# Season Two, Episode 5: The choreography of learning

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/chalk-dust-7274496/season-two-episode-5-the-choreography-of-learning
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/chalk-dust-7274496/season-two-episode-5-the-choreography-of-learning.md
Podcast: [Chalk Dust](https://stenobird.com/podcast/chalk-dust-7274496)
Published: 2026-05-10T17:17:00+00:00
Episode link: https://chalkdust.media/p/season-two-episode-5-the-choreography
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/197005075/425ccbafd3643b4e1f3866de78d3abc5.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/chalk-dust-7274496/episodes/season-two-episode-5-the-choreography-of-learning
Duration seconds: 2340

## Resource

Summary In this episode of Chalk Dust , Rebecca Birch and Dr Nathaniel Swain are joined by Hannah Pointon, a Year 3/4 teacher at Woodstock School in Hamilton, New Zealand. Hannah shares how her school has moved towards structured literacy, structured maths, explicit teaching, and teaching behaviour as a curriculum in its own right. Using early-year classroom footage, the episode explores how clear routines transform classroom life: lining up, entering the room, organising materials, whole-class reading, whiteboard responses in maths, and even collecting lunchboxes. Hannah shows how routines that look simple on the surface are deliberately taught, scaffolded, practised, and reinforced until they become calm, independent habits. Across the conversation, the hosts reflect on the difference between reacting to chaos and proactively teaching the behaviours students need for learning, safety, and belonging. The result is a classroom that feels purposeful, warm, and highly structured — not because students are constrained, but because they know exactly how to succeed. Mentioned resources and explainers Structured literacy A systematic approach to teaching reading that gives students explicit instruction in the skills and knowledge needed for reading success. Structured maths An approach to maths teaching that emphasises clear modelling, practice, fluency, and careful sequencing of foundational knowledge. The Writing Revolution A writing approach that supports sentence-level and paragraph-level instruction through explicit, carefully sequenced routines. Teaching behaviour as curriculum The idea that behaviour should not be assumed; it should be explicitly taught, practised, checked, and reinforced like any academic skill. Entry routines Hannah’s students line up, enter in orde…

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## Transcript

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