Too many schools get the start of the year wrong in one of two equally unhelpful ways.
First, you’ve got the “Don’t smile until Easter” brigade. These are the teachers who march in on Day 1 like they’re taking command of a submarine. They go hard, fast and joylessly in the name of “high expectations” – which can build compliance, but not much else.
Then there’s the other camp—the “We’re building relationships!” crowd. They’ll spend Weeks 1, 2 and 3 doing ice-breakers, team builders and colouring-in tasks, all under the banner of “trust-building”… while their students quietly die inside waiting for something that resembles learning.
Both approaches miss the same point:
The teacher-student relationship is defined by the progress students make in your company – socially and academically.
And that definition starts on Day 1. Not Day 12. Not “once we’ve built rapport”. Not after the Great Tower of Paddle Pop Sticks collapses from a breeze.
Day. One.
The best teachers know this instinctively. They walk in, make the room feel safe, and then – crucially – they teach something meaningful. Not the ceremonial colouring-in of the maths book’s front cover. Actual maths. Actual learning. Something that says to kids, “This is what we do here, and you can do it.”
And when students experience even the tiniest success in that first lesson, the teacher doesn’t gloss over it. They celebrate it with time, intention and energy.
It’s that moment, not the ice-breaker or the authoritarian lecture, that establishes the firm-and-fair relational contract.
This isn’t just a vibe. Research from the last decade – particularly in effective schools, explicit instruction and high-impact teaching – keeps pointing to the same truth:
Early academic success accelerates belonging, behaviour and connection far more reliably than relationship-building activities in isolation.
Kids feel safer when they can do things, not just when they can name two interesting facts about the person sitting next to them.
So yes – smile on Day 1.
Teach something real on Day 1.
Hold the line on Day 1.
Celebrate progress on Day 1.
Because firm and fair starts the moment the students walk in.
Keep fighting that good fight,
P.S. I’m starting 2026 focusing on trust – because without it, everything else in schools becomes harder than it needs to be.
My first online workshop of the year will be The Collapse of Trust: How schools lost it, and how we can win it back.
I hope you can join me.
Monday 19 January 2026
2.00pm AEDT
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