ADHD Teacher Cheat Sheets

The ADHD Classroom Cheat Sheet: A Low-Friction Guide for Teachers

Are you exhausted by constant reminders, unfinished worksheets, and classroom disruptions?

Having a bright student who struggles to stay on task or follow instructions can be incredibly frustrating. However, this behavior is not a result of laziness, intentional defiance, or a reflection of your teaching skills.

Written by an Educational Psychologist, this PDF guide helps you reframe ADHD in the classroom: it is a neurobiological difference rooted in a deficit of dopamine, not a deficit of attention. When a student's brain lacks dopamine, their executive functioning stalls, making traditional classroom expectations nearly impossible without the right support.

This low-friction, high-impact cheat sheet provides practical strategies to hack this operating system, reduce disruptions, and help your neurodivergent students thrive.

What’s Inside the Guide:

• Why Traditional Methods Backfire: Learn why common disciplinary actions, like revoking recess or giving multi-step verbal commands, actually crash working memory and reduce focus.
• The Low-Friction Toolkit: Discover actionable alternatives to high-friction tasks, such as utilizing "body doubling" to initiate work and folding worksheets to prevent visual overwhelm.
• Navigating Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD): Understand why gentle corrections can trigger intense emotional responses, and learn how to use silent "micro-corrections" to safely redirect a student.
• Sanctioned Movement: Learn why physical movement is an essential tool for concentration rather than a behavioral issue, along with tips for incorporating "quiet fidgets" and "legal" movement into the school day.

Who is this for? Busy teachers, SENCOs, and teaching assistants who need realistic, easy-to-implement strategies. You don't need to overhaul your entire curriculum—implementing just one of these adjustments often improves engagement and retention for the entire class!

Instant PDF Download. Print it for your desk, clip it to your planner, or share it with your teaching assistants!