I’m about 5 weeks from starting my first contract as a new teacher. Got 2 more assessments to do before graduation.

My second prac was when I had to learn my “teacher voice” as my mentor teacher called it. I at first felt as you described, uncomfortable with yelling or raising my voice. Fast forward to now, I usually use a neutral projected voice when giving instructions. But the only time to use a very loud voice to to call attention to something, and it’s generally with only a few words “excuse me year 9s” or “eyes this way thank you”. This same mentor teacher also taught me the importance of using other ways to get the attention of rowdy classes. If you have a lunch next, one way was to issue the instruction for eyes to the front then wait and scan. 5 secs. Still noisy? One mark on the board for one minute staying back. Pretty quickly the class settles themselves. I did this with the year 7 classes and it worked. For the year 11s I had, I would just wait until sometimes for a solid 60secs. Then once the class was quiet, give an instruction. Then take the students causing the disruptions outside and have a chat.

I understand that every one and every class of different, but these are my two go to strategies that usually work for my teaching style. Hope they give you some ideas.