How to Survive Your First Year in Teaching

by Sue Cowley

The new edition of this successful book offers practical advice for trainee teachers, NQTs and others new to the profession. It is designed to help them survive and enjoy the diffifcult first year as a teacher. Written in Sue Cowley's honest and down-to-earth style, the book uses real situations and experiences to tell it like it is.

Genres: Teaching, Nonfiction, Education

208 pages, Paperback

Published March 16, 2009

About the author

Sue Cowley is an experienced teacher, writer and presenter, whose specialism is in the area of behaviour management. After qualifying as a primary school teacher, she taught in a number of different secondary schools in London and Bristol. Sue has also taught overseas, at an international school in Portugal. She still works on a voluntary basis with children in local schools, to ensure that she keeps up to date with life 'at the chalkface'. Sue was recently called as an Expert Witness on behaviour, to appear in front of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education.

Sue is the best selling author of twenty books for teachers and parents, including Getting the Buggers to Behave, Teaching Skills for Dummies and How to Survive your First Year in Teaching. Her books have been translated into many different languages, including Slovene, Spanish and Polish. Sue has been a regular contributor to the TES and for Scholastic Magazines. She has written articles for a range of other teacher publications, and also for parenting magazines. She has also produced materials about behaviour management for the Open University / BBC. Sue has recently created a series of Positive Behaviour Management DVDs, in conjunction with educational company Creative Education.

A key part of Sue’s work is in providing training in positive behaviour management for schools and colleges around the UK and in Europe. She has given presentations for the National Union of Teachers and the General Teaching Council, for FastTrack and Advanced Skills’ teachers, to students at Cambridge, Bedford and Southampton Universities, to staff at the renowned Wellington College, and also to a number of deputy and head teacher conferences. Sue has also travelled to Europe to give training for teachers working for Service Children's Education, to teachers at international schools in Switzerland, and to teachers and trainee teachers in Slovenia. She combines her writing, training and presenting work with the wonderful job of being a parent.

Sue’s primary aim through her work is to give practical, realistic and honest advice to teachers and parents. Her books offer a combination of tips, ideas and strategies, written in an easily accessible and amusing way. Through the training courses that she runs, Sue puts across her ideas about teaching and behaviour management in a fun and engaging format.

Reviews

[Louis · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book that gives some great ideas to help get through the first year from a first hand account. The only downside is that not every part of the book is relevant as it talks about both primary and secondary.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting read. I should now survive teaching multiple Year 11 groups as an ECT and taking 50+ 15-year olds to Paris in October, right?

[Roxy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just about to start my training and this book will definitely stay on my bedside table so I can refer to it when I have particular problems. Covers a broad range of topics involved with the profession, and gives a variety of hints and tips.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a trainee primary school teacher I found this book to be a very interesting and helpful read. It contains useful advice about all aspects of life as a teacher from paperwork to behaviour management to dealing with parents. Cowley's writing style also makes it very easy to digest her information as it's generally broken into small sections and bullet points and is quite amusing in places too. I'd definitely recommend this to NQTs, trainee teachers and those looking into starting a teacher training course.

[MB · Rating 4 out of 5]

As other reviews have mentioned, Cowley writes from the perspective of a teacher in the UK – as an EFL instructor in Croatia, I found that a lot of what she has written simply doesn't apply to me, but there are enough general approaches and teaching strategies described to still make this a worthwhile read. I think I'll be referring to this book often in the coming months.

[Hemma_MJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can really recommend this book to anyone who is going into teaching, or who already is a teacher. It also picks up on little aspects that may be overlooked by many, but which can make a big difference. Got it specifically recommended by an education professor.

[Adeel Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

It reads like a blog post. The book is informative and has some good strategies but is needlessly long and sometimes contradictory. Worth a read for someone entering their first year or starting their PGCE nonetheless.

[Vicki Ware · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of useful hints and tips for the new teacher, although in parts a little dated, for example email doesn’t feature in the chapter on communication with colleagues and parents. Still plenty to glean from it though particularly the time management and behaviour chapters.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yeah, its really good - 4*

I will definitely be using the bank of report statements again.

[Rebecca Travers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hopefully the wisdom of this book will help me to survive! An excellent book for any nqt approaching their first year.

[Scott Mccarthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helpful

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Get me there ASAP!!

[Tracy Raven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically compiles all of the generic advice you will hear from every other place. There are definitely some useful sections but nothing particularly groundbreaking.

[Anna Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super helpful.

[Michelle Zur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helpful information for new teachers from an experienced educator with a good sense of humor.

[Tobias · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let's face it, anyone who has completed teacher training in whatever form has found it a complete emotional roller coaster. Like nothing can really prepare you for the training year, nothing can really prepare you for the NQT year either.

Amazingly, despite completing my training and leaving my second placement full of confidence, I quit my NQT job back in March 2013 for various reasons and I needed a bit of a confidence boost before I leapt into supply work. At the time, this was it.

It's divided into well thought out sections covering everything from "Before you start" to "Professional development and promotion".

If you've had an excellent teacher training period and proactive/helpful mentors in your placements, and you took the time to find a school that works for you and your NQT year, then reading this will provide you with a source of comfort and satisfaction over the next few months.

For me, as someone with two terms of NQT experience, the chapters and sections I found most helpful were "Climbing the Paper Mountain" and possibly "The First Lesson". However a lot of what I read was relatively straight forward and each school is different, so in reality you do learn on the job.

So not essential, but certainly worthy of perusal in any spare moment you may have.

Relevant to new teachers entering the profession within the British education system.

[Claire jobbins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Similar to 'The art of being a brilliant NQT' by Gary Toward and Chris Henley, this book provides similar yet more detailed information about apply, during and after your NQT year. I have to say i prefer this book more than any other I have read about surviving the NQT year as it is tailored to every individual and goes into depth about what being an NQT really means. I would highly recommend this book to trainee and qualified teachers , as it will give you the information or a refresh of what it means to be an outstanding teacher. Also useful for quotes if you are doing an assignment on being an NQT!

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I felt this was a very helpful read as a probationary teacher just before the start of the school year.
It provided valuable insights and is something that is easy to refer back to due to the layout of the book. The author categorised and listed information which makes it easy to refer to sections when needed.
An enjoyable read for sure.

[K · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is really only relevant to teaching in Britain, so I would advise anyone else not to buy it.