Most of you probably know that I am a primary school teacher. I have a new class each school year, it’s always a 6th grade, so the last year of primary. I know of my students already, because I teach French in 5th grade. My school year starts on Monday, so thought it would be time for another job related blog post.
We get eight weeks off in summer, but of course it’s not all free time, we have to prepare a lot fort he new school year, I thought I will tell you what we have to prepare. I wrote a post about teacher holidays, have a look here: The Truth about Teacher Holidays
The basis for the preparation is of course the timetable for the new school year. You then know exactly what classes you teach and what lessons/subjects you have to prepare. I have a planning book fort he whole school year with the each day in and then space for every lesson. For all the subjects I teach I have made a yearly plan, with the topics, the book pages, curriculum info and other instructions. That’s a lot of work the first time you do it and then you can always use it. I tend to change the plan sometimes, especially when it comes to topic order. Occasionally we have to change them, because we have to use a different book. If you of course start teaching anew subject to you, you have to write that kind of plan. I then take these info and start planning out my lessons. I usually write short notes about these lessons in the planning book, like how I start a lesson, where we work and what I want to do with the children. I of course do that for every subject I teach. Coming with this is adding tests and announcing tests, I write that in the planner as well. I usually plan until the first holidays. In the first week I do something special with the class, like handing out books etc. (more afterwards), so that’s a bit different, but I write that in the planner as well.
A new school year means getting to know each other and filling the classroom with pictures and more. During the summer holidays I always come up with an idea for the classroom door and prepare things for that. This year, it’s a world map and each child will make an individual picture themselves, with a photo, their countries and hobbies. I do the same, so that the kids have an example. We then scratch off the countries, where we are from and make a line to our picture. On top of that the children fill out two profiles (one in German and one in English), which we’ll hang up in the classroom. I also prepare cards with their names on. Yellow and red for my consequence system (Classroom Behavior Systems) and green for my question system. Of course I print lists and make my own for homework completion and grades. The kids write down their goals at the beginning of the school year, I prepare that paper and envelopes to put them in. Each child also gets a little present, so I have to get that as well. We make name cards, to make the classroom look nicer. Moreover, I have to copy things for the first week and then also the weeks after and all the labels have to be printed (we have a labelling machine). We put labels on books, drawers, drinking cups, pegs for different systems etc.
In the classroom a lot has to be ready: all the material, as well as all the school books. I prepare a nice white board picture and hang some things on the wall, like a world map, rule posters etc. I have to think, how to seat the children and arrange the desks. I always put the cards and the present on the tables for them to know, where to sit down. I need to take out things of my cupboards, because everything is in there for cleaning. I like my classroom to look pretty, so I get flowers as well. I have to make sure the laptops are in the right position and charge. Other material needs to be ready to, like papers for homework etc.
We have to kick off days with the team, where we have lots of meetings about the school year. We plan certain events, talk about the new children etc. During these days we also have the time to prepare the classroom. I usually go up once before to do things like copying and labelling, because everyone needs to do that.
You also have to be clear about the rules in your classroom and maybe a system of how to deal with their behaviour. It’s best to write these rules down and when you go through them with the children you can make sure you really mention them all.
Extra material needs to be ready as well, like mandalas, logicals, games etc. I also like to have a nice bookshelf and reading corner.
I work at a private school, so I don’t have to do these things but of course a lot of teachers have to think about how to communicate with parents and also send out letters with all the important info.
I’m sure there are many more things and every teacher does it differently. I’m very excited to start this new school year.
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