#158: How to build the most beautiful, positive, connected class community brick by brick (even the toughest, most disengaged of classes)

What's in this episode

What if the class everyone labels “unteachable”… becomes your favourite group of the year? In this episode, I’m giving you a front seat to one of the most formative stories of my teaching career—back when I was fresh out of uni, wildly underqualified, and somehow ended up turning the “low class” into the class that changed everything for me. This episode is a big one. It gets to the heart of how community is actually built in classrooms (and how it’s usually not). I’m taking you back to my first couple of years in the classroom, when I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but somehow stumbled into building a connected, joyful, motivated classroom culture… completely by accident. And then had crushing imposter syndrome because I didn’t know how or why it worked. We’re unpacking: Why community isn’t built through one-off icebreakers or belonging programs How tiny, everyday moments quietly create belonging And what I was actually doing in that Year 7 class that transformed everything If you’ve ever thought: “I care so much, but this class just isn’t clicking” “I want calm and connection, but I don’t want to be fake or cringe” “Surely community shouldn’t feel this hard…” …this epis