Top 5 Tips for Teachers: Back to School Edition

The back-to-school season is a time filled with a plethora of emotions – excitement, stress, anticipation, hope, nerves. Did your district adopt a new math curriculum that you’re scrambling to learn? Did you get three new students the morning of the first day of school and rush to make name tags for them so they weren’t left out? Perhaps everything has been seamless? No matter your situation, here are some helpful tips to make every back to school season a success.

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Take Time to Build Relationships With Your Students

Teaching is busy, especially at the beginning of the year. Building relationships with students is such an important part of your job, but sometimes there isn’t time built into your schedule or enough hours in a day to do this. The focus can be so heavy on getting everything done and preparing students for state assessments that sometimes one of the most important parts is brushed over. Starting small with quick student check-ins is a great way to begin implementing daily SEL time. 

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This Year is Not Last Year

Whether your last year of teaching was great or terrible, head into this school year knowing that it will be different. That doesn’t mean that if you had a great year last year, you won’t have a great year this year. It just means you need to look at the year with fresh eyes. You will have different students with different interests and unique personalities. What worked for your students last year may not work this year and ideas that flopped last year may be this year’s biggest successes.

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Anticipate Learning Gaps and Regression

This teacher tip isn't new. Typically at the start of the year, teachers see a bit of regression after most students have been out of practice for a couple months. But on top of that, learning has looked quite a bit different since March of 2020 and there may be some learning gaps to fill for students due to not-so-typical learning models. The expectation to bring students back up to grade level, and even above, is probably a bit overwhelming and puts a lot of pressure on your shoulders.

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Get Ahead While You Have Time

The beginning of the school year is the perfect time to get ahead. While you cannot plan detailed lessons before you get to know your students, you can determine the general sequence of what you plan to teach and do some lesson planning in advance. You can also start to fill out the paperwork for a grant you know you’ll want to apply for, and make initial contacts for any field trips you know you are going to take. As you are going through your to-do list or organizing your classroom, if you start to set something aside to do later, stop and ask yourself if there is any part of it you can do now in order to make it easier to finish up later.

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Remember to Take Care of Yourself

In order to do your job well and take care of your students, you also need to take care of yourself. This teacher tip is non-negotiable. Go for a walk, work on a puzzle, order from your favorite restaurant, or adopt a dog. Whatever it is, don’t forget to take some time for yourself each day! You can even kick your feet up and throw on a movie – we won’t tell anyone!