Order your teaching supplies
First things first is teaching supplies. Whether it's your first year teaching, or your 30th, quality equipment is always important when it comes to planning your lessons, creating engaging displays, marking your student’s work and staying organised.
Here’s a list of some basic stationery that is going to come in extremely handy throughout the year:
- Pens (black, blue, red, and various colours for marking work and making notes)
- Pencils
- Rubber
- Markers (for flip charts)
- Highlighters
- Whiteboard markers
- Lined paper
- Plain paper
- Sticky notes
- Ring binders
- Glue sticks
- Scissors
- Storage bins
- Stapler and staples
- Paper clips (regular and jumbo size)
- Scissors (adult and child-sized)
- Paper trimmers and cutting mats
- Hole punchers (single-hole and three-hole)
- Elastic bands
- Thumbtacks
Teaching resources
While there are certainly quite a few things on this list, these are very much the basics you need for your daily tasks, whether that's marking work, explaining tasks to your students on the whiteboard, hanging displays, or preparing worksheets. Aside from these handy items, there are a few other things you can incorporate into the mix to make your lesson planning and organisation even more streamlined, like our teacher resource books! At EPSL, we have a wide variety of top-notch teaching materials to help you keep track of your class's progress and discover new exercises, topics, and fun activities for your students as they settle into their new year group.
Primary school teacher organiser and planner
In addition to our lesson planning resources, our teacher organiser and planner is a must-have for keeping track of your daily activities and notes. It comes complete with planning pages to keep lessons organised, sections for training schedules, customisable timetables, a telephone/address section, space for parents' evening notes, a year planner, sections for recording staff meeting minutes, an index of resources, and more! It's an incredibly handy tool for managing all things related to teaching, managing your daily tasks, and keeping important notes.
Make the classroom welcoming for your new students!
Creating a welcoming classroom environment is essential for setting a positive tone for the school year, and it’ll help you start off your relationship with our new glass on great footing. So, before your new students arrive, it's always a good idea to decorate the classroom with fun and engaging displays that foster a sense of belonging and excitement! It is an exciting time of change for you both, after all.
A well-organised and inviting classroom can help alleviate those first-day jitters and make your students feel more comfortable and, more importantly, ready to learn. This initial effort will help build a positive classroom community that'll last through the year. A great idea is to create a colourful display that incorporates your students' names and pictures. It's a small gesture, but one that shows your students that you've taken the time to prepare something special for them, making them feel welcome and valued. You could even leave space for your students to write a little bit about themselves and hang them up next to their pictures so you can get to know them!
Think up some fun icebreakers
Leading off from our last point, spend some time coming up with some fun icebreakers to create a positive and fun classroom atmosphere from the very beginning! Planning these activities before the school year starts allows you to pick out games and exercises that will help you and your students get to know each other.
Think about fun games, group activities, or simple "get-to-know-you" questions that will get everyone talking and bonding. These activities are super important for helping your students feel connected to you and each other and for setting the stage for a supportive learning environment in which your students feel comfortable coming to you.
Being prepared is essential for creating a great learning environment! From getting all the supplies you need to making your classroom a welcoming place, you'll be all set to greet your new students and build a supportive and fun classroom. Here's to a fantastic school year ahead!
And if you need any more supplies for your classroom, you're in exactly the right place! At EPSL, our personalised exercise books, homework diaries, and vocabulary and spelling books are fantastic supplies to have on hand from the beginning of the school year. With over 40 years of experience under our belts, we are experts in our field and are always on hand to help, so if you have any questions, just give our friendly team a call on 01254 686 500!
