Testing season has a way of shifting the air in a school building. The schedule tightens, reminders multiply, and hallway conversations between adults start circling around data targets, readiness benchmarks, and which students still need “one more push.” And somewhere in all of that urgency, the students are watching, absorbing every shift in tone, every tightened jaw, every countdown taped to the whiteboard.
We talk a lot about test anxiety as a student problem. It is real for the kids who shut down in front of a test booklet, who suddenly can’t remember material they knew yesterday, who develop stomachaches every morning the week of state assessments. When we discuss testing anxiety, it’s often centering on student reactions, and we fail to look inwardly as adults. Students are remarkably good at reading the emotional weather of their classrooms, and during testing season, the forecast is often set by the adults in the room.
The pressure teachers carry during testing windows is enormous and often comes from every direction including building leadership, district expectations, public accountability systems, and their own deep investment in their students’ success. That pressure is valid. But when it goes unexamined, it has a way of showing up in places we don’t always intend: the offhand comment about how important this week is, the shift from warm-start routines to test-prep-only mornings, the subtle withdrawal of joy from the classroom in the name of focus.
The research on co-regulation tells us something that most educators already feel intuitively; when the adult in the room is grounded and calm, students have a significantly easier time accessing their own regulation. The reverse is also true. When we carry our anxiety into the testing window without noticing it, we can unintentionally amplify the very stress responses we’re trying to help students manage.
So, what does it look like to lead differently through a testing window? We think it starts with three intentional phases — before, during, and after — that most schools move through but rarely name. In this post, we’ll walk through the first two.
Before: Setting the Emotional Tone
The days leading up to a testing window are when anxiety takes root for students and adults alike. This is the phase where small choices compound. How we talk about the upcoming assessment, how much of our instructional time we hand over to preparation mode, and whether we maintain the relational routines students count on all send powerful messages about what this week is really about.
Watch for the signs in yourself first. Have your interactions with students become more transactional and less relational? Have you noticed your patience thinning in ways that don’t match the actual behavior in front of you? These aren’t failures, they’re signals. Catching them early is what allows you to make a different choice before students internalize the stress you’re carrying.
In your classroom, look for the students who are already absorbing the pressure. Increased trips to the bathroom or nurse, repetitive questions about what the test will look like, what happens if they don’t do well, whether the results “count.” Withdrawal from students who are usually engaged, physical complaints that seem to come from nowhere. These are students communicating that they need the adults around them to steady the ground.
This is also the moment to use your voice proactively. Simple, genuine check-ins can do more than a week of test prep pep talks. Ask students what questions they have; not about content, but about the experience itself. Ask what would help them feel ready, and normalize the fact that some nervousness is expected and doesn’t mean anything is wrong.
During: Your Calm is the Intervention
The testing window itself is where regulation matters most and where it’s hardest to maintain. There’s a specific kind of teacher vigilance that kicks in during testing — scanning the room, monitoring time, watching for students who seem stuck — and it can easily cross from attentive into anxious without us realizing it.
Your body language during this phase matters more than your words. Students notice when you’re hovering. They notice when your jaw is set or your arms are crossed or you’re pacing in a pattern that communicates worry rather than presence. They also notice the opposite; when you’re settled, breathing normally, moving through the room with a calm steadiness that says this is just another day and I’m right here with you.
Watch for the less obvious anxiety responses in students during this phase. The child who races through the test without reading carefully may be in a flight response, trying to get the threatening thing over with as fast as possible. The student frozen on page one may be experiencing the kind of overwhelm that makes it impossible to begin. The one erasing and rewriting every answer may be caught in a perfectionism loop driven by fear of getting it wrong.
When breaks happen naturally between sections and during transitions, use them. A collective deep breath, a stretch, a moment of quiet that gives everyone, including you, a chance to reset. And when it comes to the logistical updates you’re often required to give: time remaining on the board, visual timers, section transitions, pay attention to the tone you wrap around them. There’s a meaningful difference between announcing “You only have twenty minutes left” with urgency in your voice and calmly noting “You have twenty minutes remaining, and that’s plenty of time.” The information is the same, but the message students receive is entirely different. Your voice, your pacing, and your body language in those moments either reinforce calm or quietly introduce pressure, even when the words themselves are neutral.
Coming in Part 2
The test ends, there’s a collective exhale, and then most classrooms move on. However, the emotional residue of the testing experience doesn’t disappear just because the booklets are closed. In Part 2, we’ll talk about why the after phase might be the most important one, and we’ll share two free tools to help you lead through your next testing window with more intention and self-awareness.
Read Part 2 → HERE.
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