“There ain’t no rest for the wicked. Money don’t grow on trees. I got bills to pay, mouths to feed – there ain’t nothing in this world for free.” – Cage the Elephant
This is it, people. The big one. The week that riddles every teacher with a cocktail of emotions. Some embrace it with the poise, calm and elegance of a martini. Others feel like everything on the top row shoved into a mixer and shaken within an inch of its life, mess everywhere. Whatever you’re feeling, it’s because, as the last 6 weeks of Asda adverts have been reminding us…
Back2School!
(Sidenote: If anyone from the Asda marketing department is reading this, thank you so much for starting those adverts the day we broke up for summer. We’re so grateful.)
For me, however, not a lot is changing.
So far, I’ve faced a total overhaul every year I’ve been teaching. First, I moved schools between my teacher training year and my first year of teaching. Then, this time last year, I made the quantum leap from Year 4 to Year 6.
This time – oh, sweet bliss – I’m staying put in Year 6. My fourth year in a classroom and the first time I’ll have any modicum of familiarity with the lessons I’m teaching.
This should be a doddle.
Yeah, right.
This feels strange
Interestingly, despite the relative shiny newness of my career, I’m the only teacher in my year team blessed with this luxury of experience because both the other two are moving from elsewhere – one from Year 5, the other from another school.
Full disclosure – that doesn’t make me the expert. Far from it. The other two have both been teaching longer than me, including our new Early Careers Teacher (ECT).
However, it has been a refreshing change to feel in-the-know on some aspects of what we’re doing. Oddly, I hadn’t anticipated that feeling, my first few days back populated by fleeting moments of experience-led competence.
In true ‘me’ style, it’s also populated by moments of sheer airheadedness.
Such as forgetting where I put the self-portraits my new class drew last year (I found them). Or – every teacher’s nightmare – not knowing where my glue sticks are (yet to be uncovered). Those sticky little godsends are practically a currency in schools and I’ve left myself utterly out of pocket, a bereft little pritt-stick beggar.
I’m not panicking though. As a Yorkshireman once told me ‘it’ll be reet in the end and if it’s not reet it’s not the end’. There’s time yet.
If you’re not a teacher, you will no doubt think I’m overreacting.
If you are a teacher, I thank you in advance for your thoughts and prayers.
There’s no I in TEAM, but there is a ‘ME’ and a ‘TA’
Ok, that doesn’t quite work but you’ll see what I mean.
I once again am blessed with a teaching assistant (TA) this year. Not just any TA – the very gold-standard legend I had last year. The children haven’t even arrived yet and I am unspeakably grateful for her input.
On the penultimate day of last year, we were informed by the school’s preferred painting and decorating contractors that my classroom, along with the rest of the Year 6 end of school, would be painted during the school holidays. This gave us 2 days to tear everything off the walls.
EVERYTHING.
Every staple, every scrap of paper, every errant bogie flicked across the room - you name it.
In a stroke of genius, we decided to get the children to help.
“Kids, tear it all down”.
The highlight of their year.
As a result, we returned this week to beautifully-painted-but-totally-bare walls. Not a great learning environment.
Along with other members of the TA team, my legendary colleague has transformed our clean, grey husk into a colourful, vibrant room that exudes fun, calm and a sense of welcome.
While doing my teacher training, I was in a classroom that had a class teacher, a TA, a supportive adult who worked largely with one student and me, a trainee teacher. My mentor in that class told me a piece of advice that has gone a long, long way:
“If you have a TA, make sure they feel valued because they are the lifeblood of a school.” – a great mentor.
Ever since, I’ve sought to do just that. While I can in no way claim to be an expert, I can share some things that have worked. If you have a TA, I recommend taking these steps.
1. Tell them on day one that it is not the teacher’s classroom with a TA in it, it is a room that belongs to both/all of you. The space, the children, the teaching – you share responsibility for it and you share the glory.
2. Ask for your TA’s advice as often as possible. Mine has been in the industry much longer than I have and makes insights I couldn’t dream of at such an early stage of my career. Both the TA’s I’ve had have helped me learn things in moments that can take years alone. You don’t just learn from them, you make them feel valued.
3. When feeding back to parents, give your TA chance to chime in as well. Parents’ evenings are a great chance to go through the members of your class with them and see if they want to share any thoughts. Tell the children’s parents ‘this is what the class TA thinks of them’ – it always goes down well and makes them more a part of your class in the eyes of others as well.
4. This is something that I felt went down very well last year – include TAs in your reports. Don’t write ‘I think’ or ‘I have noticed’ and so on, write ‘we’ throughout. Include both your names and, if you use them, signatures. Show the world that teaching your children has been a joint effort because it almost always will have been.
TAs around the country don’t get the pay or recognition they deserve – be the difference if you have one.
Welcome, little ones
Like all the wonderful teachers out there, I try and do what I can to make school feel as welcoming as possible for the first day of the year.
If you have ways to contact parents directly (as I believe most schools do), take a moment to send a little note to those individuals who you feel may be anxious about returning rather than excited. Let their parents know how excited you are to see them again; check in to see how they’re feeling; ask what they’ve been up to over the summer. Any attempt to break that pre-first-day anxiety.
Most children won’t need it but, for the few that will, I’ve found in my career so far that taking this moment to check in with them helps them settle.
Obviously, some judgement is necessary here – there may be those anxious few for whom communication from school may be triggering.
The Art of Being Brilliant
The school year starts with inset (teacher training) days for most of us – a couple of days to look over any new curricula, educate staff on new policies, procedures or ideas and refresh our memories on how to start the year.
Our team were treated to a spectacle as part of our second inset day.
An organisation called ‘Art of Brilliance’ came to town. Speaker Martin Burder delivered an on-stage well-being masterclass – part stand-up, part storytime, part therapy, entirely authentic, entertaining and educational.
I don’t want to go into detail about what he shared with us in case I am misinterpreted as stealing their words and claiming merit for their impact but, for any headteachers, team leaders or corporate bigwigs reading, look them up - https://www.artofbrilliance.co.uk/meet-the-team/martin-burder/.
Something I have decided on from this talk is to pencil all the children’s birthdays into my calendar. Not a big task – it took me 4 minutes and 48 seconds (yes I timed it) but a valuable one. I’ll keep my peepers on this throughout the year. Most of them will come in to school beaming on their big day, bedecked with bright, bleeping badges annoncing their new age to the world.
However, most of us will come across a child at some stage who arrives to school on their birthday without even having heard the words ‘happy birthday’ yet. As their teacher, you could be the difference between feeling alone and feeling seen. I will be making a point to celebrating every birthday the second they walk in the door this year.
Follow the leader
Finally, after taking on the school history leadership a year ago, I’m actually starting to implement something.
It’s small but history teacher extraordinaire Stuart (aka Mr T) hammered home the value of well-thought-out timelines in helping create context for children learning about history when I met him. With that in mind, I’ve developed one and rolled it out across the year groups.
Go me.
Just the beginning though. I live in a town littered with historical sites, most of which link to history topics we teach at school. My mission this year has to be to create some experience related to this – a video tour, a school trip, something, anything. I’ve got some ideas so here’s hoping the year doesn’t run away from me and I’m actually able to create something.
After a hectic couple of days in the proverbial cocktail mixer, I feel we’ve got the ingredients in place to take the first sip of the new year. The recipe may need work for the next time – heck, maybe it’ll come straight back up once we’ve tasted it – but I’m confident of a sweet, fun start worth remembering.
Friends make the world go round
Shoutout to my friend Tommy who encouraged me to start writing this. I’m loving it.
Oh, and for the new image on my posts. I didn’t even ask for it.
That, readers, is a real friend.