Inside: Read 5 easy tips for how to deal with back to school anxiety for teachers and have a calmer start to the year.
Are you always frazzled starting back to school?
If you’re like me, you probably experience a certain amount of back to school anxiety with the lead up to school starting.
Whether you’re a new teacher or you’ve been around for a while like me, there is so much to think about and to plan for back to school.
Where to start?
I think about things so much, that I often I can’t sleep in the weeks before school starts, with the tornados of thoughts going around and around in my head.
These easy tips I offer will hopefully help to show you how to deal with the back to school anxiety and give you suggestions for planning and preparation – helping to calm your mind and ensure you have a more peaceful start to the school year.
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Helpful Ideas for how to deal with back to school anxiety for teachers
Tip 1: Brain dump everything in your head onto paper
If you write everything down that you are thinking about or what’s worrying you, as well as all the tasks that need to be completed, it will help cut the anxiety that you are feeling. It gets it out of your head!
I know there’s a lot going on up there. Tell me about it. I remember my first teaching placement straight out of university. Woah, was I overwhelmed. I had so many things going around in my head. I didn’t sleep for 3 days, it was that bad.
The next year was the same.
The only way I could finally get some rest was to write it all down. Often I just write for pages and pages. One time, I think I had about 7 pages in all.
Anything and Everything! That’s my recommendation for you and then later you can deal with each thing as it’s needed.
Now it’s all on paper, you don’t have to keep trying to remember everything.
Later, you can make a more organised to-do list and prioritize each job.
Related Article: How to Save Valuable Time in the Classroom: An Easy 3-Step System
Tip 2: Set your intention for your first day
Another great tip I use to cut back to school anxiety is to have a positive intention written down of how I want my first day to go and what my goal is for the year.
These types of intention statements are so powerful because they will set the mood for your first day and the new year and make you feel positive going into a brand new class. This will help lessen the strain on your nerves and calm the teacher anxiety.
I like to make statements such as: “This day will run smoothly with no dramas.” “I will feel calm and have everything organised ready for the students to arrive.” “We will have a positive day of learning and getting to know each other.” “I will learn all of my students’ names by the end of the day.”
Also, if you want to, you can pray over your class, if this is something that would be helpful for you. A higher power certainly can help calm the mind if you know He’s got it all ‘in his hands’.
Tip 3: Be very organised
Teachers who plan ahead tend to feel less anxiety. So before the school year starts you can use this time to be organised with absolutely everything.
Here’s some suggestions for you:
- Make sure you know exactly what you will be teaching
- Organise all or your resources, prepped ready to go
- Sketch out your classroom arrangement so you know where you want things
- Set up your classroom space, with the student desk arrangement, where you want your teacher desk, the bookcases, shelving and all centres planned
- Know where all of the resources will go into your room. Like tissues, printer paper, textbooks, student-shared resources, student headphones, dictionaries, etc. Designate a spot for everything.
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Tip 4: Plan your first week of teaching thoroughly
- Make sure the first day is planned thoroughly
- Outline your timetable for the first week
- Know what Back-to-School activities you will be doing for ‘breaking the ice’ and ‘getting to know you’ with your students
- Write lesson plans for everything
- Know what classroom rules and expectations you will be implementing
- Have a clear classroom management plan in place with timeframes of how you will teach it to your class
- Outline all of your routines and procedures and know when you will teach them to your class
- Have a day one PowerPoint prepared to display on your screen – giving clear instructions to your students of what you need them to do when they arrive on the first day (write it on the board, if you don’t have a projector)
- Think about anything that could go wrong and plan for it
Related Articles:
- Easy Back to School Activities for Teachers to Get to Know Your Students
- 12 Strategies for a Successful Classroom Management Plan
Tip 5: Identify your biggest stressors from last year
If you can identify your biggest stressors from your last school year, you can plan ways to streamline or simplify them.
It might be something that didn’t go well on the first day or in week one.
It also might be something you wish you had taught students earlier in the year to make things run more smoothly.
Plan for these things, with the view to implement them now. This will cut back on your anxiety because you will know you’ve got everything covered as best as you can.
Related Article: 15 Easy Relaxation Strategies to Beat Stress!
Last words on back to school anxiety for teachers
There’s no doubt that back to school takes a lot of thought and planning, but hopefully, with these tips, you will be able to stop the teacher anxiety and be able to sleep soundly.
Good luck for a calmer and anxiety-free return to school!
Michelle x
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