Starting over (and loving it)

Two weeks ago I began teaching in a new school. No big deal perhaps, I mean people swap jobs all the time. Well, yes, they do but this blog is all about effective teaching and I wanted therefore to share my experiences of starting over and in particular how that process might be made more straightforward.

The first thing that happens when a teacher moves schools is that the news travels fast. Some colleagues make jokes about ’sinking ships’ and others, perturbed, ask why. In truth, most of us move for both ‘push’ and ‘pull’ reasons. The push commonly comes when ones school changes direction, say, a new ethos that doesn’t match ones principles. The pull may be for reasons of ambition or challenge or a perception that the grass is indeed greener elsewhere. Whatever the reasons, the process is a protracted and painful one for all concerned.

Packing up cardboard boxes of my teaching resources, I had some time to reflect on this. Horrors of the ‘what-the-hell-have-I-done’ kind at times drowned the excitement but there was no turning back and I left the school where I’d worked for nearly fifteen years for one much larger and more complex.

At my new place, things are very different. I am very different. For a start, I am far less effective at present than I was at Northcliffe. I should have expected that I suppose but those little elements of my daily work seem to take far longer and slow me down which in turn limits what I can achieve. At times it feels like attempting to run in treacle. Take a little thing like trying to get some certificates to a student’s form teacher. This would have been a few minutes of work at Northcliffe but somehow became a task that took the best part of one non-contact period.

Not that I’m complaining. I know that this is all part of the transition process and that things will eventually speed up. It is however, dispiriting to be less effective than I know I can be. The question here for teaching managers I suppose is ‘how can we make these transitions as painless (and short) as possible?’ To that end, I’ve been making a list.

First of all the new teacher needs all the requisite information about school systems. This means everything, from the large and obvious to the very small and frequently overlooked. Someone on the existing staff has to take responsibility for this process and think themselves inside the head of the new teacher. For example, my immediate concerns in the transition were based around day to day work needs: how to take a register; how to create and print resources; and how to have them duplicated. I also needed class lists; information about students’ additional needs; prior attainment data; short and longer term targets for my students; overviews; and planning time – lots of it (because everything will take longer than ones previous experience would suggest).

In the category of ‘mundane but necessary’ are also things like: room keys; remote controls (for IWB projectors without switches); access codes; and IWB pens. An up-to-date school map with room numbers would be handy as would clearly marked lavatories, canteens and workbases. In fact the teachers with responsibility for this process would do well to work a day in a new teacher’s shoes to find out just how difficult denuded working is.

Next the new teacher needs to understand the roles and responsibilities within the new school structure. Yes, some of this is obvious and familiar but a lot isn’t. After all, just who is in charge of say, data, assessment, reports, SIMS or room bookings? A decent, clear ’school roles plan’ would clear that one up nicely.

Then there’s the question of meetings and where I’m expected to be and when. Again this is an easy matter and there should be no surprises. I’m delighted to say that my new school has a rather helpful induction package for all new teachers. Excellent practice I think.

Finally, there’s the thorny issue of support. We all know that kids try it on with new staff so having a decent support system for new staff is essential. Yes, there will be systems of support that existing staff use but, in the case of new teachers, something extra is required. Some schools use a ‘buddy’ system for this one. The idea being that an established colleague acts as the first point of call for issues of classroom management. This takes pressure off the regular school systems and allows the new teacher to negotiate exactly how the support if provided.

In my first school my Head of Department, Rob, had just such an embryonic buddy system. I was told, if I ran into difficulties, to send a student to the department office for some red chalk (yes, it was that long ago). This, of course, was an invisible signal for ‘I need help’. When the supporting teacher arrived (with the chalk) I was able to thank them and then, feigning a sudden thought, ask them if they wouldn’t mind if little Shane worked with them. The system worked well and the new teacher was seen by students as the one in control. Bad practice in this respect is exemplified by the senior colleague who marches in to ones lesson, tells the kids to behave or take off their jackets or whatever, and then leaves. In this scenario, the new teacher is viewed by her students as powerless.

Why does all this matter? I mean, surely the new teachers would work these things out in the end anyway. The answer here is yes, probably, but it would take a large amount of time for even the most committed teacher to work through all these issues. In much the same way that the expected norm for a lesson is to have a sharp start, the beginning of a term should be similarly crisp.

For school managers reading this, a checklist is available to download here .