their behaviour needs to be delivered at the right time. That means it might need to be delayed. Sometimes you can deal with an issue with a calm, assertive reminder. The pupil changes their behaviour. Job done. There's not much more to say. No more follow-up is needed, really.
But sometimes after a more serious incident and you've had to address like kind of escalating low-level behaviour, it does require a conversation. Now, that might be about a consequence, but you might also need to coach the student through what the expectations are or repair the relationship with them that's just been damaged by the negative interaction. Now, for my money, those last two are the magic bits. Those are the bits that actually change behaviour in the long term. Without them, without those conversations where you're teaching the student what the expectations are, you're teaching them the skills to integrate successfully in the classroom and to repair a relationship when it's gone wrong. Without those, you're going to be stuck. You're going to be going around in circles, seeing the same behaviour from the same pupils lesson after lesson.
All you're doing is playing whack-a-mole each time you see a low-level behaviour. Nothing changes in the long term because the pupil hasn't learned a different response. When you have those learning conversations is really important. The purpose of a consequence or a coaching conversation or a restorative conversation is to change future behaviour. But that conversation has to be delivered when the student's in an emotional state where they can engage with it, which means that conversation might best be delivered not now, but in 15 minutes' time or 30 minutes' time when they are emotionally de-escalated. Timing is everything because if they are still heightened when you initiate that conversation, then learning won't happen. What you'll see is things blow up again, and before you know it, you're dealing with another heated conversation.
So you need to make an assessment. If the child adapts their behaviour but they aren't happy or they look annoyed or frustrated, don't jump straight in.
Use your judgment. This isn't about removing consequences or not having restorative conversations or coaching conversations. It's about thinking about the best time, the optimum time to use them so they have the impact we want, which is change behaviour in the future so you're not having to constantly correct the same students for the same behaviours. So here's a quick recap of what we covered and then an action prompt for you. The seven keys are: decide what a win looks like before you open your mouth and focus on the long term there. Have a moment of like stillness before you start engaging with the student. Speak in a slower, lower tone of voice, but you don't have to go ridiculous with that.
Give instructions rather than asking questions. Make sure what you say with your voice and your body and your words are all aligned and reinforcing each other. Keep your interaction neutral so you're not personalising the conversation with a student. And have a follow-up conversation that helps them learn new behaviours at the right time.
And the next time you feel the pressure is on in the classroom, ask yourself this key question: "Given my long-term objective, what do I need to look and sound like right now to achieve that successfully in a way that sustains success in the future, not just squashes a behaviour today?"
Before you go, quick favour. If you're finding School Behaviour Secrets useful and you want to encourage me to keep producing more episodes because I've got low self-esteem and I need the feedback, the easiest way you can support me is to subscribe or follow the podcast in your podcast app.
And if you've got 30 seconds spare, leave me a quick rating or review. Now, that sounds like a small thing, the rating and review part, but it genuinely makes a difference because it tells the algorithms inside podcast apps to share the show with more teachers and school leaders who are dealing with the same pressures as you are.
And it lets me know which episodes are relevant to what you're seeing in school, and it helps me make a difference in real classrooms, which is what this podcast is all about. And if you know a colleague who benefits from this episode, feel free to share it with them or use it as a discussion starter in a team meeting or a briefing or a staff meeting. It's exactly what this podcast is for.
My name's Simon Currigan, thanks for listening today, and I can't wait to see you next week on the next episode of School Behaviour Secrets.
(This automated transcript may not be 100% accurate.)
