Culturally Responsive Classrooms: Strengthening Behaviour, Engagement, and Belonging

Schools with cultural diversity, Classroom teachers (7-12), Year level coordinators, Humanities/curriculum teachers/coordinators, Management/admin/well-being teams, Careers departments

This professional development session supports educators to reflect on how curriculum, pedagogy, and behaviour practices can shape students’ sense of belonging, engagement, and success. The session encourages teachers to consider the deeper assumptions and routines that influence how students experience school, particularly in diverse classrooms. This presentation is especially valuable for educators working in schools with a high number of students from ethnic and cultural minority backgrounds.

Drawing on his experience as a Humanities leader, curriculum designer, and research, Mohamed Ibrahim offers a practical and grounded approach informed by critical pedagogy, restorative practices, and culturally responsive teaching. Participants will explore how curriculum decisions and behaviour systems can either support or constrain student voice, confidence, and self-determination, often in ways that are unintentional.

The session focuses on realistic, classroom-ready strategies: using dialogue to build trust, selecting inclusive content, designing assessments and units that recognise diverse strengths, and approaching behaviour with a balance of clarity, consistency, and care. It also addresses practical elements of student management, including setting expectations, responding to behaviour with confidence, and building strong partnerships with families and wellbeing teams. In addition, the session explores how teachers and coordinators can model fairness, cultural awareness, respect, and belonging in their everyday practice.

By the end of the session, participants will walk away with practical tools to strengthen engagement, relationships, and overall student management, helping all students feel seen, supported, and capable.

Mohamed Ibrahim is an educator, researcher, grassroots community developer, whose interests examines how schooling functions as a space that shapes and reproduces students’ behaviour, attitudes and identity. A former Humanities Coordinator and IB Theory of Knowledge Coordinator, he is also a co-author of the VCE Sociology textbook. Drawing on his background in education and social sciences, Mohamed’s work sits at the intersection of critical pedagogy, restorative and transformative justice, and decolonial education. His practice and research invite educators to move beyond surface-level approaches to wellbeing in education, toward classrooms and school cultures that centre justice, belonging, and self-determination.

Inspirational Speakers –  the knowledge gained will be so beneficial in my classrooms

Loved the honesty in the sharing of information and strategies

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