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If something has just happened at school, this is where you start.
Get practical guidance, new resources, and event invitations delivered to your inbox.
Join hundreds of parents and educators. No spam, ever.
Specific, evidence-based strategies for behaviour, curriculum, bias recognition, and supporting EAL learners. Choose your focus area.
Bias rarely announces itself. It shows up in small moments, in the words you reach for, who you call on, whose behaviour you notice first. These patterns are often invisible to the person creating them. That's what makes them worth examining.
| When describing Black students | When describing White students |
|---|---|
| Aggressive | Assertive |
| Loud | Enthusiastic |
| Confrontational | Confident |
| Has an attitude | Has strong opinions |
| Disrespectful | Questions authority |
Record yourself teaching for one full lesson and listen back without watching.
Note which language you use for which students. Look for patterns by race, gender, and behaviour history.
Replace character descriptions with observable behaviour descriptions. "Raised their voice" not "aggressive." "Left their seat" not "disruptive."
"Would I respond the same way if this child were White?"
This question interrupts unconscious bias at the moment it matters most, before you act. It takes two seconds. It changes outcomes.
Practice it every time a student does something that triggers a reaction: talks out of turn, questions you, refuses to comply, makes noise. Pause. Ask the question. Adjust if the answer is no.
Individual incidents are easy to explain away. Patterns are harder to ignore. For one week, record the following by student ethnicity:
If Black students are overrepresented in the negative columns, that is evidence of bias in your practice. It is not a character judgment. It is fixable. Start with the pause question and the language audit.
Changing one classroom practice is a start. Changing the system, the behaviour policy, the exclusion data review process, the staff training programme - is what produces sustained outcomes for students.
It takes 10 minutes and identifies where your practice needs attention.
Take the bias auditThe language audit, de-escalation scripts, and lesson planning template are all free.
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