Building Connections Before Content: Back to School Tips From a National Health Education Teacher of the Year

The first week of school hits different. Teachers are excited, students are excited, school morale is high, and people are ready! Now is when it’s important to realize: Long before students remember your lessons, they’ll remember how your classroom made them feel.

That first week back (and even the week before) is crucial for setting the tone for a successful school year and, most importantly, for building connections and relationships with all the stakeholders (students, parents, administration, coworkers) in your system.

Before students start to care about health standards, nutrition, mental health, or decision-making, they need to know they belong. During the first week of school, every interaction either strengthens or weakens that sense of belonging. The activities below aren’t “icebreakers.” They’re intentional opportunities to build trust, safety, and classroom community that will support learning throughout the entire year.

Belonging Starts Before Day One

My school — like many schools — has an open house before school officially begins. Watching  new students walk into my health classroom is empowering. By making the environment welcoming, organized, and student-friendly, I’m helping set the tone for the fall.

Allow students to look around and ask questions. Let them get hands-on with any  manipulatives you may use in the classroom. This lets them know this will not be a boring “sit-and-get” classroom. Putting a welcoming slide on your screen and playing some calming music also brings a level of safety.

Pro tip: Let every student who comes to the open house pick their seat using a sticky note. Then, when you make the seating charts, build their choice into it. This is especially important for students who are new to your district. Lastly, get their name in your head and make a point to use it on day one in the hallway or as they walk into your classroom.

If parents attend the open house at your school, this gives you an opportunity to introduce yourself as a caring person first, teacher second. Ensure parents that their child can come to you if they need a safe space or have questions of any kind. 

Share copies of your class syllabus with all parents who attend. If they have questions about the curriculum or course content, do your best to answer them, but do not feel you need to go into deep detail. Advocate for yourself and your students by reminding parents of what students must bring to your class each day, whether that’s a dedicated notebook, folder, pen, or pencil.

Just as important, let parents and students know that you prioritize students’ mental health. Self-image, summer experiences (or lack of), and general peer connections will vary from student to student, but they will feel better about the beginning of school if they know there is someone looking out for their mental health.

Week One in Class: Prioritize Community

The first week provides authentic opportunities to begin developing interpersonal communication, self-management, advocacy, and relationship skills long before formal instruction begins. By indirectly connecting your beginning of the year activities to the SHAPE America National Health Education Standards, you are setting a foundation for the remainder of your class.

• Classroom Layout/Structure: Your classroom arrangement communicates your expectations before you ever speak. Tables facing one another tell students that conversation and collaboration are expected. Over the past many years, I have written grants and made district-level requests to purchase tables of different heights and chairs with different feels, supports, and heights. This allows for your seating chart to prioritize students facing each other to support communication.
  
  After you create the seating chart, allow students to request seating that gives them the most comfortable place for them. Consider sight lines, hearing, and overall student comfort. I also like to create a separate seating area that is not included in the seating chart. This is a table and comfortable chairs that are available for student use during group time, class work time, before or after school, or even a space for students to eat lunch!
  
  

• Names Build Community: This may be the toughest job you will do but make a point to learn names by the end of week one. Play silly games that use student names, stop students in the hallway and quiz yourself, print student picture seating charts. Increase your level of self-motivation by promising students a reward (extra credit, early lunch line access, outdoor time during class, etc.) if you don’t learn everyone’s name by the end of the week!

• Table Name Cards: Have students create a tented name card (I use 8×10 index cards, folded) that can include hobbies, talents, family, passions, and anything else they may want to share. This is a simple way for students to introduce themselves to their table partners. I also collect these each day and use them for random seating charts as the term progresses.

• Help Students Get to Know Each Other: Prioritize student-to-student interactions for the first 3-5 class periods. It is very important to begin your term by allowing students to get to know and value their classmates and you as a teacher. This can be done in many ways, but I encourage creating activities that allow for face-to-face interactions. Here are some ideas:
  • Speed Meetings. This activity has so many benefits. We always start with a handshake, direct eye contact, and a name introduction (this needs to be taught and practiced). As we rotate to new class partners, we repeat these steps to encourage all students to start with each other in the same way. Students are organized around a long table(s). (See Google Slides, Printable Question Prompts, and Images/Reflections.)
  • Student-Generated Video. Here is a sample video and Google form..
  • Get to Know You Bingo (adapted from the work of Andy Milne). Here is a template in English and Spanish.

• Voice Creates Ownership: There are many ways to discover your students’ passions, skills, hobbies, interests, etc., but one simple way is to use a student survey. I also like to ask a few questions about health education and what students have done to enhance or harm their own health. This is a big help in designing emphasis on certain units and standards if a high number of your students have experienced positive or negative health impacts. Here are just some of the questions I use to learn about health behaviors and students’ learning goals:
  • What is your favorite kind of ice cream?
  • If you could meet one person in the world — living or dead — who would it be, and why?
  • What sports or activities do you participate in? (Either as part of school or outside of school.)
  • List three things you have done in the last year that you believe are very healthy choices.
  • List three things you have done in the last year that you think are very unhealthy choices.
  • List 2-3 specific health-related things you would like to learn more about before the end of this school year. (I keep a list of these and cross them off throughout the term to do my best to hit all students’ questions or interests.)
• When students see their interests reflected in future lessons, they realize their voices matter.
  

• Set Classroom Routines and Expectations: It is important to build in pieces of class routines and expectations throughout these first class periods. Students thrive when expectations are predictable. Introduce routines gradually during the first week instead of overwhelming students on day one. Make sure to be clear about your expectations around the following:
  • Cell Phones/Earbuds/AirPods
  • Hats/Hoods
  • Parent Communication
  • Tardies
  • Chromebook/Notebook/Pencil Expectations

• Show Them You Care: This should be customary across all subject areas, but I feel like it is amplified in the health education setting. Make sure students know your classroom is a safe space for them at any time. Offer a lunch space, a before- or after-school space, or a break space that students can come to if they just need a quiet break. When they do come to your room, just let them be! They may just want things to be quiet with no pressure. If they reach out to you, then engage, but don’t push too hard. Over time, they will open up, but it needs to be on their time. Safety for students, especially at the beginning of the school year, can be a game changer as the school year moves along.

• Week One Challenge: Before Friday of week one, try these five things:
  1. Learn every student’s name.
  2. Have one positive interaction with every student.
  3. Ask every student one question unrelated to school.
  4. Give students many opportunities to talk with someone new.
  5. End every class with students smiling.

Joy Makes Learning Memorable!

As you start the new school year, prioritize joy! Not only for your students, but for you as a teacher as well. Enjoy class, play music, don’t be afraid to be personal, and show your fun side. Tell jokes, dance, sit down with your students, be vulnerable, trip over a chair, give students a high 5, join them for lunch, ask questions, breathe, and just blend in a bit!

Students will respect you and give respect back if you find ways to be with them. Relationships take energy. Give yourself permission to be human during week one, too. Students don’t need perfection — they need authenticity. To quote my favorite movie, High School Musical: “We’re All in This Together!” 

Students may not remember every lesson you teach this year, but they will remember how your classroom made them feel. Build a place where every student knows they belong, and the learning will follow. Have an amazing school year!

Additional Resources

• National Health Education Standards Resources
• SHAPE America Back to School Resources
• Sample Week 1 Classroom Slides

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