Essential Teacher Skills
11 essential classroom management skills
The CORE Behaviour Response Hierarchy
Every teacher encounters moments that interrupt learning: side conversations, wandering attention, slow transitions, or students who are not quite ready to engage. While these behaviours may seem minor in isolation, their cumulative impact can significantly reduce learning time, disrupt lesson flow, and increase teacher workload. Effective classroom management is not primarily about responding to major incidents. It is about consistently and skilfully addressing these everyday moments before they escalate.
Dr Tim McDonald's CORE Framework (Calm, Orderly, Respectful Environments) identifies eleven essential teacher skills that form the foundation of this work. These practical, highly effective skills help teachers create classrooms where expectations are clear, and students remain engaged. More than a collection of techniques, they are the core competencies that underpin successful behaviour management and bring classroom routines, systems, and strategies to life.
Explore the eleven essential skills below or download the free guide to keep on hand.
Eleven Skills, One System
You will instinctively know these skills already, but do you have a consistent framework to apply them? Without mastery of these fundamental techniques, even the most carefully designed behaviour frameworks can become hollow procedures, followed mechanically but lacking the nuanced execution required to create genuine impact.
-
Proximity
Using physical positioning and movement to influence behaviour and hold engagement, both preventatively and responsively. -
Pause
Deliberate silence after giving an instruction, giving you a moment to scan the room and confirm full attention before continuing. -
Scan
Systematically looking around the whole room after any instruction to check every student is on task, not just the ones nearest to you. -
Name
Using a student's name to build rapport, and to redirect attention the moment it drifts, without disrupting the rest of the class. -
Voice
Deliberately varying volume, tone and pace from warm and rapport-building to calm and authoritative, depending on the moment. -
Look
A calm, purposeful glance directed at an off-task student, communicating an expectation to refocus without a word said. -
With-it-ness
A term coined by researcher Jacob Kounin: the ability to stay aware of the whole room at once, while working closely with one student. -
Politeness
Consistently modelling the courteous behaviour you expect from students - please, thank you, and respectful correction, every time. -
Gestures
Non-verbal cues that communicate an expectation without breaking the flow of the lesson. -
Acknowledgement
Brief, frequent recognition of the behaviour you want to see more of - quick, genuine, and easy to give constantly. -
Praise
Specific, effort-focused recognition that names exactly what a student did well, and why it mattered.
Put the CORE Framework into practice, live with Dr Tim McDonald
Reading about the 11 skills is one thing, knowing exactly when to reach for which one, under real classroom pressure, is another. The Classroom Management workshop series are three live 90-minute sessions working through evidence-based routines, specific teacher techniques and time to talk through your own classroom context.
You'll leave with a certificate of completion, 12 months of e-book access, and 30% off the print edition of Classroom Management: The Foundation for Learning.
Find out more about intakes and discounts.