This book is about you: you in your new role, you as a complex person with strengths and needs – just like your students. It is about the way you think of yourself as well as the children and young people you teach and how you build the relationships you need to have. You have exactly the same issues as your pupils in many ways – pressure to ‘perform’, issues of control, how to get the maximum amount of satisfaction out of your days, and how to make experiences meaningful and worthwhile.

This book has been written so that as a new teacher, you might have the best possible chance of being motivated to stay in education, fully involved and passionate about the difference you can make for your pupils and their future. Here you will find suggestions about ways of being in school that enable you to enjoy the interaction both with the students you teach and also with the colleagues who support you.

These include:

·        getting and maintaining credibility in your new role

·        putting respect into operation

·        developing student self-awareness and self-control

·        being aware of and promoting a positive emotional climate in your classroom

·        dealing with conflict and confrontation in ways which do not undermine your sense of self and purpose

·        seeing difficulties as part of the challenge, not the reason to fear coming through the school gates. 

Sue Roffey is an educational psychologist, consultant, writer and academic specialising in social, emotional and behavioural issues. She is currently Adjunct Research Fellow at the University of Western Sydney, Australia, and Honorary Lecturer at University College, London.