With the school year winding down, you must reflect on all those great things your students were able to accomplish this year and rethink that Pinterest fail that didn’t go like you hoped. Start planning for next school year to lighten your load when it comes time to start back in August or September.
REFLECT
Think back on your school year and ask yourself these questions:
- What do you want to keep the same going forward?
- What things do you want to do away with for the upcoming school year?
- What strategies were implemented that helped make each of your students successful?
PLAN
Looking into the 2022-2023 school year, start planning and preparing by asking yourself these questions:
- What will your caseload look like?
- How many staff members will you have?
- What does the grade-level schedule look like for next year?
- What will your schedule in the special education setting look like?
- What field trips or community-based outings do you have planned?
- What will groups will you run in your classroom?
- What materials will you be using for groups and direct instruction?
- How will you ensure each student makes progress and reaches their full potential?
- What will the classroom set-up look like?
HELPFUL TIPS
Here are some of my end of the year to-do items I make sure to have done before summer break (keep in mind, these are tentatively scheduled and not set in stone):
- Student schedules
- Staff schedules
- Assigning peer mentors
- The layout of the group times (i.e., small group, morning group, reading group, math group, social skills group, etc.)
- The layout of what direct instruction would look like for each student
- Cooking list for weekly cooking group
- Permission slips for community-based outings
