Everyone remembers the song “It’s Beginning to Look A lot Like Christmas” when Bing Crosby reminds us that mom and dad can hardly wait for school to start again. Spoiler: It isn’t only the kids who look forward to a nice extended break during the school year! Teachers anxiously await this time as well. They eagerly anticipate time to reset and recharge, sleep in, and consider the possibilities of the New Year.
Cate Reed, seasoned administrator, current Senior Vice President of Teach For America, and Possip Reporter, discusses what teachers can do to optimize their winter break.
As winter break approaches, days can be filled with smiles and fun, but it can also be a time of anxiety. Teachers work to help students manage the end-of-semester assignments, grades, and stress. Teachers worry about ensuring they are set up to hit the ground running when January comes, knowing that the spring semester is high stakes for kids and staff alike. On top of that, in places where it is cold and dark early in winter, the doldrums sometimes creep in.
Ensure your staff has a suite of ideas they can use as winter break approaches that will set everyone up to come back in January ready to take on the spring semester seamlessly and effectively. Here are some impactful ideas you can share with your team this December:
1. Set Academic Goals
- Reflect: Take time to review what worked well and what didn’t in the previous semester. Consider giving a student feedback survey to determine what to keep doing in the future. This can be a great end-of-year activity that is low stress, and high return.
- Revisit your yearly goals and objectives. Where are your students relative to where you wanted them to be? Students themselves can take time to journal about their biggest successes and challenges of the first semester.
- Review your syllabus: Develop a detailed syllabus that outlines your course schedule, assignments, due dates, and grading criteria. Share this with your students when the new semester begins. Going into break with this done frees up mental room to relax over break!
- Tip for leaders: Model for your staff. Send our your own reflections to staff about the things you are most proud of from the first semester, and what you are working on, and encourage them to do that alongside their students.
2. Reset Your Physical Space and Tools
- Organize your classroom: If you have a physical classroom, ensure it is clean, organized, and well-stocked with supplies. Consider any changes or improvements to the classroom layout. Maybe think about a new seating chart so kids can start fresh when they return.
- Tip for leaders: If possible, carve out a 90-minute window during one of the last days before break and show a movie in the auditorium and give teachers extra time in their classrooms to do this task. That would be a gift well received.
- Check technology and equipment: Make sure all your teaching technology, such as projectors, computers, and classroom software, is working properly. Plan for any necessary repairs or replacements.
- Tip for leaders: Send a survey out to teachers to gather any tech needs that you can pass along to the tech team before break so people come back with what they need.
3. Work Ahead
- Prepare resources and handouts: Get a head start on creating worksheets, handouts, and teaching aids. This can save you time during the semester.
- Take care of administrative tasks: Handle any administrative tasks, such as updating your contact information, setting up your online gradebook, or confirming your class schedule.
- Tip for leaders: Is there a checklist of things you know teachers will need to do in January? Send it out now so teachers can get ahead.
4. Strategize for Student Social Success
- Refresh your classroom management strategies: Review your classroom rules and procedures, and consider how you can maintain a positive and productive learning environment. Our
- reveals that teachers and staff share concerns about student discipline and bullying throughout the year – and this concern increases every quarter to become the biggest concern staff report at the end of the school year. What can you do early this semester to break that trend in your classroom?
- Tip for leaders: What school-wide initiatives can you enact to support teachers as they manage student behavior through the second semester? Maybe it’s an SEL focus each day or week to practice self-regulation and coping skills. Perhaps it’s Transitioning to Assigned Seating During Lunch or creating an incentive program for students to encourage positive behavior. To help you brainstorm, here are 70 non-food incentive ideas for students.
5. Tend To Yourself
- Take care of personal well-being: Remember to take care of yourself. Get enough rest, practice self-care, and spend quality time with loved ones to recharge and come back refreshed.
- Tip for leaders: Remind staff that you want them to truly relax over break. For a printable list of daily ideas, check out our “Self-Care Checklist”.
Consider sharing a tip a day in the two weeks leading up to break, and when possible, provide ideas and the time to act on these ideas. For more ideas about motivating staff over the winter break, check out this article. When you send your staff off into the break prepared for the new year, you are giving them the freedom to lean into their time off and enjoy it. Then they can come back ready to take on whatever the new year has to throw at them!
