Three Things To Do To Have A Great School Year!

This is the start of my 13th year as a teacher (wow! That went by quickly!) and I have a few strategies that really help my school year go great.  I hope these help you too, and I'd love to hear what you do to get the year off to an excellent start!

Here are my top three tools to make a transition from summer to school a little easier:

1) Take a moment to reflect on last year.  What went well?  What did you resolve to do differently?  What problems cropped up that you’d like to avoid this year?  I’ve found that strategically journaling about my previous year can help guide this year in a positive direction.

2) Set some goals for this year. As a teacher, my goals this year include trying new strategies to learn students’ names more quickly (send me your ideas!), creating a routine around Sunday evenings so I am always up to date on grading and lesson plans, and re-writing my assignment descriptions in a standardized format.  What goals would you like to achieve this year?  Write them down!

3) Create systems around organizing your tasks, notes, and deadlines.  For me, this includes creating a new teacher planner for myself and printing a notebook for each subject I teach.  It also includes inputting new due dates into Canva (our learning platform) and writing any announcements I’ll need in advance so I can just publish them as needed.  Finally, I write any major school holidays, events, and deadlines on our home calendar so we can schedule around those dates!

Do you have any back to school strategies that help you?  Join our conversation on social media about getting the school year off on the right track!