As the new academic year approaches, hundreds and thousands of Newly Qualified Teachers will be backing boards, moving tables and preparing for their first ever class that is officially theirs. It is time to go it alone and with this comes excitement, but also anxiety, worry and a little bit of fear.

Over the years, I have created a number of videos that focus on various key aspects of teaching and classroom life. I have compiled the most NQT relevant posts and included them in this article for you to digest. Hopefully, this will take you through a few key areas to consider when preparing for the new school year and your first ever class!

In the month of May, people all around the world celebrate May the 4th - Star Wars Day! 'May the 4th be with you' (or should I say, 'May the force be with you') is heavily referred to as Growth Mindset. 

​If you Google mindset and Star Wars, reams and reams of pages, websites, posters, blogs, worksheets and videos pop up to explain the link. Yoda has a Growth Mindset and Darth Vadar has a Fixed Mindset. However, there is a huge problem comparing mindset with Star Wars. Mindset is not as simple as this. It is important that teachers and our children get to grips with the dark side of the force.

A few months ago, I wrote a blog on how to grow a growth mindset organically in the classroom. A growth mindset is not something complex and difficult. It is the simple belief that you can achieve if you continue to approach learning positively. But having a growth mindset is a bit like being told to be happy all the time. It is impossible! You with have low points and sometimes you will find yourself with a fixed mindset. In fact, Gemma Sanchez, who delivers growth mindset lessons to Primary aged children suggests children should get friendly with their mindset.

Incase you missed it, we shared 25 top teaching tips for advent via our Social Media accounts. For your ease we have listed all of them below in one festive blog for you to refer back to any time you like. You are more than welcome! As always, please do get in touch with any pictures, videos or comments on how you used these tips in your classroom. We love hearing from you! We hope you had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Think about the following statements: You can learn new things but you can't really change your overall intelligence. Your intelligence is just like your foot size or eye colour, you can't really change it too much. If you tend to agree with these, then you probably lean towards having a closed mindset. A belief that your intelligence is determined by genetics and you are born with a certain capacity of information. Having an open mindset, on the other hand, is the belief that this is simply not true. It is the belief that just like your muscles, you can train, refine and grow your brain and increase its capacity for information and skill acquisition.

​Growth mindset has been another buzzword floating around for the past 10 years in education, but what does it actually mean and how do you develop a growth mindset in your classroom? It sounds complicated but actually you can grow children's mindset organically and subtly, by making a few small tweaks.

​Students fall out and make mistakes but resolving them can be both frustrating and time-consuming. Disagreements can appear resolve but reappear a few days or weeks later. Clear communication with both pupils and parents is key to ensuring disagreements and problems are resolved quickly, for good! Here are my 5 top tips for resolving student conflicts.

During day to day teaching, with there being so much focus on progress and learning, it is really easy to forget who your children are as people. Developing a humanistic classroom sounds complicated but it is simply about understanding each child's personality, how they like to learn and celebrate their individuality with lessons. In turn, it can have a positive impact on your students learning too! Here are my top five tips for creating a humanistic classroom.