How to finish the school year positively

Term 4 can be busy and stressful. Slow down, and focus on the positives, and all that you, your colleagues and your students have achieved.

As we count down until the end of the school year, it’s common for nerves to frazzle and patience to evaporate.

Term 4 has a range of additional events and expectations from exams and graduation, end-of-year assessments and reports, orientation for the year ahead as well as finishing all the outstanding work from the year. Here are some strategies for ending the year on a positive note.

Read the latest print edition of School News online HERE.

Take it slow

Consider taking a few minutes in the morning to foster well-being and establish a sense of deliberate connection with you and with each other. This could be anything from classroom meditation, guided breathing exercises or chair yoga.

A slow start has the benefit of focussing the class’s attention, helping to remove the distractions that accompany children (and teachers) to school, as well as creating an emotionally calm atmosphere.

Focus on gratitude

For many, the end of the year is a time of excess. Taking time to practise gratitude is a good way of refocussing the expectations of the festive season.

Notes of gratitude can be written on post-it notes and stuck on a wall, clipped to a Christmas tree, or placed in a jar to be read out at the end of the week. Another fun way of expressing gratitude is to encourage students to go out of their way to help or be kind to someone each day, without the person knowing.

End as you begin

Establish focused end-of-the-day routines that allow you to make a distinct break between the hectic pace of the classroom and the next stage of everyone’s day. Just as you started the day with a mindful pause, schedule the last five or ten minutes of each day for calming activities.

Share the love

As the school year winds up, it is a good time to remind students of the many other people in the school who impact on their learning and environment, but who are not usually at the forefront of students’ day-to-day experience. Introduce your class to the grounds staff and gardeners, the canteen manager, the office staff, the cleaners, the staff from the uniform shop, the crosswalk attendants and the people from the P&C. Model respect and appreciation and the students will follow.

This article is from the Term 4 edition of School News. Read it HERE.

Shannon Meyerkort

Shannon Meyerkort is a freelance writer and author of Brilliant Minds: 30 Dyslexic Heroes Who Changed our World, being released by Affirm Press in October 2022.