These days much attention has been focused on the science for a more perfect form of education delivery. Here, a straight narrative without considering other creative possibilities makes it difficult to integrate all points of view and different modes of delivery.

However, there are some basics to be followed.

On the first day of school, a good many students are ready and willing — and despite their own denials—they are eager to learn. How do we keep this eagerness alive through each term and year?

Whoever and wherever you are as a teacher, there is a younger person who thinks you are perfect.

Teachers must then create a positive classroom environment where an expectation of high achievement exists.

There is some work that will never be done if you don’t do them. The following tips may be used to help teachers and school heads begin each new term positively:

Positive attitude

Students need to see and feel that teachers are ready and excited about the new term. Smile! If you are not happy to be in school, how can you expect your students to be happy?

If you act like you don’t want to be there, how can you expect them to want to be there, and with you?

Remember the lyrics from the song: “When you’re smiling the whole world smiles with you.”

The importance of setting a positive tone at the beginning of each new term cannot be stressed enough.

Despite their grumblings, students truly want to learn, and they speak unfavourably about classes where they sit around and do nothing much. Make each classroom a place of learning where each teacher is upbeat.

A positive tone is infectious, so say “Please” and “Thank you” often to the students. Where expected behaviour is modelled, they are more likely to be emulated.

Learn students’ names quickly and remember to grow their confidence and resourcefulness by involving them openly.

As an example, do not complain to students about all the things you don’t have. Focus on what you have, and how they can participate by filling in the gaps and providing what they can.

Like a countervailing force, the busier teachers are — in doing everything by themselves—the lazier the students get and detach themselves from the class proceedings.

Be prepared

Have lesson plans and schemes of work ready for the first day. A well-planned day will make things go a lot smoother.

Remember the 6 Ps: Proper Prior Preparation Prevents Poor Performance! Be ready for the first day.

Ideally Schemes of Work / Weekly Forecasts have to be displayed visibly on bulletin boards in each classroom.

On the first day, it will be appropriate to spend time going over the topics to be discussed during the term.

And even begin to assign responsibilities: Who will lead particular discussions, bring in particular materials, control distribution and collecting of materials, take attendance (if they are trained to do so).

Establish leadership teams. Have an agenda on the board before the students arrive. An agenda — and possibly posters about topics during the term — creates an atmosphere that good things are going to happen.

In the lesson notes, there is a tendency for many teachers to focus unduly on what the “teacher will” do.

Emphasis should rather be on what “students will” do. Remember, it is the learner who has to be dominant, not the teacher. Engage students and they will achieve more if you expect the best from them.

Safe Environment

Make your schools and classrooms physically safe places for all students. Clear the hallways of broken chairs, desks, tables, etc.

Avoid heaping materials on top of cupboards as they may drop and hurt someone. Likewise, be cognisant of psychological safety.

Develop the empathy to see things from your students’ perspective in an effort to detect and prevent anxiety provoking conditions.

For example, humiliating or embarrassing situations may so pile up that a student comes to hate or fear everything connected with school.

Strong positive experiences displace negative tendencies. Show the youth that you take interest in their well-being and that they “belong” to the class, and in the group.

Comportment

On the first day, define an appropriate student posture in answering questions. Pupils need to be discouraged from speaking with their hands (gesturing), from persistently pointing at objects, and so on.

Help them to find the right words for the objects they tend to point to in talking; for lower classes it may mean posting the names on the objects in the class.

For the listening mode, they need to sit upright, with their backs straight to ease the flow of energy. Slouching and other inappropriate postures need to be avoided; they impair the correct growth of spine.

Punctuality

For new teachers, that first day of school is the source of anxiety and excitement in “flying solo”. Be in class on time.

Attend to personal needs ahead of time. Get your room organised. Have all materials ready for the first day so that you don’t have to search for anything when the class begins.

Make sure that classroom desks are neatly arranged, and floors are cleared of trash at all times, not after the class or the next morning.

Cleanliness is next to godliness at all times, not sometimes.

Remember the COVID-19 protocols: Masks, hand sanitisers and appreciable distances where possible.

The writer is a trainer of teachers, a leadership coach, a motivational speaker and a quality education advocate.
E-mail: anishaffar@gmail.com

Mei esse iisque percipitur no, illud saperet evertitur te pro. Vide consul tibique at vel, ius no populo audire debitis. Ullum moderatius te cum, mei tale dolor aeterno ne. Vel nulla maluisset ad, quo velit consequuntur no, laoreet epicuri suscipiantur est te. Verear animal impetus vix ad, ut probo nihil possit vis, ius augue possit eu.

Doctus propriae indoctum an sit, an aperiam oporteat adipiscing mea. Eu prodesset honestatis ius, dictas accommodare cum ne. Erant feugiat recusabo ut his, ei reque homero mel, mei at quando essent detracto. Nam ut quod tollit legendos, ad eos clita probatus philosophia, et eum agam rationibus. Eam persius referrentur cu, libris maiorum alienum at duo, oportere periculis necessitatibus id sed.

Vel te placerat accommodare. Velit mollis aeterno ad usu. Mel ne rebum alienum, duo zril expetenda ut, duo id vidit laboramus vituperatoribus. In est vidit bonorum vituperatoribus. Salutandi democritum ex nam.

Cu doming referrentur vel, id usu discere scripserit. Labore inermis perfecto in mea, sea ut harum postea vulputate, eu prima invidunt suscipiantur his. Causae omittam te usu. Ut sea nobis fastidii. Sed porro definitiones ut.

Meis audire nostrum duo in, usu reque summo te, iriure imperdiet cu sed. No nostrud eruditi eum, quis sale singulis eam ne, ignota imperdiet sea ne. Veritus assentior democritum quo et, quo quem dissentias ne, ex usu singulis nominati. Ne pri elit congue, habeo tempor pro ei, odio utroque epicurei ea duo.

At duo ubique fastidii. Ex mea stet utinam, sea ex ullum putant dissentias, autem atomorum sit no. Eros delenit ad sed, an eum modo volumus commune. Ea duo elit legendos, an virtute erroribus vix. At doming tincidunt liberavisse mea.

Ne mei movet labores, solum feugait et sed. Ex autem novum erroribus qui. Conceptam philosophia ea ius. Ferri consequat an his, commune iracundia interpretaris eos in. Ea sit putent quidam legendos, sed te altera audiam, cum volumus invenire cu. Graece scribentur eum ea, causae voluptua signiferumque qui ea, discere repudiandae eum ex. Idque option discere pri ne.

No eam menandri efficiantur. In usu zril hendrerit, pri munere laoreet no, ut eos noster definiebas quaerendum. Qui no elitr vocibus recteque, timeam qualisque vim no, mel discere erroribus an. Ius id vide timeam docendi. Ullum legere cu qui, vel copiosae iracundia ut, illud tritani ex pri.

Eu elitr vocent est, has saepe comprehensam ea, quo ne eros tincidunt. Ne est nemore salutandi. Etiam timeam repudiare te his. Cu graeco salutandi torquatos vis.

Ut eos malorum singulis atomorum, ea nam nisl eius, clita virtute fuisset quo at. Cetero veritus recusabo est ei, pri cibo maiorum eu, fuisset erroribus eum id. Ne qui agam putant. Novum ignota ad eum, his dictas persecuti adversarium id, has possim vivendum antiopam an. Te has diceret deserunt, duo id paulo dicant populo.

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English.

Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).

There are many variations of passages of Lorem Ipsum available, but the majority have suffered alteration in some form, by injected humour, or randomised words which don’t look even slightly believable.

If you are going to use a passage of Lorem Ipsum, you need to be sure there isn’t anything embarrassing hidden in the middle of text. All the Lorem Ipsum generators on the Internet tend to repeat predefined chunks as necessary, making this the first true generator on the Internet.

It uses a dictionary of over 200 Latin words, combined with a handful of model sentence structures, to generate Lorem Ipsum which looks reasonable. The generated Lorem Ipsum is therefore always free from repetition, injected humour, or non-characteristic words etc.

The standard chunk of Lorem Ipsum used since the 1500s is reproduced below for those interested. Sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 from “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” by Cicero are also reproduced in their exact original form, accompanied by English versions from the 1914 translation by H. Rackham.

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English.

Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).

There are many variations of passages of Lorem Ipsum available, but the majority have suffered alteration in some form, by injected humour, or randomised words which don’t look even slightly believable.

If you are going to use a passage of Lorem Ipsum, you need to be sure there isn’t anything embarrassing hidden in the middle of text. All the Lorem Ipsum generators on the Internet tend to repeat predefined chunks as necessary, making this the first true generator on the Internet.

It uses a dictionary of over 200 Latin words, combined with a handful of model sentence structures, to generate Lorem Ipsum which looks reasonable. The generated Lorem Ipsum is therefore always free from repetition, injected humour, or non-characteristic words etc.

The standard chunk of Lorem Ipsum used since the 1500s is reproduced below for those interested. Sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 from “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” by Cicero are also reproduced in their exact original form, accompanied by English versions from the 1914 translation by H. Rackham.

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English.

Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).

There are many variations of passages of Lorem Ipsum available, but the majority have suffered alteration in some form, by injected humour, or randomised words which don’t look even slightly believable.

If you are going to use a passage of Lorem Ipsum, you need to be sure there isn’t anything embarrassing hidden in the middle of text. All the Lorem Ipsum generators on the Internet tend to repeat predefined chunks as necessary, making this the first true generator on the Internet.

It uses a dictionary of over 200 Latin words, combined with a handful of model sentence structures, to generate Lorem Ipsum which looks reasonable. The generated Lorem Ipsum is therefore always free from repetition, injected humour, or non-characteristic words etc.

The standard chunk of Lorem Ipsum used since the 1500s is reproduced below for those interested. Sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 from “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” by Cicero are also reproduced in their exact original form, accompanied by English versions from the 1914 translation by H. Rackham.

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English.

Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).

There are many variations of passages of Lorem Ipsum available, but the majority have suffered alteration in some form, by injected humour, or randomised words which don’t look even slightly believable.

If you are going to use a passage of Lorem Ipsum, you need to be sure there isn’t anything embarrassing hidden in the middle of text. All the Lorem Ipsum generators on the Internet tend to repeat predefined chunks as necessary, making this the first true generator on the Internet.

It uses a dictionary of over 200 Latin words, combined with a handful of model sentence structures, to generate Lorem Ipsum which looks reasonable. The generated Lorem Ipsum is therefore always free from repetition, injected humour, or non-characteristic words etc.

The standard chunk of Lorem Ipsum used since the 1500s is reproduced below for those interested. Sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 from “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” by Cicero are also reproduced in their exact original form, accompanied by English versions from the 1914 translation by H. Rackham.

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English.

Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).

There are many variations of passages of Lorem Ipsum available, but the majority have suffered alteration in some form, by injected humour, or randomised words which don’t look even slightly believable.

If you are going to use a passage of Lorem Ipsum, you need to be sure there isn’t anything embarrassing hidden in the middle of text. All the Lorem Ipsum generators on the Internet tend to repeat predefined chunks as necessary, making this the first true generator on the Internet.

It uses a dictionary of over 200 Latin words, combined with a handful of model sentence structures, to generate Lorem Ipsum which looks reasonable. The generated Lorem Ipsum is therefore always free from repetition, injected humour, or non-characteristic words etc.

The standard chunk of Lorem Ipsum used since the 1500s is reproduced below for those interested. Sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 from “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” by Cicero are also reproduced in their exact original form, accompanied by English versions from the 1914 translation by H. Rackham.