Tips for new teachers and students during back to school time. Have success and avoid first-year mistakes with these ideas I wish I knew for my first classroom!
If you are a student or first-year teacher just starting, you probably feel overwhelmed by your new responsibilities. Running your classroom and ensuring your students learn the curriculum can be exciting and challenging.
We go to post-secondary to “learn” how to be teachers, but there is so much we don’t learn there. Most of the “real” learning happens once we reach the classroom. It is the experiences we have with children that help us grow and show us how to be good teachers. Having to plan, organize, and manage our classrooms alone helps us learn and grow.
In this post, I hope to share some tips I wish I knew as a new teacher. Those tidbits and suggestions that, if only I had known, would have saved me time and helped me be more prepared. Teaching is not easy, but it should be rewarding and fun, too!
Table of Contents
- Tips for New Teachers: What I Wish I Knew
- Classroom Management for New Teachers: the Key to Success
- The Importance of Organization: What A New Teacher Must Do
- Make an Effort to Develop Parent Relationships
- New Teachers Depend on Others for Advice & Support
- Familiarize Yourself with Available Resources for New Teachers
- New Teacher Tip: Be a Lifelong Learner
- Be Kind to Yourself, New Teacher!
- Back to School Social-Emotional Learning Resource
- More Great Tips for New Teachers
Tips for New Teachers: What I Wish I Knew
Classroom Management for New Teachers: the Key to Success
I wish I had known how important a classroom management plan was before I began. New teachers can create the perfect classroom decor, organize materials, and prepare fabulous lessons. Still, if those classroom management strategies are not ready, it can be a hard beginning. Veteran teachers and I agree that focusing on your management system and how you handle student behavior should be a focus at the start!
I’m not saying that you should I’me all the answers to the issues you may face during your first year of teaching, but having some ideas ready to go is essential for a smooth start. Every year, every class and every student will be different. Management strategies must be changed, tweaked, and adjusted to suit your current classroom.
You also need to decide what type of teacher you are and your philosophy. Which consequences are you comfortable with? Do you prefer positive, motivating strategies? Are you comfortable with rewards? There are many questions to answer.
Many of you won’t know until you begin, but knowing a few tricks up your sleeve will make for a smoother beginning. Your students will look to you for the answers, and you must show them that you have them.
I prefer positive classroom management techniques that encourage good behavior and actions every day. Positive strategies like reward coupons, classroom jobs, and brain break activities leave students feeling empowered and responsible.
I like to build a strong classroom community through weekly meetings and community-building activities. At the beginning of the year, we spend a lot of time creating our classroom contracts, developing routines and clear expectations, and learning classroom rules. These strategies pave the way for a well-run classroom.
Above all, it is important to show kindness, patience, and fairness when dealing with children. Try to remember that they are learning, and part of that means making and learning from their mistakes. Help them not only learn the curriculum but also teach them how to be socially responsible with social-emotional learning activities.
The Importance of Organization: What A New Teacher Must Do
We all know how being organized can help us feel more in control and keep stress down. It is no surprise that being organized in the classroom, as well as having a classroom set-up that is organized, is essential.
When you begin teaching and realize how much material and resources are involved, you quickly realize that you need to develop a system for sorting, storing, and displaying everything you need.
Get prepared ahead of time. Head into your classroom and assess the space. Research ways to organize your classroom and get creative with your space. Play around with the furniture until you are comfortable and it is functional for your needs.
Develop systems for sorting materials and resources in bins and drawers, ways of storing them by theme or subject, and displays of important items so they are accessible for your students.
Not only the physical items need to be organized. You must also plan your year, themes, units, lessons, and more. Develop a way to organize your thoughts and ideas.
With these time-saving tips for teachers, think of ways to work “smarter,” not “harder,” and grab the freebies there to help you get organized.
Make an Effort to Develop Parent Relationships
Work hard to develop relationships with your students’ parents. This will support students in numerous ways. Be kind and welcoming on day one. This is what will make a lasting impact.
Make parents feel like you want to know them and their children. Attempt to build a partnership with parents by openly communicating the good and the bad. Develop trust with parents by being available and accessible when they need to contact and connect with you.
Strive to form connections with parents by showing them that you care about their child and their child’s success. My tips for creating positive parent-teacher relationships are a must-read and full of suggestions.
New Teachers Depend on Others for Advice & Support
While many schools have grade “teams,” some do not. New teachers must find a mentor or a small group of fellow teachers within their grade or subject area to connect with.
Ask questions, borrow resources, and seek information from your colleagues. Run ideas for lessons past them and see what these experienced teachers think. Ask them to collaborate or team teach with you on a project or new activity. Don’t be shy! You will have ideas Don’twill be new to them, so don’t be afraid to share what you don’t
Remember that every teacher started somewhere and had to learn what they know today. No one can do things entirely on their own. Don’t depend only on yourself. You don’t need others to help guide you. Learn from each other. You will be pleasantly surprised at the strong relationships you build!
Familiarize Yourself with Available Resources for New Teachers
Find out what resources are available for new teachers to use in your school. Ask your admin, colleagues, and coaches to show you the resources you should or could use. Examine those resources closely and become familiar with them.
Read them ahead of time over the summer or at home in your free time. Meet with your librarian and explore the library and the literature available.
From there, you will need to gather additional resources to supplement what is provided. Build your classroom library with books you collect or buy to support your teaching. Scholastic and Amazon are excellent sources for affordable books.
Pinterest is a fantastic search engine for images and ideas for the classroom. Simply search for any word, topic, or theme to find many awesome ideas!
Teachers Pay Teachers is by far my favorite place for quality resources. I love it because I can find many variations on so many ideas and pick and choose what will work for my classroom and my students. If you have not visited TpT yet, YOU MUST! Head there and set up your free account.
Then, start searching and downloading quality free and paid resources for your classroom. You can also read the TpT blog for tips and current educational content.
New Teacher Tip: Be a Lifelong Learner
It would be best if you never stopped learning as a teacher. Set goals for yourself as a teacher each month, week, and year, and strive towards them. Know your strengths and what you are good at, and work on those that aren’t.
Be willing to try new thinaren’t adapt your instruction to meet the needs of your students. Every school year, every student will be different, so it is essential to differentiate and learn how to do that effectively.
Educational trends come and go, but it’s a good idea to stay on top of quality ones. Seek professional development opportunities if they become available. Ask your administrators if you can attend a conference about which you have heard great things.
Set out to continue learning in different ways. Observing teachers in other classrooms, reading the latest research-based educational literature, and subscribing to educational podcasts and blog posts are great ways to stay informed.
Be Kind to Yourself, New Teacher!
You cannot do everything and make everything perfect…and that is okay! You will do a great job anyway! Just try your best and be happy with that. Know that lessons can go wrong, and things can fall apart sometimes. Be strong enough to learn from those mistakes and to try a new approach. Be flexible. This mindset is important if you want to avoid burnout and feeling overwhelmed with anxiety.
Some days will be more challenging than others, and some others, you may not want to step into the classroom. Know that you make a difference every day in many lives, even if you are a substitute teacher. Know that your students care about you and how you made them feel, not that your anchor chart looked perfect or that your bins are color coordinated.
Take care of yourself. Leave work at school. Go home and relax. Spend time doing the things you love with the people you care about. Find a hobby and make time for it. Self-care is vital! Kristen from Easy Teaching Tools has this post with thoughtful ways for first-year teachers to relax and find work-life balance. It’s a must-read!
Remember to be kind to yourself and that, above all, teaching is a learning journey, not just for students but for teachers. Never stop learning, growing, adapting, and adjusting to meet the needs of your learners as they change and develop. Best of luck on your first school day and this new teaching career journey!
Back to School Social-Emotional Learning Resource
New teachers will find this back to school social emotional learning resource the perfect companion to your start-of-school lesson plans. It includes mini-lesson ideas and engaging activities that build connections in the classroom and teach children essential social and emotional skills during the most critical time of the year!
The mind+heart SEL back to school resource and activities will support kids as they learn to be positive members of the classroom community, develop self-awareness, build new relationships, and act with kindness and empathy.
More Great Tips for New Teachers
Social Emotional Learning Strategies
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I feel inspired by your words. I am a seasoned teacher, but I feel like a new one because I come from another country.
Thank you for all your tips. I love them!
Preparing teaching materials beforehand is really handy, especially for new teachers. Take it easy and enjoy the learning process while teaching!
Very comprehensive set of tips and very doable too.