Before the School Year Gets Busy: What Do You Want to Notice?

There is something about the beginning of a new school year that makes us want to get moving.

There are plans to make, rooms to prepare, people to meet, information to share and lists that somehow seem to grow faster than we can complete them.

Before long, the school day finds its rhythm again. Corridors fill, calendars become crowded and our attention is pulled towards whatever needs dealing with next.

Before all of that happens, I wonder if there is another question worth asking.

What do you want to notice this year?

Not what do you want to achieve, change, introduce or improve.

Simply, what do you want to become better at noticing?

Notice the students in front of us

When schools become busy, it can be easy to notice the things that demand our attention.

The student who is late. The work that has not been completed. The behaviour that needs addressing. The deadline that has been missed.

Those things matter.

However, what about the things that do not announce themselves quite so loudly?

The student who has become quieter.

The young person who always says they are fine.

The student who appears confident but avoids anything they might get wrong.

The person who has made progress but has not recognised it themselves.

Sometimes what we notice changes what we are able to do next.

We cannot know everything that is happening in a young person's life, nor should we assume that we do. We can, however, remain curious enough to notice when something appears different.

What do we want students to notice?

Perhaps noticing is something we can encourage in students too.

What happens when they begin to recognise what helps them concentrate?

When they notice the thoughts that appear when something feels difficult?

When they recognise that they understand more than they thought they did?

When they become aware of the people, places, routines or approaches that help them feel more settled and ready to learn?

So much of growing up involves learning about ourselves.

If we can help young people notice their own patterns, strengths, responses and needs, we give them information they can begin to use.

Notice what is happening to us

Adults are not immune to the pace of school life.

We have our own deadlines, pressures, frustrations, expectations and distractions.

There may be value in noticing those too.

When does my pace begin to increase?

What happens to the way I communicate when I am under pressure?

When do I stop listening properly because I am already thinking about the next thing?

What situations make me more likely to react rather than consider what I want to happen next?

This is not about monitoring ourselves constantly or expecting ourselves to get everything right.

It is about awareness.

When we notice something, we have an opportunity to consider it.

Without that awareness, it is very easy to repeat the same patterns simply because they are familiar.

Notice what is already working

There is another side to this.

We are often very good at noticing problems.

Schools have to be. When something is not working, somebody usually needs to do something about it.

However, if our attention is always drawn towards what needs fixing, we can miss what is quietly going well.

Notice the colleague who makes something easier for everyone else.

Notice the student who handles something differently from the way they might have handled it last term.

Notice the conversation that goes particularly well.

Notice the routine that creates calm rather than confusion.

Notice the moment somebody asks for help instead of struggling alone.

Notice what you do well too.

Those things give us useful information.

What works is worth understanding because we may be able to do more of it.

What do you want your school to feel like?

There will be noise this year.

Some of it will be literal. Some will come from competing demands, busy minds, difficult days, unexpected events and the sheer number of things that happen in a school.

We cannot remove all of that, nor would we necessarily want to.

Perhaps the more useful question is what we want to create within it.

Do we want people to feel heard?

Do we want students to feel able to ask for help?

Do we want staff to feel that they can stop for a moment before responding?

Do we want classrooms and working spaces where people have opportunities to think?

Those things are not created by a statement on a wall.

They are created in small moments, through what we repeatedly notice, value and choose to do.

Before everything starts moving

September will get busy.

There will be things we cannot predict and days when reflection is probably the last thing on anybody's mind.

That is why now might be a useful time to decide what we want to pay attention to.

Not another target.

Not another enormous list.

Just something we would like to notice.

Perhaps it is something about your students.

Perhaps it is something about the way you work.

Perhaps it is how you respond when pressure rises.

Perhaps it is the good things that happen every day but are easily overlooked.

Whatever it is, keep noticing.

Because sometimes the first step towards doing something differently is simply becoming aware of what is already happening.

So, before the school year gets busy, what do you want to notice?

Keep Thinking
If this has prompted you to think about what happens to our attention when school gets busy, discover Thinking Well and explore Noise.