Back to School - Year Fifteen!

School starts up in a couple of weeks here in Nova Scotia, and I can hardly wait! I appreciate having the summer to relax and reset, and to find time for independent professional development, and I also love heading back to school. I've had another commitment that is keeping me very busy these last couple of weeks before school starts, and I'm feeling the itch to get into my classroom and get set up.

Similarly to last year, I have sent out a letter to each of my incoming grade 8 students, and prepared our Google Classroom and Flipgrid introduction topic. I've also written a letter to parents/guardians this year, inspired by Monte Syrie and Allison Krasnow, which will go home the first day of school. My letter outlines things I want them to know, and also invites them to tell me about their child.

Here's a copy, feel free to modify & use if you wish!

 

It's important to me to maintain positive connections with my students' caregivers, and it's not something that I've always been particularly good at doing. Over the past few years, I've made it a priority to communicate regularly, sending both important information as well as personal notes about students (I use the add-on Email Parents to help organize this) I've received a lot of positive feedback from parents about this practice, and I feel very good about the open lines of communication that this creates.

Connections Matter

In August last year, before school began, I sent out a letter to all of my incoming grade 8 students. I wanted to set up the importance of connections before they even set foot in my classroom. We did Morning Circle every day, we talked about intentionally creating a community, we shared smiles and frowns.

I've always tried to make my classroom a strong community, and this is the first year that I made such an explicit effort to let my students know what my intentions were. I don't know why I hadn't been this explicit before, and I will absolutely continue to include students in my thought-processes, and in helping to build our community together.

To bookend the year, I wrote a letter to my students to include in their report card envelopes on the last day of school. I am not the first teacher to have this idea of course! I drew inspiration from many other teachers on Twitter, and ultimately I am very pleased with the list of life lessons I wrote up for my students.

Here is what I wrote. If it can be of use to anyone else, I'm happy to share :

Connections matter. In person, in writing, always.