In-service is one of the busiest weeks of the school year, and it is probably the most stressful for teachers. Here are a few suggestions that will hopefully help make the start of school a success. 

Communicate Early

Introduce yourself to parents as soon as possible. Start connecting personally early in the week through email. Offer some personal background about yourself, share your love for teaching, and convey your goals for the students.  It may be too early in the teacher-in-service week to offer all the detailed class instructions you want parents to receive. Details can be distributed in a handout or an email later in the week or even during the first week of school. But connecting personally should be the first priority. 

Map out the Year

Develop a one-year plan to ensure that you will cover all the required material and essential skills. Your method of choice may be a pacing guide, curriculum map, course outline, or another document. Regardless of the type of document you choose to create, developing a year-long summary provides the confidence needed that the course essentials have been planned. You will need to adjust the document throughout the year as needed, but developing the year-long curriculum plan at the beginning provides the starting point needed to keep your instructional plans organized.  

Walk Through the School Day in Your Mind

You want to prepare procedures and plans for every aspect of the school day. Do your best to not be caught off guard in the first week of school. You not only need to have procedures for every task, you will need to instruct students about where to go and how to follow through with your plan. It might help if you literally walk through the day. Start with your class’s morning routines. Move through each class period as a student. Get the layout of the school campus, walk to the playground, move your class to the lunchroom, prepare for the car-pool line, and contemplate every other transition and task possible. 

Pray about your attitude. 

The start of school is a stressful time, and that’s a reality that will not change. Prayer will guide you if you will be specific. Write down your yearly goals, personal needs, students’ names, co-workers’ needs, and other matters important to your teaching responsibilities and relationships. Watch how prayer powerfully keeps you focused on the essential, guides you with wisdom, and makes you a much more compassionate person to work with.  

Plan the First Two Weeks of School

Try to develop at least 2 weeks of lesson plans. You may have to adjust after the first week – that’s understandable. Being extra-prepared academically will lighten the stress and time-consuming tasks of the first-week of school. During the first week of school, you will be overloaded with more responsibilities and unexpected problems than a normal week. Having a curricular game plan already prepared will give you a better footing to deal with the first week of school. 

Take Meetings Seriously

Don’t sleep through your meetings. Write down at least one take-away from each meeting:  something you really need to remember, something you didn’t already know, something that’s not going to be easy to implement but you need to, or something that’s inspiring. 

Make Your Parent Instructions Easy to Read

In your communication with parents, use bulleted points as much as possible for announcements and detailed instructions, not lengthy paragraphs. Especially if you have a lot of information to present – bulleted points are less likely to be overlooked.

• Be pithy.
• State instructions succinctly.
• Use proper grammar – your competency is at stake. 
• Don’t use a period if it’s not a complete sentence.

Publicize and Emphasize Open House Orientation

In your email letter to parents, emphasize your desire to see parents at orientation. Making an initial face-to-face connection is critical. Circumstances may require you to communicate with parents about some serious issues later in the year. That makes the initial personal meeting more critical so that you will not be perceived as the hidden Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. And when your students show up, give them something – it says that you care about them. It doesn’t have to be expensive or fancy. 

Set Parameters for Communication and Convey Availability

Tell parents how to communicate with you. In your aim to be accommodating, you may intend to answer texts, emails, ClassDojo notifications, Facebook messages, car-pool line questions, Walmart encounters, and every other opportunity parents find convenient. However, you can’t efficiently communicate like that. We recommend email for all official communications, but regardless of what form you choose, let parents know how to contact you. 

Recognize the Power of a Good Night’s Rest

Get some sleep. Yes, you will be physically spent and mentally brain dead by the end of the day. And you will want to de-stress somehow, but this is not the week to stay up late watching Netflix. Sleep, stress management, and concentration are all related. Sacrifice entertainment this week and devote it to getting the school year off to a great start.