2. Listen to your TA A good Teaching Assistant is worth their weight in gold. If you are lucky enough to have a Teaching Assistant (TA) or Learning Support Assistant (LSA) dedicated to your class, you already have one of the best resources available to you. Seriously. Ask me if I would rather have a good TA or an average teacher supporting me and I would take the TA every time. Why? Teaching Assistants know everything. Really. They know everything. They have often been at the school for a very long time. They have seen Heads come and go. They have seen teaching staff come and go. They have seen children come and go. They know what works. And they know what doesn’t work. They have seen every teaching style and lived through every government initiative. They are a walking encyclopaedia of school knowledge.

And TAs, as well as other support staff, are there to help you. That’s their job. They don’t expect you to know everything. To be honest, if you go in and pretend that you know everything, not only will you not be kidding anyone, you’ll be potentially damaging a very important relationship. In the words of one Teaching Assistant…

So get to know your TA – get to know each of them if you work with more than one. And remember that nobody expects you to be good at job right out of the gate. Not even your TA. Be honest. Admit when you don’t know something or you’re not sure if you’re doing the right thing. Your TA is a great person to build a relationship with. They’ll help you with all sorts of things and they’ll be there to listen to you when you need to vent. They’re awesome.

3. Get to know your children (and their parents)

Seriously. Learn their names before the start of the first day, if you can. Learn them all by the end of the first day. No excuses. You are their teacher. You should at least know their names. Getting to know the children in your class is one of the joys of teaching. Each of them has a personality and they’ll all be unique. You’ll get to see these tiny people blossom and grow under your guidance. It’s a beautiful thing. Enjoy it. Some of them will be wise beyond their years. Some of them will be funny and make you laugh out loud. And inevitably, some of them will be destructive.

On my first day at my last school, a child threw a chair at me. I don’t mean that he kicked it in my general direction; I mean that he deliberately picked it up, aimed it at me and hurled it. Luckily I ducked. And yet, over time, that child became one of my favourite children ever. I loved him more than I have loved any of ‘my children’. Why? Because of this…

Which goes with this wonderful piece of advice…

Now, I’m not saying that you should praise a child who throws a chair at you. I certainly gave the young man who threw a chair at me short shrift and asked him to immediately leave my classroom. But I think it’s worth bearing in mind that children behave the way they do for a reason. The best thing you can do for any child is to set boundaries early and stick to them. If there’s one thing you want to be known as, it’s the fair teacher.

Most children will accept being disciplined when they have made a mistake and they know that the consequence is fairly applied to everyone. Really. Getting to know the parents of your children is just as important. Just because you teach their child every day, doesn’t mean that you know their child like they do. You can’t and you won’t. Treat your children’s parents as the experts in their child. Ask for their advice. Listen to their comments. Act on them. Value them.

The best thing you can do to get to know your kids and their parents is to start collecting information. You may be lucky. You may have information and files from the children’s previous teachers. But the best thing to do is to take all that information and condense it all down onto 1 sheet of paper (where you can). Collect the basic information for each child (name, date of birth etc.) and then check if there’s anything you need to know in the following areas: SEND – Special Educational Needs Is this child receiving additional support? In what form? How is it recorded? Monitored? What resources are available to you to enable you to support this child? PUPIL PREMIUM Pupil Premium funding is additional funding available to children who are eligible for Free School Meals or who have been eligible at some point during the last 6 years. It is money that is intended to be used in a specific way so make sure that you find out if there is additional monitoring of these children in your school. Read more about Pupil Premium funding… EAL – English as an Additional Language What is this child’s home language? How long ago did they start learning English? At what level is their English? Do you need specific resources for this child? How much English do their parents speak? Are there special arrangements for communicating with their parents? MEDICAL Does this child have any medical needs? Asthma inhaler? Epi-Pen? Food allergies? Do they have an medical history that you need to be aware of? Have they received Speech and Language therapy in the past because of a medical issue? Have they missed a portion of their schooling because of a medical issue? Do you have to use specific resources or make allowances for this child because of a medical condition? CIN / CP – Child in Need / Child Protection Is there a history of Social Services involvement with this child? Speak to your school’s Designated Safeguarding person and ask them if there is anything you need to know about any child in your class. Remember that even though their answer may be ‘No’, this doesn’t mean that there is no history. Child Protection and Child in Need history will only be revealed to you if you need to know about it. And if there is any information about a child in your class, treat it with the utmost confidentiality. Just because you have been told, doesn’t mean that others have. Do not discuss any Child Protection or Child in Need information with your TA, with other members of staff or with your friends and family. Remain professional. EHA – Early Help Assessment Has there ever been an EHA completed for this child? Different authorities use different terms for this process but EHA is very common – check with your SENCO or Head which system your Local Authority uses. It’s a form that is completed by the school to ask for additional help for a family that is struggling with something before it becomes critical. It is completed with the parents and usually with a senior member of staff too, although that’s not a requirement. Situations where you may require an Early Help Assessment include: – When a parent is struggling with their child’s behaviour and they would like help

– If there has been a bereavement and you would like to access counselling for a child

– If a child is at risk of exclusion because of their behaviour

– If a parent is concerned about their ability to be a good parent Completing an EHA will usually allow parents or children to access additional support such as counselling, parenting classes, social and emotional support etc. FAMILY Is there any significant family history that you need to be aware of? For example, is there a history of dyslexia or ADHD in the family? Does the child see both of their parents? If not, what is the history? Have there ever been concerns about any member of their family? Are there any rules about who the child can/can’t go home with? Do they have a release password? SOCIAL Does the child have friends? Who are they? Have there ever been any issues with friendship groups? Is there anything in place to help this child with their social development? Nurture group? Hopefully that’s enough to get you going. If you have all of this information about each child, you’re off to a good start.

4. Start as you mean to go on There’s an old teaching adage that says that a teacher should never smile before Christmas. I think that it’s trying to say this:

But when you’re working with young children, you have to smile. You have to smile a lot. However, you still have 30 children in a small room. Let’s face it, if you were a parent whose child had 29 friends over to play for 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, you’d be tearing your hair out! And that’s before you have to consider teaching them. So you need to set your rules early, enforce them consistently and apply them fairly. It will be of no great surprise that there was a lot of advice for you from the experienced teachers about getting this under control early on.

Sometimes it’s easier to ignore the little things. Yes, it’s frustrating that your lesson will be disrupted again so that you can address low level behavioural issues, but taking the time to do that really will mean far fewer disruptive behaviours in the long run!