Hi! I'm Katrina AKA The Animated Teacher and I thought I'd make this video about my top tips
if you are a new or beginning teacher. Why am I doing this video? Gosh, dropout rates
across the world for teachers in the first five years is quite substantial. In Australia,
which is where I'm from, in the first five years the dropout rate is between 30 and
50 percent. Dropout rates for teachers in America in the first five years is 40 to 50 percent.
Dropout rates for teachers in the UK in the first five years is about a third of teachers will leave
the profession. There's obviously a wide range of reasons as to why these teachers leave and
obviously I can't cover all of those issues so I put together some of my top tips for surviving
those first few years as a beginning teacher. Now I say surviving because, let's be honest,
it's about surviving. You won't be thriving in the first few years and if you are, that is fantastic,
but it's highly likely that you're going to struggle, and it is going to be about
surviving those first few years and getting as much experience, and confidence under your belt.
So let's get into it... What are five of my top tips? Now I have a lot of tips,
but these are the ones that if you only ever watch this video of mine and nothing else,
these are the ones I want you to know about. Tip number one - SAY NO! Say no to anything and
everything extra. Now this might be controversial because you've just started a new job and you you
want to impress people and you want to make a good first impression and you walk in there with all of
this beautiful, bubbly energy and you're excited and you're nervous and other teachers see that and
they think 'oh my gosh you would be great at... the debating team / looking after this stem club'
all of these extracurricular things that are just going to put extra pressure on you.
And you know what? They're probably right! You would be fantastic at those things! But not in
your first couple of years. You need to focus on working out your own classroom strategies;
You need to focus on learning your content that you're going to be teaching the students.
You have to say no to all those extra things. Now how do you say no graciously? Like this!
This is what you say...you say: "Thank you so much for thinking of me for that opportunity!
I would definitely be interested in the future, however, this year I really need to focus all my
energy on building my teaching skills and ensuring the needs of my class are met."
Who can say anything to that?! That is exactly what you're meant to be doing and it's exactly
what you're employed to do as a teacher. So please don't feel bad about saying no, it is honestly
the best advice that I can give you. Say no to anything extra.
Tip number two - start your lesson planning with a learning intention or learning goal and success
criteria. What are you actually wanting your students to understand and how do you get them
there? How do you know that they actually have understood it? That is your learning intention
or learning goal and your success criteria. Now the reason I say this is because I know how
much time can be wasted trying to come up with activities and trying to find resources
for a particular topic. So this is really about trying to save you time, making sure that you
know exactly what you're trying to achieve in that lesson. As much as it is important for you to have
a learning goal and success criteria for your own lesson planning, it's also important for your
students to have that and for it to be present and visible in the lesson so that their brain
can get set on the right path towards learning right from the start of the lesson as well.
Tip number three - take your sick days. You are going to be sick as a beginning teacher
because you need to build your immune system to all of the nasty things that your students bring
into the classroom and, let's be honest, a lot of students aren't great at their personal hygiene.
But it's not just about taking sick days when you're sick,
it is also about taking sick days when you need a mental health day. Your mental health is possibly
the most important thing that you need to look after in your first years as a teacher.
Take the sick days! Don't push through it or you're going to burn out. Don't stress about what
pressure that might put on your faculty or other teachers that might need to cover your lessons,
they've all been there and your time will come where you can repay that favour.
You need to look after yourself. Now taking a mental health day or a sick day might look like
you having to sit at home all day long and do marking. It might look like you sitting at home
and just trying to learn the content that you have to teach for the next two weeks.
That is okay! But you need to make sure that you're being smart about how you use your
sick days and don't just not take them. They're there for a reason! Please take your sick days!
Okay, tip number four - don't spend money on decorating your classroom.
Now this is probably controversial and I know that a lot of you will be on Instagram and Pinterest
looking at these amazing classroom setups. New teachers are spending hundreds of dollars of their
own money to make their classroom look great. This is not a bad thing. That's a great thing! However,
it's not actually going to help your students be better learners and it's not going to make you a
better teacher. Spend your money on resources. You have potentially zero lesson plans.
You don't have any worksheets. You don't have any fun activities because you're just starting
out! If you've got a couple of hundred dollars to spend on classroom decorations,
don't do it! Save a little bit for decorations, sure, but spend the bulk of that money on
getting your resources. Go on to things like teachers pay teachers. Go on to TES.
Search the internet for excellent teaching resources in the topics that you are the least
confident in teaching. This is going to save you so much time and time as a new teacher is the most
important thing for you because everything takes a long time because you're learning it all for the
first time, you're teaching it all for the first time. That is where you should be investing your
money. And these resources, they're going to be used for years and years and years to come, and
each year you can just build on them until you're confident enough to make your own resources,
or even just to give you the time to create your own resources. If you buy five resources for this
week, then that means you've actually got extra time up your sleeve where you can be creative,
you can try new things, because you've saved your time and you've used your money wisely.
Alright this is my final tip, tip number five, and i'm actually going to do a whole new video
on just this one tip because it is so important. This tip is - build relationships. How are you
going to survive your first years as a teacher? Build relationships! Build relationships with
your students; build relationships with your co-workers your teachers;
build relationships with your support staff; and build relationships with the parents. Now
there's so much I have to say about this, so I am going to make a whole new video but let me just
say, the best PD that you will ever receive is going to be that teacher down the hall.
If you can find a teacher that you really connect with and that you can bounce ideas
off and that you can learn from, hold on to them! They are going to be the
number one thing that pulls you through this difficult time of your first years of teaching.
And your students! Gosh they're so important! If you don't like your students you're not
going to like going to work. But if you invest in building relationships with those students and you
actually find out about them, you're going to like them. Trust me. And they're going to like you back
because they're going to see you as a real person. And that doesn't just help with going to work
and enjoying it, it actually helps with classroom management. Just spend time building relationships
with your students. And your support staff and your parents - they're two really forgotten
groups when it comes to building relationships at school. They're important! And the more positive
relationships you can build with them, the easier your job is going to be long term.
I hope this video has been helpful for you. I hope it's given you some insight into some things that
would be helpful for you to think about and maybe implement in your first years as a teacher.
If you have any questions or topics you want me to cover in upcoming videos please
drop them below, and if you are a teacher who has some advice to give please drop them below as well
as we'll be looking through the comments. Thank you so much! Good luck!