The Present Teacher Podcast

What to ACTUALLY Focus on to Get Ahead Over Summer Break as a Teacher

• Helena Hains • Season 1 • Episode 96

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Starting to work over the summer and wondering what you should ACTUALLY be focusing on in order to get ahead over the summer break as a teacher.

Here I share the top 5 areas I recommend working on over the summer in order to get ahead before back-to-school time starts. We'll dive into concepts such as classroom management, planning, classroom setup, family communication and so much more.

Plus I give in-depth examples of what it looks like behind the scenes when I prepare for the upcoming school year.

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//  ABOUT

I’m Helena, a coach for new and first-year teachers sharing knowledge on how to have a thriving career and personal life.

The Present Teacher Podcast is a resource for classroom management, classroom organization, time management, and teacher wellness. Follow along and learn how to thrive in the classroom and in life.

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Helena:

Whether you're starting your first teaching position or you're just excited to get ahead over the summer for the next year, you might be wondering what should you actually be working on for the upcoming school year? Well, in my years of experience, I've been that first year teacher who really wanted to work ahead, only to work on the wrong things. And in the years past, I've also been able to figure out exactly what I needed to do to get ahead in order to come to the first day of school with the first month already planned, prepped and ready to go. So today I'm going to be diving into the five different areas you should actually be working on to get ahead over the upcoming school year. So, with that being said, let's get started. Hey, teacher Bestie, my name is Helena and I'm the creator of the Present Teacher Podcast. I'm a first year teacher coach and in this podcast, you are going to learn everything from simple, actionable classroom management, social learning and teacher wellness strategies. You know that impact you want to make in the classroom. We're going to make it happen here. You know that impact you want to make in the classroom, we're going to make it happen here Now, despite popular belief, and like I said when I first started teaching, a common thing that I thought setting up for the school year looked like was scrolling through Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest and coming up with cute ideas on what my classroom should look like.

Helena:

And while, yes, that is absolutely the fun of having a classroom and, honestly, one of my favorite parts, that isn't the only area you should be focusing on. So the first area I highly recommend that you get clear about is your classroom management. Now, this is something I didn't think about until the school year started, during my first year of teaching, and it really showed throughout the year, because I didn't start off with strong expectations, procedures and expectations of my students. You could really tell that I didn't quite know what to teach my students when they first came in. So, in order to get super clear on what you want to focus on in regards to classroom management, if you've taught beforehand or even had a student placement or student teaching placement, ask yourself what went well, what didn't go well and what can you tweak or add or eliminate in the future. So, for example, if I decided to reflect on what went well for me, maybe in the past, during my student teaching experience, I was really good at getting the class's attention and getting them at a level zero when it was my turn to talk. Maybe what didn't go well is my students were often chatty and disruptive while I was teaching, after I got their attention. So that's something I want to work on, something that I can tweak. Maybe I didn't necessarily like how I had my students line up. It wasn't very clear on what the expectations were and oftentimes I had to pause what I was doing to reintroduce the expectations because my students were often, you know, chatty and playing in line.

Helena:

The third thing let's see what could I add. Maybe this year I really want to focus on teaching procedures that first week of school so I can really get clear on what it should look like and sound like. That way, the rest of the year, my students are running the classroom without me on autopilot. And the last thing that I can eliminate maybe I tried a lot of those TikTok and Instagram strategies I saw online, but they weren't aligned to me. So instead, this year I'm really going to hone in on procedures and expectations and then, once I have those down packed, then I'll add extra positive reinforcements as I go.

Helena:

So this, again, was just an example, but here's some areas I recommend working on in regards to classroom management in order to get ahead for the upcoming school year. The first one is building relationships. How do you plan on building relationships with students from day one? I can tell you in my classroom what this looks like. It looks like me greeting them in the morning. It looks like while they're doing their morning work. I might have a conversation with them about what's going on at home, what their interests are outside of school, and I'm taking inventory of all this. That way, later in the school year or that week, I can start incorporating their interests into the school day to build that relationship.

Helena:

Another area I highly recommend you work on in regards to classroom management are procedures. So procedures are how you expect students to act or behave or interact with different items throughout the classroom. So ask yourself what procedures do you want to teach and when do you want to start introducing them? Now, I have plenty of different weeks in the past where I talked about procedures In general, though I recommend anywhere from three to five procedures that you introduce a week, and here are some general examples I recommend in regards to procedures to teach your students. The first one is raising their hand when it's their turn to speak. Next one getting in line. What does that look like and sound like? Grabbing a pencil, using the restroom, usually responding to a class call, and what they should be doing after. What it looks like and sounds like to walk in a line or get in line. What does it look like and sound like when they come in in the morning or come in any other time of the day? What does it look like in selling, when they pack up and get in line to leave? What about transitioning centers?

Helena:

All of these are different routines and procedures that you want to be super clear about and teach throughout the school year. Now, if I overwhelmed, you don't worry. I don't expect you, nor do I recommend teaching all of that the first week of school. But what I do recommend is, like I said, pick your first three to five procedures you want to teach and then get super clear on that and once they become a habit for your students, then start adding as you go. I like to give myself about a month of a light review and curriculum before I go heavily into content. That way I have that room and that space to start teaching my kids the expectations In the past. Like I said, I've talked about what procedures I recommend teaching specifically in kindergarten and second grade during the first week of school, so I'll make sure to link that in the description where you can find those resources. But in general, like I said, pick your top three to five and figure out how you wanna teach them and if you're gonna teach them using a presentation, using I don't know anchor charts, however, you plan on creating a visual to teach this to your students. You can always make those ahead of time. That way, the resources are already made for you and if you're planning out for the whole month, your month of procedures are already planned out, ready to go. I also have a resource on how I teach procedures, so I'll make sure again to link that in the description.

Helena:

The next thing I recommend that you work on in order to get ahead over the summer when it comes to classroom management is how you plan on responding to disruptive behavior. Now, what levels and how many times will you respond to student behavior? I would map this out ahead of time and stay firm in your consequences. That way, students aren't likely to continue doing it because they know that you're going to give them ample warnings before you actually take action. So maybe the first time a student is disruptive and disruptive behavior, a quick mindset shift I want to invite you to take is behavior is just a way of communication. When I'm talking about disruptive behavior, I'm talking about a behavior that has a negative impact on that student, or on the environment or students in general. So this disruptive behavior for example, maybe I have a student who is talking while I'm teaching Instead of calling that student out in front of the whole class to then invite them into a power struggle with me, maybe instead, my first time that a student is partaking in disruptive behavior, my default move is to stand next to them.

Helena:

Now, something magical happens when you stand next to students. When you are standing next to them, they are less likely to continue the disruptive behavior because they know you are right there, and it's just a quick way to remind them of expectations without actually saying anything. The second time, maybe you pull them for a sideline conversation. I have plenty of content, like I said, about how to do this, but in general, having a silent conversation while everyone else is working outside of the class will help you remind the students of what the expectations are, what it should look like and sound like, what you're noticing and how you can help them be successful. Maybe the third time they have a natural consequence because they didn't know what it should look like and sound like to focus while I was teaching and I've stood next to them and I've had a silent conversation. Maybe the third time is we take time out of the day to practice what it looks like and sounds like to listen when the teacher is talking. Whenever I give a consequence, I try really hard to make it a natural consequence first, before I move into any of the other things. Either way, mapping out how you want to respond to disruptive behavior is going to help you in the long run because you'll know exactly how you're going to respond without giving people 5, 10, 20, 30 warnings before you respond to them.

Helena:

The fourth area I recommend that you map out before the end of the school year are your classroom rules. Take some time to reflect. If you've had them in the past or maybe your mentor teacher had them in the past think to yourself did they work well and do you want to revamp them or tweak them Now? In general, I recommend having I am statements or positive on what it should look like. So, instead of saying no running, you can make a rule of we use walking feet. So that has a more positive tone and it models the expectation of following that rule on what it looks like and sounds like. So those are the things I recommend that you look at when it comes to getting ahead over the school year for classroom management.

Helena:

Now let's dive into the next area, which I recommend is communication. Now, communication can be pretty broad. Particularly, what I'm talking about is your family communication, as well as your communication with co-workers and admin in general. Now, again, I'm going to recommend that the first thing you do is to get out a journal, or just pause and take some time to ask yourself what went well, what didn't, what can you tweak, add or eliminate for next time? So, for example, maybe if I were I don't know, let's pretend that I'm a couple of years back and I took this reflection I might say you know what? What really went well was that I was consistently communicating with families with a weekly newsletter. What didn't go well, though, was I had a lot of family members lose that newsletter, and I would have to go and print out another one or just make extra copies to send it again in hopes that the student would give it to the families. So instead, what I can tweak about this is maybe, since I use ClassDojo anyways, I'm going to make sure that I also link a PDF version. When I go copy, I'll just scan it and upload it to my computer, and when I do, maybe I'll just start a weekly digital version of my newsletter and I won't have to say much. I can just literally upload the newsletter, so it's in two places at all times. Something I can add like I said, I could just add that and something I can eliminate, maybe.

Helena:

In the past I have had an open book, open office policy where families can contact me whenever they would like. But what I noticed is it was starting to drain my energy, because a lot of families reach out at seven, eight, nine o'clock at night with concerns and I would stay up late responding to those families because I felt guilty for not. Instead, what I can do is maybe I respond to the night before I respond, but instead of sending it, I schedule out my response to be during the office hours. That way I don't forget it and I don't have to think about it or feel guilty. It's just a scheduled response when office hours begin. So that's something.

Helena:

A quick reflection like I just modeled can really go a long way in figuring out how you want to better yourself in this area in the upcoming school year. Now here's what I recommend. I recommend having consistent communication with your families, and here are some ways I recommend doing that. You could do a weekly, monthly, monthly or semi-weekly newsletter. You can have positive communication so you reach out once a month with a positive about that student to show you're there for not only the positive things or just to ask for help, but you're there for the positive too. And then you can also start planning ahead for your parent night. You can do the same reflection to figure out what went well and what didn't. Or, if your mentor teacher did this, what went well for them and what would you like to tweak or add to it in the future.

Helena:

On top of having consistent communication with families, I also recommend having consistent communication with admin and staff. A way you can do this is, let's say, you work in a team of co-workers or you know, maybe you're like at my school we have three second grade teachers. Maybe you check in weekly with them to make sure you're on the same page instead of checking in daily or little five minutes here or there. So maybe I decide on Wednesdays I'm going to consistently check in with my team to make sure we are aligned where we need to be. The second thing I recommend you might want to work on as far as consistent communication with admin staff is clearing out or zeroing out your inbox. The way I do this is I like to create labels on the side of my Gmail and then whenever I finish that task but I don't necessarily want to delete it I'll just drag and drop it to the matching label. That way I can use it for reference for later, but it's not necessarily taking space on my inbox. This helps me, like I said, have a zero inbox and it kind of creates a to-do list almost of things I need to can work on at some point throughout the day. And the last thing I recommend doing is setting up labels those labels I mentioned earlier in my Gmail. I like to set those up and make sure they're ready to go during the summer. That way, as emails start coming in over the summer and during the first week of school, I could just start dragging and dropping and completing them and marking them off my to-do list. And, side note, there's just something about having an inbox at zero. That's just kind of you know, amazing.

Helena:

So we've talked about two different areas. I recommend working ahead or getting clear on for the upcoming school year. The first one was classroom management. The second one was communication. Now let's talk about the third one, which is organization. Now this can be organizing more resources, organizing your digital resources, as well as organizing more materials in the classroom. So, taking some time to reflect, as I've modeled before, ask yourself what went well, what didn't go well, what can you tweak, add or eliminate in the future?

Helena:

The second thing I recommend you look at is your paper resources. For your paper resources, if you're anything like me my first couple years of teaching, I often would put those in a basket because I didn't have the folders ready to file for later. And what happened is I never ended up filing them. So the week before the end of the school year, I sat there for hours filing almost every resource I had ever gotten or printed up for the upcoming school year. And yeah, no, I don't recommend that. So what I recommend doing instead is setting up your vanilla folders in your filing cabinet ahead of time over the summer. I like to do this by whether it's different grade levels, different subjects and then the different skills that I'm teaching for that resource. What I just mentioned you can do with your paper resources. I also like to do that in a digital form. So on the desktop of my computer I like to make different folders with the different subjects, skills etc that I'll be teaching that school year. So as I print it off from TPT or from the curriculum I can just drag and drop it there so I can refer back to it in the upcoming school years.

Helena:

Other areas I recommend revamping or setting up ahead of time for a successful school year are the different areas in your classroom. For a successful school year are the different areas in your classroom. So, taking some time to ask yourself, when I think of the layout of my classroom, which areas worked well together and which ones didn't. So, for example, my first year of teaching I had a very cute library that I had put together for my students, but it was right next to the pack up area and the lineup area and what would often happen is, whenever I would have students come in late or leave early. Those students would then disrupt my students who were working quietly in the library. Therefore, that was a good indicator that those two areas were areas I shouldn't have together in the future. So, moving forward, I made sure that those areas were very separate from each other in the upcoming school years.

Helena:

Some other areas I recommend looking at is organizing your resources and student supplies area. I like to have a dedicated area for my students to get extra resources and supplies so they're not going throughout the room frantically or crazy like trying to get all the different materials they need. There's just one area with all their textbooks, markers, extra glues, extra pencils, sharpening their pencils, everything in between and it works so much better and I'm kind of ashamed to say this took me three years to figure that out, so definitely recommend doing that. Other areas you can I recommend looking at or sitting up ahead is your turn in areas. I like to use a milk crate and I covered this in a previous week, so I'll make sure to link that in the description down below and also your classroom library.

Helena:

I like to organize mine by color coding them based on level I had, because I'm a primary teacher. I had first or kindergarten grade levels. So I used AR because my school district didn't necessarily have a leveling system. So a 0.0 to a 0.9. And then my second was a first grade and then third grade and then so forth or second grade and then third grade. This helped when the school year started because one my students could help organize the library because it was color coded so they could just look at the little barcode and then also it was super easy to tell my kids you're at this color and they could go pick a book in their color.

Helena:

Now I could go on a tangent on this, but I always recommend having one book that is in their level and if they really want to read another book that's out of their level, I don't tell them. No, that's from my background of being a book nerd. But whole different tangent I could talk about if you want to. But either way, those are the different areas I recommend setting up ahead of time, before the school year starts. Now I know I've talked a lot so far about the different things I recommend setting up or getting ready ahead of time over the summer. The first one was classroom management. The second was communication. Now we're at organization.

Helena:

Now let's talk about planning and prepping. All right, you might have started to notice a theme here. The first step is can you guess? Yes, reflect, ask yourself what went well, what didn't, what can you tweak, what can you add or eliminate? And the reason I keep referring back to this is because nobody knows you and your classroom and more teaching style better than you. I can give you all the strategies and principles in the world, but the goal is, if I give you the strategies, you're gonna take, tweak and leave what you don't want, kind of like an all-you-can-eat buffet. So, referring back to your own intuition first is where I highly recommend you start. Think back to yourself what went well, what you didn't like and what can you tweak, because you're going to be able to tell me what went well better for you than I'm going to be able to tell you based on an outside's opinion.

Helena:

So, that being said, after you've taken time to reflect, I recommend that you start planning ahead. Again, I'm gonna refer back to the classroom management section here, but I recommend, when you plan out your year, you give yourself as much time as you can to review procedures or introduce procedures and roles, the reason being when you start off the school year with a high emphasis on classroom management and how you want your classroom to run. You're gonna spend less time dealing with and managing disruptive behavior throughout the school year. That and when you get to I don't know January, february your kids will be fully trained and you won't have to do a thing. This was my favorite thing about teaching is I knew by February I no longer had to reheat my Starbucks coffee because my kids could run the classroom and I could sit back and sip my coffee Best feeling ever. Anyways, when you are planning, make sure to section out some time to go over the procedures and expectations and the rules of the classroom. And then here's an overview of ahead of time on what you should be planning over the summer, the first one being which lessons you're covering, which weeks.

Helena:

Now, you can do this through a digital calendar. Maybe you have a personal planner. I use Happy Planner and I love them, but go ahead and I have. As far as my paper planner goes, I actually have pens that are pencils or erasable and I start mapping out what the possible school year will look like and what lessons or what sorry, what modules and which weeks of the content or the curriculum I'm covering. Also, what you can do is, once you have a general overview, is you can actually start planning your first month out in advance. So once I have a month overview of the first month of school, I can then go day by day and listen my lesson and start prepping out as far as I can. Now you may not be able to get the whole month prepped out, but I do recommend having at least the first week or two planned and prepped out ready to go.

Helena:

A common misconception I had when I first started teaching was I thought that teachers come at least a week or two before students, so surely I would have that time planning. But the reality was that week was spent doing trainings with the district. Now that may not be every district. My years past that's been every district. So having time ahead of time to work in your classroom and prepped out is going to help you rely less on that time that you think you might have. That you may not. So, like I said, planning the first couple weeks and then prepping out the materials so that you can get ready to go.

Helena:

And make it simple, In years past I have talked about how I like to do themed units or themed books during the first couple weeks of school because it's a great way to tie in the skills they're going to need for the rest of the curriculum, but also it's a great way to teach procedures and expectations. I'll go ahead and in the description, I'll link to some of the themed books that I like to teach. I have a kindergarten and a second grade one, so feel free to check those out. The second grade one, I would say, is pretty good for upper elementary as well. With that being said, we've talked about I know we've talked about a lot.

Helena:

Here are the different areas I recommend getting ahead ahead of time over the summer. The first one is your classroom management. The second one is your communication. Third one organization. Fourth one planning and prepping. Now let's talk about the fifth one, which is grading and data. Now, you might not think that this is an area you can set up ahead of time, but it is. First I'm going to ask you drum roll, yes, to reflect, ask yourself what went well, what didn't, what can you tweak, add or eliminate, and then, after you've taken some time to go ahead and reflect on that, think of different ways to keep up with grading and inputting data. If you're anything like me calling myself out here.

Helena:

I wouldn't grade as consistently as I wanted, so the couple of days before report cards are due may not or may not be looking at you too. If you can relate, I feel your pain. I would stay up super late trying to grade everything to put it in before report cards were due. Now how can we do that differently? Because I don't know about you, but that's stressful and I don't want my school year to be stressful. So maybe instead you pick a day and a prep that you are grading. For me that was Thursdays. Thursdays were my grading day. Thursdays were my data day. Thursdays I inputted grades so that on Fridays I could send the work back home with my kids. It worked beautifully no more staying up late the night before a report card to do and no turn in basket of papers that half of them I ended up throwing them away because I didn't have time to grade them. So don't do that. So think of a way you can make this easier on yourself and a different way to keep up with grading. If you can relate to anything I just said, all right. So that wraps up a lot of different ways you can get ready and get ahead over the school year.

Helena:

So these are the different areas we covered to prepare ahead of time other than just setting up your classroom to look cute and, you know, match your theme. So the first one was looking at your classroom management. The second was communication. Third one was organization. Fourth one was planning and prepping and fifth one was data and grading. If you would like to dive into many of the links I mentioned earlier or content I mentioned earlier, I put all of my top 10 questions and or tips about setting up your classroom and I put it into the ultimate classroom setup guide. So if you want one spot to refer to all these links and all the materials and the must haves and don't haves and should do's and shouldn't do's and my mistakes and what I wish I would have done earlier, I recommend downloading the guide. You just let me know where you want me to send it to and I'll send it to you for free. I just know that, as a new teacher, there were things that I wish I would have known to have a better school year and if I can help you out with that, happy to. The second thing I recommend is if you felt a little bit overwhelmed by all the things I mentioned.

Helena:

Don't worry, I got you, because I don't know if you know this about me I am an avid traveler. I've been to Costa Rica, honduras, cancun, italy, germany, canada, you name it. I love to travel and if you told me I had to work the entire summer on my classroom, I would cry, because I like going to the beach, I like going to the mountains, I just travel. So instead, after about my second year, I learned how to set up my classroom in four weeks. So instead of using my entire school year to prep for the upcoming school year and then feeling frazzled by the time school started because I spent my entire break working, I created a floor week program that walks you through step-by-step, what we just talked about on how to set your classroom up for success over the summer, like I said, in four weeks. I gave you the short, sweet, actionable, step-by-step framework to get there, because I don't want to spending eight to 10 weeks prepping for the school year.

Helena:

I would much rather be, you know, connecting on Instagram, over pina coladas or by the pool, because we're both hanging out and enjoying our summer because our classroom's already set up. So if that's something you're interested in, feel free. I'm going to put a link to the waitlist in the description and because I'm only going to be doing this program live once this year and I'm going to be pre-selling the course soon or the program soon, and meaning the earliest price means you get the biggest discount. So if that's something you want help on, make sure to join the waitlist in the description down below. If you are watching this outside of that time, you'll still be able to join it, but you won't get the live support that you would if you joined it over the summer. And if you've already joined me in this, don't worry, you are already in. You get lifetime access. So as many times as you want to go through it live with me, you can, all right.

Helena:

So what questions do you have about setting up your classroom for the school year? Feel free to either send me a DM, drop in the comments down below. With all that being said, teacher Bestie, as always, remember we are stronger together. Thank you so much for hanging out with me and I'll talk to you soon. Bye. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode. I hope that you were able to take away some value that will help you thrive inside and out of the classroom. It would mean the world to me if you could take five seconds right now and leave a review on this podcast. And if you found this podcast especially helpful, make sure to take a screenshot of this episode right now and tag me on your socials to let me know you're listening. As always, remember that we are stronger together, with all the love in the world. Helena, aka the Present Teacher. See you next time. Teacher bestie.

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