I find the start of the academic year hard. It always takes me a while to get into my teaching groove, and this week I’ve been thinking about why this might be.
Starting the Year: Familiar Curriculum, New Learners
I’ve been fortunate to work in ITE for quite a while now, this year marks my third time through this particular version of our curriculum, so I now have the space to concentrate on engaging with new research and making adaptations rather than planning and resourcing teaching sessions from scratch. I am working with a stable team, and we work together well. So why did it still take me a week of teaching at the start of the academic year before feeling like I was hitting my stride?
Teaching Begins with Knowing the Learners
I think the answer lies in the need I have as a teacher to know the students with whom I am working – to know the individuals, and to understand how they relate to each other in the new group dynamic. I only feel comfortable in my teaching when it is focused on the learners.
How Knowing Students Shapes Teacher Confidence
While subject knowledge, curriculum planning, and assessment are all essential, they have the greatest impact when they are shaped by a genuine understanding of the learners in our classroom. And I think this knowing needs to go beyond remembering names or prior attainment data – on the first day of the new academic year, I knew quite a lot about my new students from the admissions and interview process, but that doesn’t mean I know them yet.
Knowing our students involves understanding their strengths, interests, motivations, barriers to learning, and the experiences they bring with them each day. When we take the time to build these insights, our teaching decisions become more purposeful. We are better able to anticipate misconceptions, choose meaningful examples, provide appropriate support, and create learning experiences that feel relevant and engaging. I’ve reflected that it’s when I’m able to adapt my teaching in this way that I feel most comfortable in my teaching. Lessons become less about delivering content and more about responding to the needs of real individuals. This makes the teaching experience more rewarding and reflective. This improves teacher confidence, which in turn can have a positive impact on teacher self-efficacy (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001).
Relationships, Belonging, and Student Success
But the benefit of understanding our students, and developing stronger classroom relationships, is not just about our self-efficacy as teachers; it is important for our students too (Eren et. al, 2025). When learners feel seen and valued, they are more likely to participate, take risks, and persevere when learning becomes challenging. The trust that develops from these relationships creates a classroom environment where students feel safe to ask questions, make mistakes, and grow (Romano et. al, 2021). It impacts outcomes.
Investing Time in Understanding Our Students
By investing time in knowing our students, we improve both learning and teaching. The result is a classroom where students are more likely to succeed, and teachers are better equipped to help them do so. The result is a teacher who feels more confident in their teaching and learners who have a better classroom experience.
I’m looking forward to getting to know my new group of students – I’m especially looking forward to a trip we have coming up where I get to know them better outside of a non-classroom setting. And I hope that before long this will be true for me and my new cohort too.
References
Eren, E., Yada, A., Schwab, S. & Savolainen, H. (2025). Teacher student-specific self-efficacy and its impact on students’ academic self-concept, emotional well-being and social inclusion, Teaching and Teacher Education, Volume 165. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2025.105152.
Romano, L., Angelini, G., Consiglio, P., & Fiorilli, C. (2021). Academic Resilience and Engagement in High School Students: The Mediating Role of Perceived Teacher Emotional Support. European journal of investigation in health, psychology and education, 11(2), 334–344. https://doi.org/10.3390/ejihpe11020025
Tschannen-Moran, M., & Hoy, A. W. (2001). Teacher efficacy: Capturing an elusive construct. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17(7). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0742-051X(01)00036-1
Becoming a History Teacher 