23 Ways to Quiet a Chaotic Middle School Class

As anyone who’s taught middle school knows, a classroom filled with young adolescents can transform from chill to rowdy in a matter of seconds. 

“Middle graders are navigating a turbulent time. They’re balancing newfound independence with the ongoing need for guidance,” author and educator Jody Passanisi writes for MiddleWeb. “But they’ll also surprise us with their growth, curiosity, and capacity for self-discovery.” 

Kids in middle school are experiencing exceptional cognitive growth, adjusting to new academic demands, and juggling complex social dynamics driven by intense needs for peer acceptance. That means that even everyday occurrences, like a negative comment from a friend or an unexpectedly low grade, can feel heightened, rapidly nudging classroom energy and disruption up several notches.

It’s beneficial to have a toolkit of well-designed attention-getting strategies, and they can be a mix of serious, unexpected, and even fun—but they should provide clear cues to students that it’s time to settle down and pay attention. At the beginning of the school year, practice your go-to routines with students so they understand how the strategies work, and how they should respond. “Have kids rehearse being noisy until you give the signal for silence,” suggests former middle school teacher Todd Finley. “Then describe appropriate levels of noise for different contexts, such as when you’re talking (zero noise) or during a writing workshop (quiet voices).”

We checked in with educators and dug into our archives to find a range of effective, top-notch strategies to quickly quiet a noisy, boisterous classroom.

THE POWER OF WORDS

These verbal strategies, delivered with confidence and respect, work to quickly calm a rowdy classroom. 

Call to action: Karen Wynne always starts with the same call-out, “If you can hear me, put your hand on your head.” Then she switches things up: “If you can hear me, show me jazz hands” or “If you can hear me, give yourself a big hug.” She writes on Facebook that “the kids always want to hear what random thing will be called out, so they quickly get quiet and listen.”

Countdowns: Whether you’re counting down from 10, five, or three, this strategy works because it treats middle schoolers with respect and gives them a few seconds to “finish their sentence,” Boston-based educator Kyle Walkden Gichuru writes. “I hold my hand up and say ‘Can I please have your silent attention in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1?’ The expectation is they’re quiet by the time I say one.”

Preview transitions: “Yesterday, I told my seventh graders, ‘In two minutes, I need your attention, so finish up your conversations please,’” Lindsey Stratton notes. Two minutes later, she says, her class was ready and quiet. 

At times, a little flexibility is in order. “I give them some time to finish what they are saying, writing, doing,” one high school English teacher writes on Reddit. “Occasionally, someone will tell me why they can’t switch gears—and I adapt.” 

Signposting: At the outset, let students know how long quiet work or listening activities will last. “I usually say something like, ‘This mini-lesson is going to take around ten minutes, and I need silence while I speak so everyone can hear. It will take longer if you interrupt me,’” high school teacher Anna Parker Clinkman writes. She also lets students know what will follow her lesson and when they’ll have more time to chat with each other. 

“Just letting them know how much time they’ll need to hold it together, with the light at the end of the tunnel, almost always lets all of us be successful,” adds Stacy Belsito.

Positive narration: If your usual attention-getters aren’t working, try using narration that affirms calm students, writes Tyne Brack on Maneuvering the Middle. Examples include: “Thank you, Student Y for your eyes!” “That was fast, Student Z.” “I am still waiting on a few more friends to look at me.” 

Compliments and praise are also part of educator Jan Bufkin’s strategy. “Find something positive to say and smile,” she writes on Facebook. “Then ask for their attention.”

Targeted conversations: If you start a quiet conversation with two or three students near the front of the room, “students in the back won’t want to be left out of the conversation,” art teacher Joetta Currie writes. “They’ll get quiet so they can hear.”

Educator Yvette Gonzalez takes it a step further. “I start whispering to a small group of students and tell them to gasp like I'm sharing some juicy gossip. Everyone quiets down and tries to listen in,” she writes.

Interactive questions: When student attention wanders, veteran teacher Zaib Sami injects a thought-provoking question that relates to the lesson—like does this remind you of anything we’ve studied or seen before?—to “re-engage students’ minds.” 

Lia Brewer adds proximity to that strategy: “I start by increasing my proximity to the front row of students, then ask a direct question in a normal tone of voice to the student farthest from me,” she writes. “I seldom have to ask the question more than twice.”

Call-and-response: We heard several innovative variations on this tried-and-true strategy:

• “I call out ‘Hear ye, hear ye,’ and my students respond with ‘All hail the queen!’ My sixth graders are so amused by it.”—Elisha Krantz
• “As an art teacher, I would implement the ‘Mona Lisa.’ When I say ‘Mona,’ you say ‘Lisa!’ Everyone would get into the Mona Lisa pose.”—Sofia Dakos
• “I’m a middle school reading teacher. I say ‘Romeo, Romeo’ and they respond ‘Wherefore art thou Romeo?’ They get a kick out of it.”—Karen Cole Harrison

VISUAL CUES AND NON-VERBAL STRATEGIES

If verbal directives aren’t doing it, these visual and non-verbal strategies for getting students’ attention are worth a try.

Silent hand raise: “I train them at the start of term. I raise my hand, and students who notice raise theirs, until everyone has their hand up and is quiet,” Angie Wolf writes. “Occasionally we will need to practise it,” she adds, but notes that it’s easy because “most kids know the signal anyway.”

Science teacher Christina A uses short verbal cues to reinforce the hand raising signal. “I move my hands up above my head and say: ‘Everybody hands up and look at me’ a few times until everyone has their hands up and their eyes on me,” she writes. “Then I explain that I will use this to get their attention because science is so fascinating and absorbing, I don’t expect them to be able to listen to me until they have their hands free from it. Works every time.” 

Time boxing: If hands up isn’t working, some middle school teachers add a mild consequence. “On days when they are particularly chatty, I add seconds to the "time box" on the whiteboard, which results in time they have to stay after class,” one teacher notes. “I usually only have to add a few seconds. Middle school students hate missing their passing period.”

Visual aids: Countdown posters and timers, red/yellow/green signal lights, or a display on an interactive whiteboard can remind students to focus on you without disrupting the flow of instruction, Janelle Cox writes on TeachHub. 

“Sometimes I just put a timer on the screen with me in the middle of the room and once it goes off we start the lesson,” Azucena Perez writes on Instagram. “It works for middle school.”

Proximity: Writing in Maneuvering the Middle, Tyne Brack suggests scanning the room and then saying, “Thank you, Student X, for turning off your voice so fast.” Then he moves closer to any students who are still talking. “The teacher walking over to them + silence from everyone else = students stop talking,” he notes.

SILENCE IS GOLDEN (AND POWERFUL)

Silence can be a quick and effective way to get students’ attention and restore focus. 

Sudden silence: “Stand quietly until everyone gets curious about why you’re not talking,” suggests Dave Shahan. Some teachers turn off classroom lights to promote calm, while others reinforce their silence with a strategic, well-timed look that students know means business. 

Kate Bonser uses a variation with her seventh graders. “I say, ‘If you can hear my voice, stop talking.’ About half the class stops talking, but the sound drops so suddenly that I only have to wait about five seconds for the remaining students.”

Pause and breathe: Asking students to take a deep breath if they can hear you combines silence with the calming benefits of mindful breathing. One seventh-grade social studies teacher starts with a request: “If you can hear my voice, take a deep breath in." Then she repeats it three times. “About half the class will do it the first time, 90 percent the second, and 99 percent the third time,” she writes. “By the third they are actually a little calmer than when we started.”

Make it a game: When he was teaching middle school, Todd Finley liked to end classwork with a game called “Silent 20,” where every student had to sit down and become silent within 20 seconds. If everyone could do it, he moved the class forward one square on a board game he kept in his classroom. When the class reached the end of the game, they earned a popcorn party as their reward.

AURAL SIGNALS

Some teachers use sound to help maintain calm or restore order in class. Here are their best tips.

Classroom doorbell: This simple strategy provides a clear cue for students. “I cannot stand call-and-responses,” one teacher writes on Reddit. “Half the time you have to say it three times, and with a doorbell I only have to use it once.”

One middle school math and science teacher uses a bluetooth doorbell synced to a smartboard, but also keeps a backup metal bell for sub days or power outages. Other educators change their bell tone periodically to keep students engaged—some even allow kids to choose a new ring as a reward.

Noise meters: Apps like Too Noisy, which offers a free online version, detect the decibel level of your room and automatically alert students that the room is too loud, using visuals on a smartscreen or sounds. Other free apps that teachers recommend include: Too Loud and Shush—Sound & Noise Meter.

GET CREATIVE

When class is especially rambunctious, unexpected strategies can get their attention. 

Shock them: When her middle school science class isn’t paying attention, Jennifer Berry doesn’t raise her voice. “I use a duck call,” she writes. “The quacking sound completely shocks them into silence.” 

Doing something unexpected to get students’ attention can be effective. Try howling like a wolf or doing jumping jacks, notes Teach For America. Seventh-grade math teacher Lydia Gonzalez turns to her whiteboard and “starts talking to it as if it were a real person.” That usually draws giggles, she notes, “but gets the room quiet.”

Quiet bubbles: Canada-based high school teacher Karina Fast keeps bubbles on her desk for the wilder days. “Blowing bubbles creates calm. A childhood memory of a summer day enters the classroom,” she writes on Instagram. “There’s always one kid that shouts, ‘She’s using the shut up bubbles, guys!’”

Sit (way) down: When Julie Shonta was teaching middle school, she had a backup plan for especially tough classes. “I would just sit down on the floor while I waited [for calm],” she writes. “Eventually, a student from the back would say, ‘Where'd she go?’ I instantly had their attention, would get up, and proceed with the lesson.”

Order to the court: “I rarely have to use it, but I have a gavel,” writes ELA and theater teacher Jennifer MacLean Bleiler. If verbal strategies aren’t working, she turns to her gavel. “It started as a joke when one day they were so rambunctious that they couldn't hear me. I had a prop gavel around for some reason,” she recalls. “It works quickly and effectively.”

Read aloud: A well-timed read-aloud can bring calm to an energetic room. “Even middle school students can be drawn in by a good story,” Janelle Cox writes on TeachHub. “We have a book we share together and if I read five to eight minutes, they’ll be very calm,” one teacher notes. “It’s also great to start or end a class if you have a few spare minutes to fill.” 

Teaching spot: Sometimes students spot a good quiet-down strategy before a teacher does. “A student actually noticed that when I walked to a certain location, I was ready to talk,” Merilee Williams writes. “He said, ‘Quiet! She's in her teaching spot!’” After that, Williams adopted the strategy with all her classes as an “instant advertisement that it was time to listen.” She even used tape to mark her “teaching spot” on the floor.