Hi there, teachers. Welcome to the Unteachables Podcast. I'm your host, Claire English, and I am just a fellow teacher, a toddler mama, and a big old behaviour nerd on a mission to demystify and simplify that little thing called classroom management. The way we've all been taught to manage behaviour and classroom manage has left us playing crap control, which is not something I subscribe to because we're not fancies with teachers. So listen in as I walk you through the game-changing strategies, and I mean the things that we can actually do in action in our classrooms that will allow you to lean into your beautiful values as a compassionate educator and feel empowered to run your room with a little more calm, and dare I say it, a lot less chaos. I will see you in the episode. Hello and welcome back to the Unteachables Podcast. Today I am joined by Avril Waite, a secondary science teacher
from Regional New South Wales, who is passionate about creating innovative student-centered learning environments where every student has the opportunity to thrive. Alongside leading the integration of artificial intelligence across her school, Avril is a strong advocate for trauma-informed practice, student well-being, and ensuring that regional schools are not left behind as education continues to evolve. She is also the coordinator of the New Marine Pathways program, helping create university access opportunities for students pursuing marine studies across New South Wales. You do so much, Avril, and at the heart of your work is a commitment to equity, opportunity, and empowering young people to see what's possible for their futures. So we are so aligned in our values and vision for education, and it is a privilege to have you on the Unteachables Podcast. Welcome, Avril. Thank you very much for having me. So before we dive into all things around student well-being and trauma, informed practice and the future of education, I'd love to start just by giving you an opportunity to tell us a little bit about yourself. So, like what brought you here, what you're most passionate about in education right now, what you're speaking about. Just give us a little elevated picture of who you are and what you do.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so I'll start with what I'm speaking about. Today I am speaking about AI use in schools, but specifically about teachers using it as a reflective practice. So we all know that students use AI all the time. Teachers can use it to make workbooks, they can use it for lesson planning, scaffolding, all those types of things. But one thing that we've integrated into school that we did a whole professional development day on it is using AI as a reflective tool. So putting into AI as a non-judgmental automatic feedback, this is what happened in my lesson. It really sucked. Where do I go from here? Because I realized, and myself as well, um, you dread going back into some lessons, like or you go home and you're really heightened, and oh, what do I do next? And that
stress on your body and those elevated cortisol levels aren't good for anyone. So this is just a way that teachers can use AI to be able to reduce their cognitive load, have fat feedback, and a plan to step ahead in within three minutes instead of that huge workload that they take home with them. So it's leaving it at work, ready for the next day, really quickly.
SPEAKER_00I am so interested. I'm so interested to hear more about that because everything that you said, absolutely, like we have a really crappy lesson, we've had a really tough time, and often we don't have like a really objective way to reflect on that and think about that. So if it's like a non-emotional way to reflect on the lesson, the behavior, whatever it might be, like that just sounds so interesting. How are how are you finding it and how are your teachers finding it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, a lot of teachers have really utilized it, especially. Um, I have a whole bunch of prompts that I have, and I handed out a handout to especially uh at to our school teachers, and a lot of them were um like give me three strategies for the next lesson. Yeah. Or this lesson has always worked every year. Why did it not work this one? And it kind of pinpoint, it doesn't it puts all of your thoughts into clear, concise words, so you're not just oh, I probably should have done that, or oh, why didn't that work, or things like that, and it gives you a different focus so you can reframe your mind so that you're not taking on that extra cognitive load and that extra stress and that extra cortisol levels to have a fresh start for that next lesson. Because as much as we try to kind of reset at the end of the day, you still hold on to that anger for days, and you might not realize how tense you are just from that one lesson or that one student that you just couldn't engage.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. What kind of stuff do you put into like you have prompts?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um, so for example, one of my most common prompts is um I had a really bad lesson with my year nine science class. This is what happened. Students weren't engaged. I I couldn't find the hook to help them learn. It's always worked in all my other lessons. Yeah. Give me some strategies or some um hints for what to do for the next lesson. And then it will just pop out some ideas that I probably haven't used or thought of, or I have used, but I forgot about. Yeah. Um, and you can limit it to like say three prompts or how do I reframe this or things like that. Yeah. Um, it's especially good for when students say are really bright students, but they're let down by um their say reading level. So they might only be a stage one reading level, but they can comprehend and verbalize all their work. So you can make them worksheets and things like that as well. Like, help me with this student specifically so that the next lesson is easier for them and me. So I'm not always fighting them to that's so interesting.
SPEAKER_00And I think like people talk about AI use in the classroom, and there's a lot of fear around, like, yeah, but what if it takes away this part of teaching or this part of teaching? But what you're talking about is using AI as like a tool for like reflective practice, and I think even the act of a teacher saying, like, this is what happened, and being metacognitive about that, I think it's just such a great way to you use it. And I I don't know like a lot about how people are using it differently in their classroom specifically, um, but I haven't heard of people using it like that, which is it's so it's really, really interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, and um, especially because it's it's not a a replacement to your professional judgment. Yeah, yeah. All it is is a solution to find your solution. Yes, like some ideas. Yeah, it's not for every lesson, yeah. It's when you just yeah, you you know those lessons. Like if you're in the classroom, you know those lessons where you just walk into the staff room and you're like, what am I gonna do? Yeah, I'm never teaching that year again.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, how can I walk back in there? What can make this easier? What can make this better? Because you do get stuck. I heard you say a lot about like that nervous system, like impact on our nervous systems when we had those have those tough lessons. It's immense. It's immense. And we're just in like survival mode when you have those lessons. I could talk to you, like you've got so many things like that I would like I want to talk to you about. Yeah, I could talk to you about the AI thing for ages, but I really want to move on to well-being because I know that you're so passionate about both student well-being and ensuring that regional students have access to the same opportunities as their metropolitan peers. Um, why do you think these issues are so close to your heart? And what do you think is at stake if we don't get these things right?
SPEAKER_01Okay. It's a big one. It is a really big one. Um, so when I was, this is going back a fair few years, but when I was 22, I actually um got a foster daughter. Um, and it was this little 14-year-old girl that I met at a party. It wasn't through the foster system, it was a very screw with a 14-year-old girl that I met at a at a party who was homeless. She lived um on the benches at McDonald's. Wow. And I just took her home with me. And I was like, yeah, okay. Um, and then we went through the whole um system, got her, I was officially her guardian and everything like that, and she lived with
me for a fair few years. Um, and being a 22-year-old trying to get a 14-year-old into school is incredibly difficult because no one would take a 22-year-old seriously. And at the age of 14, 15, and 16, there's a huge gap between policy and procedures for that age group. So it was always, oh, she needs to go home. Well, she can't go home because of um, you know, child protection issues. So, where does she go? Well, she needs to find someone to live with, but so yeah, there is there's a lot of struggle between that 14, 15, 16-year-old where there's not a lot of help and and structures in place, yeah. Structures in place to help them, yeah. Um, and she completely changed my life. Yeah, um, I was a very privileged middle class, nuclear family, uh, and I had no idea about any of any of that other than from the TV shows, and and just seeing the passion that this 14-year-old girl, she just wanted to go to high school and the steps that we had to overcome to get her to just be able to go to school, yeah, was just astounding. And I and like it just lit a fire under me. And yeah, and she she says to me all the time, like, oh, you know, you you helped, you saved my life, blah blah blah blah. But she could have done it herself, but I just gave her that step so that it was one step she didn't have to do by herself, yeah, so that she could do it. She's a vet tech now. Oh yeah, and she's doing really well for herself, has her own house and everything like that. And that's how I teach, is yeah, it just some kids just need someone to believe in them, yeah, and to see, hey, I can see that you really want to do this, so let's make a plan so you can, yeah, and that completely changes how kids see school as well. So I'm really privileged that our school is like that. A lot of teachers have that view, a lot of teachers want kids to succeed, and because we have such a large population of disadvantaged students, we have 44% in the bottom quartile. Wow. Um, so a lot of kids are in that boat, and having such a large staff, we have a lot of kids connect with those staffs and it gives them that um little that stepping stool to say, hey, I believe you can do this, so let's do it together. Let's walk through this together, which is really, really nice.
SPEAKER_00Oh wow. Making me emotional to be 22 and to take in a 14-year-old and have parental responsibility of it. I I couldn't take care of myself at 22, let alone a young, you know, like someone that was gonna become a young adult. That's just incredible.
SPEAKER_01Because she she'd never made a bed before, she never owned a bed, she didn't know how to tie her shoes. And like if this if that's just one person, like, and now I I get to teach so many beautiful human beings these skills in a non-judgmental, yeah, um, loving environment that they can just come up and say, Hey, April, can you teach me to tie my shoes? Yeah, yeah, 100%. Let's do it, let's do all these things.
SPEAKER_00Um, and a lot of kids need that. Yeah. I was quite similar. I always saw education, and the reason I went into teaching was because I worked at the youth homelessness service when I was like during uni, and I didn't plan to go into teaching at that point. I was gonna be a social worker, and I worked at this youth homelessness service, and I saw the issues that they were having in education and getting into education, and I went, you know what? I think my passions will be better served in the classroom. So I think we have quite a similar like belief around that, and a similar story around that yours is a bit more intense than mine, but uh a little bit more of a commitment. Um so I guess this really relates to the work you're doing in the school then because we hear trauma-informed practice get thrown around a lot, and I think that sometimes people can feel like it's a bit of a like blanket wishy-washy thing that people are asking us to do. When it comes to trauma-informed practice, what do you think it really looks like in the classroom, in the day-to-day? And looking at I've known you for two seconds, really, but looking at you and hearing the things you're passionate about. I know that you would be someone that would live the trauma-informed practice life every single day. So, can you tell me a little bit about what it looks like when it's done well? Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um, so at my school, we have um a really incredible learning and support team. Um, I think there's about 20 of them, um, including SLSOs, and they are the leaders that lead that um trauma-informed
practice. Um, we were really, really lucky a fair few years ago that every single person at our school, no matter who you were, were trained in the Berry Street model. Oh, yeah. Um, so we're all trauma-informed trained as well. Um, and then we also have um every staff development date, we do a trauma-informed upkeep. This is what it looks like. Here's some positive primers to use in the classroom and things like that. But what it specifically looks like at our school is it's a really it's because we all do it together. Yeah, um, it is not something that you can just one teacher can use that approach. It needs to be everyone using it together, everyone having the same understanding of what it means for trauma-informed. Um, my school and a lot of the school population were affected by the 2022 flood, so decimated our region. Um, so we have a lot of homeless students as well. Um, like I said, 44% live in that bottom quartile. Um they live in tents, they live in caravans, so we have pod villages of um for housing, and there could be 16 of a family living in a two-bedroom pod. So we do breakfast programs, we wash their clothes, we give them their uniforms, um, we also um feed them lunch, they can always have snacks in the front office and things like that as well. And it's more we've we've just got a new principal in the last two years, Principal Pete, and he's really turned the school into more of a community. Like it's us as a family, and we do this together. And if you need something, ask us and we will help you get that. So kids will come and they will need a uniform. Yeah, here you go, these one. And there's no judgment, it's just that's just what what we do. Um, but specifically in my classrooms, I we we all learnt about the um the brain and the triggers of trauma-informed um and and how that perceives into schools and things like that. And changing the way that we approach our lessons to more of that community family vibe, where it's we're learning together really alleviates the stress and the pressures of that kid's home life. A lot of the time, kids will come and they'll say, Hey, I really don't feel like learning today. Yeah, that's fine. How about in about 20 minutes I sit down with you, you read me the words, and I'll write it for you. Yeah, I can do that. And it's just giving them that ownership of them feeling safe and allowing them to want to come and learn with you as well, with that in a trusting environment. One of my older colleagues, it was the turning point in my career for me. I was probably gonna quit because it was a really uh hard school in the beginning. And um he said, Do you know what I love about you, Avril, is that you are so generous with your time, and that's what these kids need. They need someone who will stop and they will listen. And that's what every single person at that school does as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and it sounds like there's a lot of curiosity rather than thinking, like, ah, face value, these kids are acting out, or these kids are like they they would genuinely be having some pretty rough days, these kids. I can't believe the context that these kids are operating in. And the thing is, if you're expecting students to come into the classroom and then be able to switch on their prefrontal cortexes and be sweet and ready to learn, it's just not going to work. So I think really being aware of how the brain operates and the barriers that are in place for these kids, yours is very black and white in terms of you're in this school environment where there is X amount of students who are in this situation. I think it can kind of get lost when you're in a mainstream setting, and most kids are presenting as like pretty okay, you know. They might be coming from okay backgrounds, they might, you know, they're fed, they're washed, they're all the things. I think that's when trauma-informed practice can get a little bit murky because people are like, oh, well, just come in and learn then. But I think what you've said really brings back the importance of those young people have struggles outside that we don't know about, and the importance of just remaining curious around what might be happening for the young people.
SPEAKER_01And and at the end of the day, we don't know what's happening in those children's home life, and it's irregardless of what their children's home life is, you should still have those that care and that calm so that kids feel safe enough with you to be able to calm down and learn. Yeah, it's it's all about um like we do a lot of frame breaks, we do a lot of positive primers, we do welcome circles every morning for every class. And how are you going? We we um we get tasked with we need to greet a student by name, 10 students every day by name. Yeah, um, it like doesn't matter who they are, just greet greet them. And so it's everyone working together to make it very community oriented.
SPEAKER_00Those little things are the big things, like addressing someone by name. Names are the most powerful relationship-building tool that we have because when you say somebody's name, you're validating their existence, you're saying that they matter when they come into that classroom, they're not just somebody else that's you know walking in. So even if people like just listening to this, take that one thing away of the importance of just greeting people by their name. Names are sacred to people.
SPEAKER_01Honestly, yeah, like I I could have a student that I have never gotten along with, um, with just personality clash, and I will greet them by name every single day for a year, and then they'll be in my lesson the next year, and it will completely change that interaction with that student in another lesson.
SPEAKER_00They're like little investments into their emotional piggy bank. You've successfully implemented an open learning model. And if I'm honest, just hearing those words and just shipped down my spine. Um, because I've seen it done really poorly in schools before where it is just chaos, and it's something that they think is really innovative, but it's really not working because of the way it's set up. Can you explain what that looks like in practice and what are some of the biggest challenges you've had to overcome, but then some of the great things as well?
SPEAKER_01Okay. Um, so my school is a brand new build, it was built seven years ago um in the amalgamation of two other high schools.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, so it is completely open learning. Um, it reminds me a lot like a library where it has a main learning street and then little offshoots that could be um a classroom and things like that. Now, in the beginning, in the amalgamation
of the two schools, there was a lot going on, not just in learning a new open environment, but also the two joining of two local schools that were always at competition with each other and the teachers and all of that dynamic that came with it. And there was a lot of challenges about well, I'm used to four walls, this is a lot of change. How do I stop kids from running out? How do I like this? It's so loud, it's so overwhelming. It's I can hear a teacher down the end of the hallway, and their movies going on, and I can hear them, and and and it was like that a lot. But um, like I did say before, that we do have a new principal. He came two years ago, Principal Pete, and he saw the issues that we were facing. And what he did is he spent an entire year of professional development days where we've learnt how to use these um areas appropriately. Um, we also had um an architect, an environmental learning architect come in, and she worked with the Kids and they helped design the spaces in ways that they felt like they learned right. And he he also soundproofed, like put in sound condensing floors to just proper setup, yeah, proper setup, and so it's it's still open learning, but the way that it's set up now is it's more learning community hubs, yeah, yeah. And and yes, you do have students that just walk out, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And you've been in a traditional classroom setting anyway, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, and you do have students that just like just get really distracted by everyone walking past them and and things like that. But once they understand the rules, it makes it so much easier. These are my expectations. We don't get distracted, we're focusing on this, and but you really have to be on top of your behaviour management really, really well. It's really difficult for our kids who our feeder feeder schools are 20 kids, and then they've tracked into this shopping mall of 800 kids. It's a lot, it's overstimulating, it's all of that, and it's working with them with our trauma-informed practice to help them develop and grow as well. But honestly, now that I've I've taught in an open learning school, I think I like it. Is it every single lesson? Every single lesson is in an open open classroom, yeah. Okay. Um, but but like say um a kid comes to me, I'm a year advisor, a kid comes to me upset and needs something, I can actually walk out of that classroom because there's you've got other staff there that will be able to pick up the stuff. Or God forbid you ate something bad for lunch and you really gotta go to the bathroom. Yeah, you can. You can you have a little bit more freedom because there is always someone around. Yeah. Um, a kid leaves, it's nowhere for them to go, it's one building. If they're out in the learning street and they're not supposed to be, they just get sent back.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So it's everyone working together and that's also community.
SPEAKER_00It's also good because when you are one teacher and you're in a traditional classroom setting and you've got 30 students, if you have something going on with that one student in the class, one really important thing to do is to be able to swap out with another staff member. If they're not responding to you in the moment and you're really struggling with that student, swapping out with another staff member is the key thing to de-escalation. So that model for that, even just that purpose alone would be incredible, you know?
SPEAKER_01And it's really good where you can support your fellow teachers as well. Like you could hear them getting heightened or agitated as well, and you can say, Hey, go take five minutes, I got your class. Yeah. Because you can hear everything. Yeah, um, you know everything that's going on. At first, it's like, oh my god, everyone's judging me, and everyone's gonna see that I don't teach very well. And because everyone's walking past, and everyone can see in and everyone can see what activities you're doing, and then you just realise that everyone is just doing their own thing, no one cares what I'm doing as long as I'm doing something.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and you're talking about like the reflective practice you're building through your AI as well, and it all kind of feeds into like transparency about what's going on in your classroom, a willingness to reflect, and like if you've got staff around you as well, like I think that's wonderful. Yeah, so like there is that these positives and it's negatives with everything.
SPEAKER_01I think the biggest challenge is the change, and a lot of people are used to the four walls, and it's a big change because you go into and it's very overwhelming and it's very loud. Yeah, but you get used to it, yeah.
SPEAKER_00You really do, and you thrive, yeah, because and as you said, with with every model, whether it's the open learning model, traditional classrooms, flexible seating, traditional seating, like there's always going to be pros and cons, and it's about what works for you in your context, and like whether or not like you're happy to kind of swap out some of those pros and cons.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's it's it's much for a muchness, like it's I think it's fascinating. Kind of, yeah. Definitely come and have a look. I would love taking it. All the time. People are always really interested in it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that'd be amazing. Yeah. Before we wrap up, I just want to ask you one final question because you're so incredibly passionate about regional education and advocating for students outside of these major cities. There's a whole bunch of teachers, leaders, school execs, all those people listening right now. If you could get them to understand one thing about teaching and learning in regional schools, what would it be? What would you want them to know?
SPEAKER_01You can't be what you can't see. These kids can't be what we want them to be because they can't see themselves being that. So if we bought, I've I'm trying to get a marine discovery center up and running at my school so that kids can learn AI, and we get PhD students from the local universities in to help sponsor them, like um, teach them and mentor them so that they can see that there's more than just that town. Yeah. There's a big wide world out there, and it doesn't matter what your background is, your ethnicity
is, how much your parents earn, you can be what you want to be, but they just don't know they can. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Which I'm really passionate about. I love that. You can't be what you can't see. Um, it's one of the things that I say with classroom management as well, you know, like if they don't come to us with the skills of regulation or, you know, just a whole variety of things, they haven't learnt that. They can't be what they don't see, you know. And the same thing as like when we're up the front of the classroom, we have to model as well what we want from our students.
SPEAKER_01And and especially um being a regional town, a lot of a lot of people think that, hey, oh, you can come to this this function for free because you are a low socioeconomic school. Yeah, but that still costs us thousands of dollars to come. Yes, a free ticket does not help us in any way.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So we can't get there unless we have to pay for flights. We have to pay for it. Well, I'm very happy that you're here. Yeah, yeah, but but yeah, region, like, yeah, yeah, you can't give the opportunities to a regional area without the opportunities being in a regional area.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Thank you so much, Avril. And it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you, and your passion shines through, like just in state, and it's yeah, it's just a pleasure to have you on the podcast.