The very first week of school tends to be so chaotic. Among my colleagues, the first week has adopted the nickname Mayhem Week. Everyone, including teachers, is nervous or excited. There are a lot of new things about to happen and they all seem way bigger than they are after coming off of 8 weeks of summer routines. Plus emotions are running high, there’s people everywhere and classes haven’t even started yet. Hence, MAYHEM WEEK!
Pre-Mayhem- My First Day
In my division, the first day for staff happens before the first day for students. It consists of many, many meetings. This year, we started off with a school-wide staff meeting. We spent time recapping events of the previous year which may need adjusting for the current year. Then we talk about all things scheduling, budgets, recess rules, class rosters, new-comer families, social situations, medical situations to be aware of, assemblies, visiting staff, and the list continues. I’m serious when I say the agenda was 12 pages.
Following this meeting, we have a short break and then prep for a small chunk before our next meeting. Our school received new Smart Board technology (my first smart board ever, yay!) so we got to be in our classrooms participating in a zoom meeting with a Smart Board Presenter. While this meeting happened, I ate my lunch and did some cutting/stapling while I watched. This meeting was followed by another short break before our final meeting.
Our breaks are usually spent running to the bathroom, making coffee and copies, catching up with the teacher-besties and looking at all of the new renovations in each part of the school. The music room had a new floor put in so I consistently had people coming to check it out. This added to the level of excitement because I kept thinking about how excited the kids would be!
The final meeting was short and sweet, but probably my most stressful one. The division had a payroll software update so this zoom meeting consisted of a step-by-step tutorial of how to use it. When the day was over, I was slightly overwhelmed because I ended with less prep time than I thought.
The Mayhem- Our First Day
Our next day was the student’s first day. However, this is when we do teacher interviews. The students come in with parents/guardians to meet the teacher, see the classroom and do a tour of the school. This gives administration and parents both the chance to catch up on any paperwork for the year. This consists of media release forms, medical information, emergency contact information, and bus routes. All of this happens in the library before and after the interview appointment times.
This is where I get to spend my day. I must ensure confidentiality of all forms and be able to pull the correct forms for every student in the school. Then I have to reorganize all of the forms back into their places. The bonus of this is that I get to see who has siblings and make connections with some of the parents. The downside, there were so many people waiting in the library! I felt that I couldn’t take the time to formally meet each group. See my post here about why I believe that is so important.
The Real First Day
So now we are into the first day of classes with the students, no parents. These next few days are spent learning the schedules, routines and expectations, emergency protocols, other staff and students. I don’t usually do all of my rules on the very first day. I like to mix them in as we need them. For example, my students come in and sit on the floor. Here I introduce myself, tell them a little about the music room and then we will play a name game. After that, we sit back down to discuss fire and weather drills. We also discuss what lining up to leave the music room looks like.
The next music class, we will play a different name game, review the emergency protocols, learn a song or dance, and then talk about what responsible musicians do.
All in all, the first few days of school are all about building relationships and learning about who my students are. We are in for a great year!