Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2017 finds you well and I wish for all of you the best year yet! I cannot wait to get started this year with some of my plans for my students. Every year I am always so excited to go back after break, I truly do miss my job! But planning is key to not get overwhelmed after the first few days. Here is how I stay on top of things and maintain my comprehensive school counseling program: 1. Plan out lessons for the rest of the year. For some of you, this may sound like something you do already; for others, I know it sounds VERY overwhelming. According to the comprehensive school counseling model, your whole class lessons should take up the majority of the time. Even if they don't, these are usually the first thing to go on the back-burner due to all the other different hats we have to wear. In our district, our counseling team has worked together to come up with a curriculum map for the whole year for each grade. We decide which units we are teaching at what times in the year, and then every counselor is able to pick the lessons they feel match their student's needs in that unit. Planning your lessons out ahead of time will make things SO much simpler. If planning the entire 2nd semester sounds daunting, just do it one month a time. Unsure how to start? Check out my Resources tab. I give examples of our districts curriculum maps for kindergarten and first grade. Remember, "Failing to plan is planning to fail", and I truly believe that as a school counselor! 2. Plan for weather days. This may or may not apply to you, but if you are an educator in the Midwest or any other place where snow days exist, it certainly does! You never know when they are going to hit, and nothing can throw off your schedule like a cluster of snow days. The name of our game is flexibility, so when they happen, you need to prioritize and condense. Make a list of the top things that need to be done or made up out of the days you missed, and then go from there. You can't do it all, and no one expects you to to. Oh, and make sure you enjoy your snow day instead of stressing about all the stuff you are missing! 3. Be realistic about testing time. We all were a part of a school counseling program that taught us that test coordinating should not be an activity of a school counselor. In theory, it sounds great. In reality, we know that is not the case. A lot of us end up with playing some role in testing even if we are not the coordinator, so the best advice I would give you is to talk with your administrator and discuss openly what your schedule will look like during the weeks of testing. This way you can let teachers know ahead of time if lessons and small groups will have to be postponed or cancelled. This is never ideal, but I promise having a plan will help your schedule and the teachers. If you are new to your position or have a new administrator, I urge you to sit down and talk about what expectations they have for you during this time. That way you are on the same page and there is not miscommunication about who is doing what. Trust me, this is not the time to be playing guessing games. 4. Maintain your small groups, no matter what! Small groups are the easiest things that can get pushed to the side during the craziness of snow days, testing, and every other daily task that comes up out of nowhere. For me, my small groups are the way I stay connected to my students who may not be my high-flyers; the way I still address those students who do not need a behavioral intervention, but still need another session on skill practice. I have days of the week scheduled for each grade's small groups, and I have wonderful teachers that are ok with me pulling them even if it is not the time we discussed at the beginning of the year. I pull my third through fifth grade small groups during their lunch times so we avoid missing any instructional time with those grades. I know there may be some days where you feel you need to sit in your office and just work for those twenty minutes, but I urge you to pull that small group! Any sort of small group is better than no small group! 5. Stay positive! This is always easier said than done, especially during February and March. However, maintaining positivity is crucial as the role of the school counselor. Teachers look to you for assistance with students emotional needs, and your administrators look to for skills and assistance with family connections. You are (hopefully) seen and heard in many different aspects of your school, so it is important that positivity is something that you portray to students, staff, and parents. Having a hard time staying positive? Here are some resources that I have read to help maintain the positive attitude during those rough days (or weeks)!:
I hope the second half of your school year starts off on a positive note! What are some things you do with your students at the beginning of the year?? I would love to hear about them! Please comment below or ask any questions about the beginning of 2017 for my school counseling program.
Happy New Year!
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