Welcome To Your New School by @TeacherToolkit

This is a blog about staff induction and professional development.

As we reach the end of an academic year, we are about to prepare for a new start and most schools should be on top of staff development; preparing and arranging induction days for the new members of staff who are soon to join the school. This is what I am currently trying to finalise this month. If this is important to you, tweet this.

Staff Induction:

If you are in charge of staff induction, how would you welcome new teachers to your school?

If you just have one day or perhaps just two-to-three hours to welcome new staff to your school, how would you go through key introductory items? What would you communicate and what information would you refrain from sharing until they are a fully fledged member of staff?

Image: Shutterstock

On The Floor:

This is a blog about ideas for welcoming new staff to new schools and experiencing staff induction first hand.

I’ve been doing this for the past 8 years and I’m still trying to make the perfect recipe for welcoming new staff into a new school. Strangely, despite leading whole-school CPD, on 3 occasions during the past 8 academic years, I have also been the new member of staff at a school. Whilst leading staff development, juxtaposed against the fact that I am also new to the school, leading staff induction and CPD on my job description has placed me in a unique position! A viewpoint that has enabled me to observe current school practice (or lack of it) which has been an interesting dilemma; allowing me to be exposed to the induction process first-hand.

As you can imagine I have had a very interesting and varied experience. If you have, click this now?

Image: Shutterstock

Below is a list of information, events, and things to do in the first 2-3 hours you meet new staff in your school. This of course includes a tour, a presentation; meeting the headteacher, key staff to meet throughout the day, as well as members of the department. More often than not, I have opted for INSET days to facilitate this initiative so that staff are also free to meet and engage with new staff. The days also includes logging into the ICT network and learning about all the various bits of software that a new member of staff will need to get to grips with very quickly.

Question?

As a new member of staff to a school, what would you say was important and what would you say could wait until later?

Take a look at the list below.

Pre-Appointment Checklist:

Here is a photo of a document that is held internally within our school. This is to ensure we are on top of all HR (Human Resources) procedures. Ensuring new staff receive their contracts, safeguarding checks and specific proformas to gather ‘next of kin’ details and so forth.

Is there anything missing prior to arrival? Please let me know here.

Staff Induction Day Programme:

The following screenshot is a draft format schedule for next month. Many of the items on the agenda will be a quick word of mouth, explained in detail in the staff handbook summary, or left off the agenda based on the needs of the new staff group in front of the CPD team. This programme is by designed to align with a staff INSET day.

Is there anything missing from this snapshot induction day, please let me know here.

Check-list:

At the start of the academic year in September, the following check-list is designed for new members of staff in a follow-up induction session. This period will be much shorter than the pre-summer induction day, and will include logistical information such as keys, photocopying and duty points … The check-list also shows what will happen throughout the early weeks and months of the new member of staff’s career at the school; as well as interim induction days for staff who arrive throughout the middle of the academic year.

If there is anything glaringly missing, please let me know here.

I would just like to finish, by wishing everyone who is moving onto a new school, the best of luck. I hope that your new staff induction procedures support you and help you make that transition into a new school as quickly as possible. If that is you reading this now, you are probably started to experience No Mans Land, so this blog will be well worth a read.

Tweet this? or leave your feedback in the comments section below.

TT.