Having been in the classroom since 2014, I have learned a lot. Like, a lot a lot. It’s only when I reflect back that I realize how much I have learned about what it takes to be a teacher. Unfortunately, or maybe, fortunately, I had to learn 99% of these lessons the hard way. Meaning, I had to make mistakes to learn the proper way to write an IEP or organize the first day of school. This is because so much of what I do are things I didn’t learn in Quebec teachers college.
I’m not hating on Quebec schooling, it’s just my experience was in Quebec, so I can only talk about Quebec teachers college. I know that Quebec teachers colleges are not alone in preparing pre-service teachers in the practical knowledge required to mould the minds of tiny humans. Having worked with so many teachers from all different backgrounds, I know we all say the same thing. “I don’t know how to do____”, or ask the question, “how do I do____?”.
Today I’m going to share 3 things I didn’t learn in Quebec teachers’ college about starting the school year. I’m narrowing it down to back to school time because otherwise, we’d be here all day!
If you are an elementary ELA teacher in Quebec, you need to download this free handbook I created! It’s called the QEP Competencies Handbook and I created it for myself to simplify the skills outlined in the QEP so I would know exactly what skills I had to teach my students. Click here to download it now!
#1 Thing I Didn’t Learn in Teachers College-What to Do With My Students on The First Day
Tell me if this sounds familiar…You spend the little time you are given during your PD days to set up your classroom. You are using and abusing the laminator to make pretty signs to make your classroom look like those classrooms you see on Instagram.
Then, the day before school starts, you realize you haven’t put any thought into what you’re going to do with all of these tiny humans that will be thrust into your care in a few hours.
They say first impressions are everything. So why wasn’t I briefed on how to make a good first impression with my students.
My goal for the first day is to know every students’ name by the end of the class. This means I will play some ice breaker games with students that involve names. Check out this blog post by Primarily Kate, who shares awesome tips for planning the first day of school with your students!
Also, click here to read the ESL’s Educator’s post about Back to School Activities!
The next goal of mine is to have the students organize and put away their school supplies. This is a chance for me to show them where everything goes and how I have organized the room.
If I have a lot of time with my students on that first day, I will then have the students write me a story. The story could be on any topic they wish. This gives me a chance to get a writing assessment and to learn a bit about what each student is interested in.
#2 Thing I didn’t learn in teachers college-how to set expectations for students and how to communicate them
Behaviour management can make or break how your classroom is run. It is important to decide how you expect students to h=behave in the classroom, and how you will deal with negative behaviour. Deciding on the expectations is the easy part. But how to communicate these rules with students without coming across as a drill sergeant within the first day of meeting these little humans is not so simple.
To be honest, behaviour management is still something I struggle with, and I’m 7 years in!
What I have learned is to:
- Have the rules hung up somewhere in the room so that it is visually accessible at all times
- Communicate how to behave, not how not to behave (example: I “expect you to raise your hand if you have a question.” Not “don’t shout!”. )
- Model good behaviour
- Acknowledge and praise good behaviour right away
#3 Thing I Didn’t Learn in Teachers College-Setting up Routines
In my years of experience, classes run best and students work best when there is a consistent structure to their day. Early in my career as a teacher, I tried to make every day different and exciting. Do you know what happened, I got burnt out from too much planning and the students would often get confused because there was no consistency to the day.
Knowing what I know now, I believe there should be a routine for reading, writing and grammar every single day.
For writing, I have used this weekly paragraph writing activity. Each day, students work on structuring one paragraph. This helps students learn the writing process (prewriting, drafting, editing, publishing) by practicing it each day. Topics are chosen already, making this a very simple task for students to do individually. Click here to check out my blog post where I write about this resource!
For Grammar, I will have this Fix the sentence resource showing in my classroom as students walk in. They will have a few minutes to quietly try and find the grammatical error in the 3 sentences showing. Then, I will reveal the fixed sentences and we will discuss the mistakes as a class.
I love this resource because I don’t always have time to teach grammar. In my last school, I only had my students for one hour a day! This resource would work perfectly if you have your students for a shorter amount of time because it only takes 5 minutes!
As reading responses are a major part of the final Grade 6 Quebec Ministry exam, I try to include responding to reading in my daily routines.
Click here to check out some resources!
Quebec Elementary ELA teachers-Click here!
Final Thoughts
It took me a long time to learn how to have a smooth back-to-school experience, as it isn’t something I personally learned in Quebec teachers college. It also took a lot of mistakes to get it right. Hopefully, if you’re reading this, you won’t have to make the same mistakes I did.
Will you use any of these tips? Comment down below and let me know which ones you are going to try.
PS- Don’t forget to grab your free QEP Competencies Handbook. You can download it now by clicking here!
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