Clinical Skills Confidence: Prepping For A New Year
Hello friends! It’s time for a new Clinical Skills Confidence post. I’ve just barely started my summer vacation. So why the heck am I talking about next school year? Because it comes upon us way too quickly and I want to be ready to go at the end of August.
I’m sharing how I doing some extra work now (plus I did some before the school year ended) to make the transition back easier.
-Print data logs. I have a binder for my data logs separated by grade and for those students who I know I will be seeing next year, I printed multiple copies of the logs.
-Get a planner. I made one this year that is for any year (you fill in the dates) and I’m planning to use it year after year. It has other organizational pages to help you get started too. If you’d like to check that out, click here. I’ve filled in the dates for next year already.
-Get your Excel schedule ready to go. I have a spreadsheet I use for my schedule so at the end of the year, I just delete the names and it’s set for the coming year. There’s a schedule page in the planner though if you like pencil and paper.
-Update your goals: Again, I have an excel sheet with all my kids’ goals (see my blog post about that) and information and I delete the ones who have transitioned. At the beginning of the year, I just add in the new students. If you’re starting a new job, just create the excel sheet and add in student information when you get it.
–Speech Messages: Similar to the morning messages classroom teachers use, I’m going to start using these at the beginning of my sessions as a quick warm up. 
-Start planning for the first month. I probably will wait for a little bit to do this, but it’s on my mind. I plan by the month, so that I don’t really have to think much about planning until the next month. Here’s a blog post about that. It’s made my life much easier.
-Take inventory of your materials. I have so many that it’s easy to lose track. For at least my TPT stuff, I started keeping a list of what I have that’s already laminated so I can reference it when I’m planning.
-I also decided to organize my seasonal items by month and store in 2 gallon ziplocs in a big plastic container. See picture below.
It takes a little bit of work at the end of the year and over the summer, but these little tips will make your life easier when you go back. How are you prepping for the new school year? Tell me in the comments!