10 Hints to Start the School Year off Right!

What we do during the first days and weeks of the school year sets the tone for the entire year.  How we set up our class, share expectations, and establish our school culture at the beginning of the school year can make or break it for the next nine months. In this month’s newsletter, we’re sharing some ideas and links that we have found helpful to getting the school year off to a powerful start.  We hope that you find some of the ideas useful. Feel free to share!
Recommended by Linda Fiorella: 
The First Twenty Days:  Establishing Productive Group Work in the Classroom
With the new Common Core State Standards, it is essential to have students work collaboratively.  Yet one of the major complaints we hear from teachers is that group work is often lost instructional time.  The article that we’ve linked below, “The First Twenty Days: Establishing Productive Group Work in the Classroom” by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey lays out a twenty day plan for establishing expectations, routines, and procedures that will provide a firm foundation enabling you to assign group work–and actually have it work!
Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher are authors of a number of books on literacy and learning, and their ideas are both practical and practiced.  In this article, they split the essential of group work into three categories:
  • Spotlight Lessons on Personal Responsibility
  • Spotlight Lessons on Respectful Discourse
  • Spotlight Lessons on Collaborative Problem Solving
Each category has several lessons detailed that teachers can implement in their classrooms.
Our recommendations for using this article are to
  1. Use it as an initial text study for staff members before school begins.
  2. Have teachers actually practice the lessons with the rest of the staff.
  3. Discuss how to utilize it in classrooms.
Click on the following link to read the entire article.

Advice from Heather Raia:

Establishing Relationships and Inspiring Students
One thing I always made a point to do at the beginning of the year was to make quick, positive contact with every parent/guardian of the students in my class.  Often, this was the first time they had gotten a positive, “just because” phone call and it helped to establish our partnership for the year – especially when I may have to call them later in the year with some news that wasn’t as pleasant.

At the beginning of the year,  I would also post quotes in my class, teach them to my kids the first week, and refer to often as the year progressed. I laminated the quotes so I could use them again.   These quotes are:
1)  Everyone has the right to time to think.
2)  We don’t have to know everything today.
3) We respect the rights of others.
4)  It takes courage to be willing to risk.
5) It is intelligent to ask for help.
6) We are free to make mistakes while learning.

We often see such quotes up in rooms, but what makes this different is taking the time to actually make sure that the students understand them, so they can be referred to throughout the year.

Advice from Loril Gibson:
Establishing the Big Picture
In working in a school for many years, I found it very effective for the leadership team, site council, etc… (Essentially any team that has a representation of all the school) to come together and spend some time looking at the big picture for the school. They might start off by revisiting school improvement goals from the previous year and deciding if those were met, why or why not. Then spending some time analyzing the school years test data and establishing goals for the next year.
I found that this helps with reflecting on strengths and weaknesses and using data to guide decision making. It also helps establish the focus for the whole school in terms of professional development, while at the same time laying out school improvement goals that many schools have to complete as part of their school improvement plan or action plan. This information is then presented to the entire staff at the beginning of the year for input and buy in.
Going through this process increases buy-in and stakeholder ownership in the school.  Everyone feels included, and as a result, there is greater momentum to move forward.

A great link from Kristina Trent-Jaramillo:

25 Clever Classroom Tips for Elementary Teachers
Seeing the clever ideas pictured in the link makes me want to get back into the classroom.  These are some of the most unique and yet easy ideas for organization that we’ve seen in a long time. While we weren’t creative enough to come up with the ideas, we think you’ll love getting them.  Be sure to check out the link!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/clever-classroom-tips-for-elementary-school-teachers

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