Summary
In this episode of Chalk Dust, Rebecca Birch and Nathaniel Swain are joined by Andrew McCrorey, an experienced educator and instructional leader at Monterey Secondary College in Victoria. Drawing on classroom footage from a secondary setting serving a highly disadvantaged community, Andrew demonstrates how explicit instruction, trauma-informed positive education and high expectations can work together rather than compete with one another.
The discussion explores entry routines, co-regulation, secondary choral reading, gist statements, cold calling, participation as an equity issue, and the explicit teaching of behaviour expectations. Andrew explains how consistency across classrooms can function as an equity strategy, creating predictable environments in which students know what success looks like and teachers can focus on teaching rather than repeatedly resetting behaviour.
Across the episode, Rebecca, Nathaniel and Andrew return to the idea that supporting students does not require lowering the bar. Instead, effective practice combines strong relationships, clear routines, deliberate participation structures and carefully sequenced academic support. The result is a classroom where students are both safe and challenged, and where literacy, behaviour and wellbeing are treated as interconnected parts of successful teaching.
Mentioned resources and explainers
Andrew McCrorey
Andrew McCrorey is an educator with more than 20 years’ experience teaching in Australia and internationally. His work focuses on explicit instruction, behaviour support, trauma-informed positive education and improving classroom practice in complex educational settings.
Monterey Secondary College
Monterey Secondary College is located in Frankston North, Victoria. Andrew describes the school’s approach as combining evidence-informed teaching, trauma-informed positive education and consistency across classrooms to improve student learning and engagement.
Trauma-Informed Positive Education
A framework used at Monterey to support student regulation, relationships and readiness to learn. Andrew emphasises that trauma-informed practice is not about lowering expectations, but about raising expectations while providing the support students need to meet them.
Four-to-One Positive to Corrective Feedback
Andrew describes using a high ratio of positive to corrective feedback during routines such as lesson entry. Positive narration, greeting students warmly and acknowledging successful behaviour help establish a calm, predictable start.
Entry Routines
A tightly rehearsed lesson-entry process in which students know what materials to collect, where to go and what task to begin. Andrew explains how predictable entry routines support regulation, reduce bottlenecks and maximise learning time.
Choral Reading
Students read a text aloud together, following the teacher’s pacing and expression. Andrew uses choral reading in secondary English to build fluency, confidence, prosody and participation while allowing the teacher to hear and correct reading in real time.
Gist Statements
A summarising strategy in which students identify who or what a section is about, select key details and then condense the information into a single statement. Andrew uses this as part of a gradual release process to support comprehension and later writing.
Cold Calling
Andrew uses cold calling after students have had time to rehearse thinking through pair discussion. He frames participation as an equity issue, while also maintaining flexibility when a student is not ready to respond.
Tracking the Speaker
A universal attention routine used across the school. Students are explicitly taught to orient towards the speaker so that teachers can secure attention efficiently and maintain lesson flow.
Explicit Teaching of Behaviour
Rather than relying on broad classroom rules, Andrew teaches specific routines for situations such as arriving late. Students are shown what to do, what to expect, and how consequences will work, reducing uncertainty and preserving learning time.
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Takeaways
Consistency can function as an equity strategy when students experience the same clear expectations across classrooms.
Trauma-informed practice and high expectations are not opposites; students often need more support in order to meet ambitious expectations.
Entry routines help students regulate, reduce uncertainty and maximise learning time.
Positive narration and unconditional positive regard can coexist with firm behavioural expectations.
Secondary students can successfully participate in choral reading when routines are carefully taught and the purpose is made clear.
Reading aloud is an entitlement, not just an activity for younger students.
Participation structures such as pair share, choral response and cold calling can support equity by ensuring more students have a voice.
Cold calling works best when students have had time to rehearse and when teachers remain responsive to individual readiness.
Gist statements help students move from reading to comprehension and then to concise written expression.
Explicitly teaching what to do when students are late reduces interruptions and makes consequences predictable.
Behaviour routines are more useful when they are precise enough to rehearse, rather than framed as broad expectations such as “be respectful”.
High response rates can support both learning and behaviour by keeping students cognitively engaged.
Wellbeing strategies should support academic learning rather than displace it.
High expectations are most effective when paired with strong relationships, scaffolds and opportunities for success.
Calm, engaged classrooms are built through deliberate systems, not through lowered expectations.
Keywords
Andrew McCrorey, Monterey Secondary College, explicit instruction, trauma-informed positive education, high expectations, secondary reading, choral reading, gist statements, cold calling, participation, equity, classroom routines, entry routines, positive narration, behaviour support, co-regulation, tracking the speaker, classroom management, literacy instruction, Chalk Dust podcast
