Hello new teachers – you did it! You’ve finished up your teacher training and now you’re ECTs (Early Career Teachers)! Many of you will be getting ready to start your first ever class teaching job this September, which is super exciting and can also be a little nerve-wracking. Since you’re ECTs, you’ll be working within the 2 year ECT framework, which means you’ll still have support and a mentor to guide you through it.
Your first year as a new teacher is a really busy one, as you’ll be learning the ways your school does things, getting your head around the curriculum, and most things will be new to you. Since it’s so busy, it’s important to have a plan, both for your teaching work and for your personal life, so you can achieve a bit of a work life balance and protect your mental health. Here’s our 5 step plan to prepare for your first teaching job as an ECT:
Step 1: Get your evidence folder ready to go
Different schools will do things differently, so make sure you find out what format your evidence needs to take, but most schools will want you to keep a physical folder of evidence. This is also good to use yourself as a way to keep track of what evidence you’ve got and which areas needs more evidence. We suggest setting up a big ring binder and using some tabs to separate a different section for each Teacher Standard. You could even include a copy of the Teacher Standard at the start of each section, to easily reference, as well as a piece of paper where you can list out anything you want to add to that folder.
If you’ve worked on a maths display and you want to use that as evidence of creating a good learning environment, add some tasks to your list for this section (take photos of display, print and annotate with explanation). We’d recommend grabbing a copy of our New To Teaching Essentials Book, as it has a copy of the ECT Framework and the Teacher Standards. Having these to hand in a place where you can write notes, highlight, and generally brain dump ideas is a great way to get to know the standards and help you come up with evidence ideas!
Step 2: Have a system in place
As a new ECT teacher, you’ll have a lot to balance: both your teaching and classroom responsibilities, plus the workload of evidencing that you are teaching to a high standard and meeting your targets as an ECT. We suggest having a good organisational system in place to keep you on track, and to help you manage all the different tasks. For new ECT teachers, we recommend getting our Teacher Planner, as well as our New To Teaching Essentials Book. The Teacher Planner has everything you need to plan out your teaching year and plan week by week, along with long, medium, and short term pages to plan your curriculum, as well as weekly To Do lists to manage your tasks.
We also suggest getting our New To Teaching Essentials Book, as this will cover all the bits you need as an ECT that other full time teachers won’t need. It includes a full copy of the ECT Framework with space for notes, and lots of different notes pages that are designed to help ECTs, like Observation Notes pages and Mentor Meeting Notes pages. You could also have a look at our A4 notebooks, as these have different kinds of notes pages, like dotted pages, mind maps, To Do lists, and numbered lined notes pages with a contents page. During your ECT year, there will be a lot of lists and notes that you’ll be writing down, and we find the best way to stay on track is to keep it all in one place. All your lists and ideas in one notebook, all your mentor meeting notes in one place, and all of your scheduling in one planner.
Step 3: Get your wardrobe ready
Getting your teacher wardrobe ready is something that some teachers find really fun, and others dread. Make sure you don’t overlook it! It’s important to dress professionally for your role, and depending on what you did before teaching, you may need to buy some pieces that are teacher-appropriate. It’s also important to think about how you’ll manage your wardrobe during a busy year. It might sound like a silly thing to think about, but when you’ve been working on a Saturday to prepare for the week ahead, the last thing you want to do on a Sunday is catch up on laundry. We recommend having a good number of full outfit choices, so you’re not regularly running out of clothes if you get behind on laundry.
We also recommend pieces that will easily go together, without having to make sure you’ve got specific pieces clean and ready at the same time as they only go with one another. Lots of dresses that you can mix and match with jackets and cardigans, or tops and trousers that have the same colour palette so you can mix and match them to create a teacher capsule wardrobe. Plus, find a good pair of shoes! You probably learned from your teacher training that being a teacher means spending a lot of time on your feet, and you want a good pair of shoes that will be supportive. Think carefully about how your wardrobe can best serve you during your busy ECT years.
Want some style inspiration? Check out our Teacher Style board on Pinterest!
Step 4: Prep your meals
When you’re super busy focusing on your new teaching job, it can be easy to let your self-care and even your food fall to the bottom of your priority list. At TPTC, we always promote the important of teacher mental health and looking after yourself – you can’t be your best teacher self if your wellbeing is suffering. One way to prepare is to think carefully about the food you’ll be eating. Can you spend the summer trying out some different lunch options? Find a few recipes that are easy to prep, easy to bring in a lunchbox, and that you’ll enjoy. Things like batch meals that you could heat up, or sandwiches that you freeze and let thaw in your lunchbox each day, ready to eat. Don’t leave yourself stuck last minute wondering what you’ll have for lunch!
Similarly with dinners – when you’ve got a heavy workload and you’re arriving home late or bringing work home with you, the last thing you want to worry about is getting dinner sorted. This can easily lead to bad habits where you’re either skipping meals or just having quick and easy things that might not leave you feeling your best. You could try batch cooking and freezing meals ready to have during the week, or look at prep-bags as a way to save time. If you have a partner or a housemate, can you make a plan for who is cooking and when? Try making a big list of foods you like and sort them by how long it takes to cook, so if you get decision fatigue you can just find something on your list.
Step 5: Treat yourself!
You may be on a tight budget after completing your teacher training, but if you can, find a way to treat yourself! This might be some new teacher outfits that you’re excited to wear, or a beautiful teacher handbag to bring to school. Or it could be some pretty stationery – of course, that’s usually our choice! We love to create fun, colourful, and beautiful stationery as we think that having some pretty stationery on your desk can sometimes be just the little pick-me-up you need during a tough week. If you’re looking at meal prepping to lighten your load after work, you could get a set of storage containers or a slow cooker. Think carefully about how you want to prepare, and treat yourself to something that really aligns with your plan. It’s easy to do a bit of retail therapy and buy a bunch of lovely little bits that you end up not using – so be more purposeful with your spending and think of a way to use your money to prepare in a way that will help you or get you excited for your first year as a teacher!
To all the ECTs out there, good luck for this new school year! It’s such an exciting time with loads of new experiences. If you’re looking for more teaching tips, you can read more on our blog here!
