New Year, New Classroom: Five Top Tips for an easy transition back to school
We’re all guilty of having high expectations for a new year. ‘New year, new me’ floods our eyes and ears in every possible way throughout January. It often gives us hope for what we can achieve in the future, psyching us up for big changes, both personally and professionally.
But what if we harnessed this idea and used it to our advantage within the classroom? January is a natural point to pause and take stock. We can reflect on what has come before; that challenging first term with a new class or cohort of children, finding their feet and you finding your groove.
It’s also time to look ahead to what needs to happen before the summer. Two more jam packed terms to achieve those goals and make progress.
So, if you’re ready for a January reset, read on for my five top tips to a ‘New Year, New Classroom’.
Pause and Relax
Top tip number one, relax. It’s far too easy to dive right in and decide that you can take over the world. Take time to pause for thought, especially with the children in your first few days back.
Imagine you’ve spent two weeks, overindulging, out of routine, being excited (you probably don’t have to imagine too hard). Then think, how might you feel as a child on their first day back at school?
A little relaxation is good for us all. It helps us to focus, be calm and be ready for what is to come. Taking the time to show children how to co-regulate and providing the skills and tools for them to stay calm and content in the classroom can help to ease children back into routines and be ready for learning.
This video from CBeebies Parenting provides tools to support your child's 'big feelings'
Reset your boundaries
Next, revisit the basics, don’t presume your cohort has remembered those non-negotiables you set out in September, practised in October and embedded in November. Those expectations were also probably less focused upon throughout December, amongst the fun and excitement.
Start your new year with a reset, without too much expectation on children to act upon these expectations straight away. Imagine January as a September refresher course, go through those classroom rules and expectations as if you were teaching them for the first time and allow children to get back into routine over the first few weeks.
Readjust your goals
Ensure that your classroom goals for the new year are small and manageable. We’re all guilty of trying to do too much at once. Focus on one thing at a time; whether that be one person speaking at a time, tidying up as a team, making sure belongings are put away correctly and make the children accountable for tracking their progress towards this goal. Display your goal in the classroom, tick off how many times you see it achieved and celebrate your success!
Focus on relationships
January is a great time to invest in relationships. Building children’s social skills will always positively affect behaviour, engagement and self-esteem.
Start by checking in, how are your class feeling. Validating feelings and providing reassurance helps to re-strengthen those bonds after a holiday period.
Effective relationships help to lower stress, improve mental wellbeing and resilience. Allow time for children to reconnect with one another through shared games or experiences in those first few days back.
Our Early Years Partnership team offer training to highlight positive behaviour techniques for children under 5. Find out more and book your place HERE
Reset the environment
Finally, it's time to declutter and reduce overload. Is anyone else guilty of putting their Christmas tree away on the first day back? It’s always great, if possible, to remove these items before the children return to school. Lingering Christmas can be confusing and overwhelming for some children.
By resetting your environment children will see that it’s time to move on and be ready for the learning ahead. Think about your organisation systems; do they need topping up or reorganising?
Replace broken peg and drawer labels and make sure visual timetables and reward charts are set up and ready to go. Think about your sensory offer. What tools do you have available to support children’s sensory input? Our Inside the sensory world training can give you lots of practical advice and suggestions of how to adapt your environment to suit all learners. These small tweaks can make a big difference to the smooth running of everyday routines and work towards allowing every learner to succeed.
January is a time to set new goals, take on new challenges and make changes but it can also be a time to pause, reflect and reconnect. These top tips can help you shape and refocus your start to the new term and hopefully give you a positive start to a happy new year!
Good luck!
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