Episode 40 Show Notes

Use these 4 strategies to improve your New Teacher Orientation

• Turn off the firehose
• Prioritize their emotional well being
• Ask your second year teachers for feedback
• Use some FREE Plug & Play PD’s

Turn off the firehose

• “Like drinking from a firehose”
• Garden hose
• 2 days?
• When I coached basketball. After Winter Break, big game,  “you can’t get us in shape in two days”
• What can be done before (read the employee handbook, the student handbook, online training for anaphylactic shock?)
• What can be done after those 2 days?
• Think of content as a bell curve
• Already stressed out

Prioritize their emotional well being

• Put yourself in their shoes.
• First moments together. A really fun ice breaker. ROLL YOUR EYES. Bring in your best person. Two truths and a lie, let them know ahead of time.
• Clear agenda for the day(s)
• Pace of content.
• Opportunities to interact socially. 1st day lunch with each other, Day 2 lunch with mentors.
• Give them time to work in their rooms JAM PACKED
• Check in on each of them every day, in person, text
• Acknowledge that “this is a lot”, “no one is expecting you to know all of this right away”
• Reassure them that you and your team will support them
• Remind them why you hired them (they have a lot of doubts)
• Paint a climactic scene for them (3 days into the school year, in your classroom, already taught a few days….)

Ask your 2nd year teachers for feedback

• Your 2nd year teachers went through New Teacher Orientation on year ago
• Google form (We are trying to make it better for this year)
• “What were some things that were helpful to you during New Teacher Orientation?”
• What are some things that would have been helpful to you that we didn’t do?
• Pacing, quantity of information?
• Social opportunities?
• What else can we do to make New Teacher Orientation better?

Use some FREE Plug & Play PD’s

• I have created three free “Plug & Play PD’s” that are free for you to use with your staff.
• These are 45 minute webinars, complete with guided notes and discussion questions.
• They are created in such a way that you could use these in a group setting or have them watch them individually.
• I will link everything in the show notes and  www.theprivateschoolleader.com/resources

• “The Top 6 Ways To Build Effective Relationships with Difficult Parents”

• Why so emotional?, The wall of mutual distrust, The 5 C’s of effective parent communication, Surprise & Delight, specific examples of exactly how to build these relationships

• “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Private School Teachers”

• Be proactive, Put first things first, Seek first to understand then to be understood, Begin with the end in mind, Think win-win, Synergize, Sharpen the Saw
• If your school emphasizes growth mindset
• “Turn “Pedestal Kids” Into “Gritty Kids” By Implementing Growth Mindset” 
• These are 45 minute webinars, complete with guided notes and discussion questions.
• You can grab them in the show notes theprivateschoolleader.com/episode40 or over at www.theprivateschoolleader.com/resources  Thanks!

Big Takeaways:

Use these 4 strategies to improve your New Teacher Orientation

• Turn off the firehose
• Prioritize their emotional well being
• Ask your second year teachers for feedback
• Use some FREE Plug & Play PD’s

Call to Action

• Pick one of these strategies and use it in your new teacher orientation.
• In the next 3 days, add this strategy to the new teacher orientation agenda or your calendar.

CLICK HERE for all three Plug & Play PD's

I want to give you a gift to say “thank you” for listening to the podcast. I have created a FREE guide for you called “5 Strategies To Help You Work With Difficult Parents”. We know that working with parents is part of the job and most of our parents are great, but some of them can be very demanding and emotional and difficult. This guide will give you the tools that you need to build better relationships and have better meetings with the difficult parents at your school. CLICK HERE to grab the guide. Thank you again for listening every week!

If you implement any of these strategies at your school, I would love to hear from you! Send me a quick note at [email protected] and tell me about it. I can answer your questions and I’m also good at giving pep talks when you get stuck!

CLICK HERE for a bunch of free resources, including Plug & Play PD's (video webinars with guided notes) for you to use with your teachers, Top Lists of Leadership Books, Productivity Books, TED Talks and much more!

Please follow, rate and review this podcast. The rating helps this podcast to be heard by more leaders and your review gives me valuable feedback so that I can better serve you in future episodes. If you got value from this episode, please text the link to an aspiring leader at your school. Thanks!

Music by Twisterium from Pixabay