How to Welcome Students to a New Class

The first day of school is one of the most important days of the year for a student as well as for the teacher. On the first day, every student is excited to see their friends again and the new teacher that would be teaching them for the whole year. The first day of school sets up the expectations of the students about the next grade, students feel grown up as they move on to the new class. The teacher defines his/her expectations from the class as well as the goals for the whole year.

On the first day, every teacher wants to give a good impression on his/her students and tries to make a good bond with them since the starting days and hence every teacher wants to welcome students to a new class in a friendly way so that every student is comfortable with the teacher. A great welcome for the students can make a healthy student-teacher relation from the start that would result in healthy teaching with learning as well as fun.

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Following are some ideas that a teacher can use while welcoming students to a new class:

1. Prepare a good introduction

Introducing yourself can be a very good start to welcome students but don’t just introduce yourself as a teacher, do mention your hobbies, interests, and a fun and interesting story that would gaze the attention of students. Students can be very excited to know that the teacher is interactive and that would create a friendly environment around the whole class. To create a humorous environment the teacher can also tell a real-life funny story to the students or the story behind being a teacher.

2. Know about your students

Taking introductions of a student is very important for a new class since the first class should be interactive and a two-way interaction should be held up. The teacher can remember the name of the student and can ask about their hobbies and areas of interest which would make the introduction more friendly. The teachers can also ask students to tell about their most embarrassing or most proud moment to attract the attention of the whole class.

3. Welcome gifts

The teacher can distribute small welcome gifts like welcome cards or candies or painting colors or such things that would make the first day more exciting for students as well as the teachers that would result in making a healthy relationship between students and teachers.

4. Fun activities

The teacher can organize some fun activities like creating arts or a small fun quiz or any other such activity that involves the participation of the whole class so that the students can interact among themselves. These activities can help in opening up shy students in front of the class that would result in developing great communication skills in a student enhancing the overall personality of students. These types of fun activities are memorable events for every student and students tend to remember such activities on the first day for a long time.

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5. Setting up goals for the year

A short review of the syllabus should be given to the class to make them aware of the content that would be delivered to them by the teachers. This would let the students know what a teacher would be expecting from the class and how much effort should a student would make to be good academically. Although the syllabus should not be discussed in too much detail on the very first day as the teacher would be reviewing the syllabus again on upcoming classes. So, the first day should be a light interactive, and fun day including an overview of the expectations and goals of the class.

6. Allowing students to showcase their skills

On the first day, the teacher can ask every student to showcase their talents in front of the class. This would create a fun environment and students would then know more about their classmates. However, a student must not be forced to do a certain task as could create a negative environment, hence the first day should be kept cool, fun, and interactive, and activities like these help in making the first day more memorable to all of the students.

7. Ask students to write their expectations for the year

The teacher can ask the students to write their expectations from the new class as it would help to prepare the teacher for the academic year and the teacher would know if anything extra could be done to make the learning more interesting by fulfilling their expectations.

8. Take their feedbacks

Taking feedbacks is important for the student, as well as the teacher as feedbacks, teaches us many things that could be done as well as the things that should not have been done. Taking feedback from the students makes them feel important as they know that people want to listen to their views hence it creates a sense of importance as well as responsibility among students. Teachers can read the feedbacks of different students and can feel motivated with good-rated feedback and also learn what students don’t like to do/listen from the not-so-good feedback from the students.

Contributed by:
Balpreet Brar
Edmund Hinkel