#curriculum for schools

[curriculummappingedusfere]

The Ultimate 2025 Back-to-School Checklist for Teachers (Free Download)

Back-to-school season can be overwhelming, even for the most seasoned educators. Between new class rosters, tech setup, lesson planning, and ever-evolving policies, it’s easy to feel like you’re spinning plates. That’s why we created The Ultimate 2025 Back-to-School Checklist for Teachers—a practical, printable guide designed to help you start strong, stay organized, and focus on what really matters: your students.

Whether you teach kindergarten or high school seniors, this checklist covers everything from classroom setup to substitute plans and parent communication. It’s broken down by grade levels—primary (K–5), middle (6–8), and high school (9–12)—with universal tips for all educators.

How to use this guide: Scroll through the checklist categories below and download your free editable checklist (Google Doc or PDF) at the end of this post. You can print it out, check off items as you go, and customize it to fit your classroom needs.

Universal Prep (All Teachers)

No matter what grade you teach, there are a few non-negotiables that every teacher should tackle before Day 1:

Classroom Setup Start with the physical environment. Consider your classroom’s layout—especially if your school still emphasizes social distancing or flexible group work arrangements. Create designated spaces for student work, class rules, and subject-specific stations. Bulletin boards should be welcoming and informative, showing schedules, routines, and visual cues for younger students.

Policy Review Familiarize yourself with your school’s emergency protocols. Ensure you know procedures for fire drills, lockdowns, and medical emergencies. Also, review and have access to IEP and 504 plans for students requiring accommodations. Having a printed cheat sheet can be incredibly helpful in the first few weeks.

Tech Readiness Make sure your tech is ready to roll. Log into your Learning Management System (LMS) (Google Classroom, Canvas, Schoology), test your projector or smartboard, and sync devices if needed. Update your digital syllabi and make sure communication apps like Remind or ClassDojo are linked to your rosters. A smooth tech setup avoids headaches and sets the tone for a productive year.

For Primary Teachers (K–5)

Elementary teachers have a unique set of responsibilities at the start of the year—especially when working with younger learners still developing routines.

Lesson Plans Kick off the first week with fun, low-pressure activities like “All About Me” posters, storybook read-alouds, and hands-on icebreakers. Integrate early baseline assessments for phonics and math to identify student levels without making it feel like a test.

Substitute Teacher Plan Prepare an emergency sub binder with clear instructions. Include your daily schedule, class roster, important medical alerts (e.g., allergies), and easy-to-follow activities like coloring sheets or read-aloud books with comprehension questions. A well-prepped binder can save the day.

Routines You’ll want to establish routines from day one. Use visual schedules to help young learners follow along, and practice lining up, handwashing, quiet signals, and bathroom breaks. These routines support independence and classroom management throughout the year.

For Middle School Teachers (6–8)

Middle school students thrive when routines are clear and classrooms foster collaboration and responsibility.

Lesson Plans Start with engaging team-building activities, like the “Survival Island” group challenge or escape-room style puzzles. Use pre-assessments for math and ELA to help form instructional groups and guide differentiated instruction from the start.

Substitute Teacher Plan Middle school subs need clarity. Provide detailed seating charts, classroom behavior notes, and backup work such as self-guided worksheets or EdPuzzle videos. Keep it simple but structured.

Pro Tips Homerooms benefit from organization tools like locker tags and agenda checks. Consider adding an advisory period for SEL (social-emotional learning), with topics like digital citizenship, bullying prevention, and emotional regulation. Start building classroom culture from Day 1.

For High School Teachers (9–12)

Older students need structure, purpose, and independence to stay engaged—especially in those first few crucial weeks.

Lesson Plans Begin with your syllabus and course roadmap, setting clear expectations for the semester. For icebreakers, try career-connected ones like “Two Truths and a Resume Lie”, which let students share personal goals while staying on-theme.

Substitute Teacher Plan Set your subs up for success by posting Google Classroom assignments with clear instructions and rubrics. Keep a backup activity ready like a documentary with guided notes—great for STEM or history classes.

Pro Tips Post policies for late work and absences where students can easily find them. Start prepping college-bound seniors early by displaying FAFSA deadlines, scholarship portals, and upcoming SAT/ACT test dates.

Ready to get started? Click below to grab your customizable 2025 Back-to-School Checklist for Teachers—created in editable Google Doc and fillable PDF formats.

Includes grade-specific templates:

K–5 Primary

6–8 Middle School

9–12 High School 👉 Download the 2025 Checklist Now

This is your all-in-one prep companion—just personalize, print, and plan with confidence.

Conclusion

Starting a new school year doesn’t have to feel chaotic. With the right tools, a clear plan, and a little preparation, you can walk into your classroom with confidence, energy, and a smile.

You’ve got this! Share your #BTS2025 prep stories or photos in the comments—we’d love to see your classrooms in action!

Social Share Prompt: Know another teacher who could use this checklist? Tag them or share this post to spread the support.

[stargirl230]

interlude

Lost focus and drew a consensual workplace relationship (the inherent intimacy of hanging out in an artist's studio to watch them exist in their element got to me)

Zoom in for details I poured my soul into <3

(no reposts; reblogs appreciated)

[inkprilled]

Just before covid hit my brother and I at 15 and 19 found our selfs homeless. I had a choice, my brother would go into care or we could stay together, but only if I took responsibility for him and had somewhere to live. So I applyed for social housing, the guy that processed my case was sympathetic and at some points I was holding it together better than him, do you have any other family? No, Do you know where your mother is? I wish I did, how old is your brother? 15 are you in any fulltime education? Not anymore. He looked at me like I was something tragic and I suppose I was, there isn't a metaphor for what I looked like that works any better than just what his naked eyes saw; a girl abandoned by her mother, her life in a bag on her back completely thrown on how to deal with everything, and all he could do was fill out a form and send it and me off. it's going to be okay.

Somehow despite the odds we where given emergency accommodation and a year later a property to rent, I suspect we where pushed up the list because of my brothers age, we where lucky, some people wait years in hotels or streets all over the country, living out of suitcases and rucksacks.

As lucky as we where, luck didn't cover all the things I suddenly had to know. I had no idea how bills worked or paying my taxes, I didn't even really understand what "taxes" meant until the final notices where piling up in front of us. It's something they don't teach you in school or at least mine didn't. They never taught us how to survive in a world like this, they assume our parents would be there to explain or we'd be much older before it mattered. what's more useful in real life, how to formally address someone in an email or how to keep the lights on or how to find food when a tin of beans is too expensive.

Though I suppose the email ettique lesson was useful for something in the end,

To whomever it may concern, I'm writing to you regarding my payment plans and how I'm choosing to fork over alot of money and won't be buying enough food to live off this month. My regards.

[meddwlyngymraeg]

So cool and awesome and important that when Kneecap performed in Cardiff, they had an opening act that was also a bilingual rap act who performs in Welsh and English. And I do highly recommend Sage Todz, he's really cool.

If you can remember 2022, he created a version of the protest folk song Yma O Hyd, by protest folk singer Dafydd Iwan, before Wales played their World Cup games. Dafydd Iawn wrote and performed it in the 50s and 60s during the language rights protests to officially make Wales a nation of two equal languages, and over the last few years, the Football Association of Wales and its players, who were then young enough to themselves be Welsh speakers and learners, have really picked up and supported the language. (Not every player that qualifies to represent Wales necessarily grew up in Wales and so might not be Welsh speakers at home, nor attended schools in Wales where Welsh has been a compulsory subject in the curriculum since 1988 at least.)

The team had been playing the song and the fans began singing the song during games, and things just escalated from there; the fans were heard singing it before games and it sort of became an unofficial anthem. And all of a sudden, Dafydd Iwan himself found that the protest folk song he had written, with a chorus that said, 'We are still here, in spite of everyone and everything... we are still here' about the Welsh language, that he had written nearly sixty years ago. Suddenly, it was being sung by choruses of thousands of Welsh fans, reverberating around stadiums. And they called him to sing it before the World Cup qualifying game against Austria:

Huge, emotional moment. If I remember right, it went hugely viral too. It was then that Sage Todz remixed the song, sampling sections of it and updating it for the modern day. The FAW posted it and that led to a lot of people discovering rap in Cymraeg for the first time.

So it is lovely to see Kneecap also encouraging that, and exposing their fans, people who are already fans of hip hop in a minority Celtic language, where being used in the modern world and not being relegated to myths and folklore of the past, to another person revitalising a language in revival, and updating it to be true to Wales in 2024. This was at their gig at the Tramshed last year. No doubt this year's shows are going to be significantly larger.

[eisforerinni]

Didn't we all?/j

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lois Beckett at The Guardian:

Attacks targeting American public schools over LGBTQ+ rights and education about race and racism cost those schools an estimated $3.2bn in the 2023-24 school year, according to a new report by education professors from four major American universities. The study is believed to be the first attempt to quantify the financial impact of rightwing political campaigns targeting school districts and school boards across the US. In the wake of the pandemic, these campaigns first attempted to restrict how American schools educate students about racism, and then increasingly shifted to spreading fear among parents about schools’ policies about transgender students and LGBTQ+ rights.

Researchers from UCLA, UT Austin, UC Riverside and American University surveyed 467 public school superintendents across 46 US states, asking them about the direct and indirect costs of dealing with these volatile campaigns. Those costs included everything from out-of-pocket payments to hire to lawyers or additional security, to the staff member hours devoted to responding to disinformation on social media, addressing parent concerns and replying to voluminous public records requests focused on the district’s teachings on racism, gender and sexuality. The campaigns that focused on public schools’ policies about transgender students often included lurid false claims about schools trying to change students’ gender or “indoctrinating” them into becoming gay. This disinformation sparked harassment and threats against individual teachers, school board members and administrators, with some of the fury coming from within local communities, and even more angry calls, emails and social media posts flooding in from conservative media viewers across the country.

In addition to the financial costs of responding to these targeted campaigns, the study revealed other dynamics, the researchers said. “The attack on public officials as pedophiles was one I heard again and again, from people across extremely different parts of the country: rural, urban, suburban. It speaks to the way that this really is a nationalized conflict campaign,” said John Rogers, an education professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the lead author of the study. The frequency with which both school board members and school superintendents were “being called out as sexual predators – it was really frightening”, Rogers said. Superintendents from across the country told the researchers how these culture battles had affected their schools, and cut into resources they would have preferred to spend on education.

[...] While disagreement, debate and dealing with angry parents are a normal part of local public school administration, the researchers noted, the political campaigns that schools have faced in recent years have been anything but normal. Many of them have been driven by “a small number of active individuals on social media or at school board meetings”, and fueled by misinformation. The school-focused campaigns, which started with claims that elementary and middle schools were harming white students by teaching critical race theory and later shifted to attacks on schools’ policies for transgender students, were nationally organized, with “common talking points” that could be traced back to conservative foundations and rightwing legal organizations, and were intensely amplified by rightwing media coverage, Rogers said.

Public schools across the US burned up nearly $3.2BN worth of money fending off right-wing culture war items such as book bans, anti-LGBTQ+ extremism, anti-student inclusion, and anti-racial equity policies.

See Also:

The Advocate: U.S. public schools lost $3.2 billion fighting conservative culture wars: report

[fayvpor]

how dare u articles not include the date it was last modified and the full authors names

do you not know.

the PAIN!

and TORMENT!!! youve caused readers of your stupdi article to feel????

do you REALIZE!

that 87% of your readers are students desperately searching for sources for a randomly specific topic for a project??????!!!!!!!!!!

do you not know how we have SOBBED and SUFFERED after finding that our perfect source couldnt have a perfect citation??????

DO YOU KNOW HOW WE KNOW WE NEED TO BRUSH OUR TEETH TWICE A DAY BUT WE ONLY NEED THAT BECAUSE WE NEED PROOF TO JUSTIFY OUR STATEMENTS????

*sobs in ib student*

[an-ruraiocht]

it's annoying when people say "english-speakers" when they actually just mean "USamericans". did you know not every english speaker experienced an education system resembling the us school system(s)? did you know not every english speaker's exposure to literature (modern and ancient) was shaped by the titles that happen to be common on US school syllabi? hell given that the US education system isn't, like, nationally standardised, i'm fairly sure this is the case even within the US, but it's certainly true outside it. "we all read X in high school" "English speakers are exposed to Y and not Z" your experiences are not universal

[trainwreckgenerator]

this might be like an ignorant question but how in the world does one become a university lecturer at 23??

let me tell you a secret. if the position you are applying for isn't "researcher" and is just "guy willing to talk to those kids paying to be in our building" then most university establishments actually have lower hiring standards than the average elementary school

[emotionaloof]

Wearing my KNIFE t-shirt to college and Vyncent Sol posseses me (my brain loses all its thoughts and I stab a guy).

[whalehouse1]

Jason coming back as Red Hood.

Tim: Wait, this is Jason? Little shrimp noddle of a kid? How’d he get so jacked?

Dick, I may have let him put some of the bigger books in his backpack.

Bruce: You did? So did I. Alfred?

Alfred: Don’t look at me Master Bruce, I told you this would happen if you let the boy read War and Peace and The Count of Monte Cristo at the same time in their original bindings.

[hummingbird-hunter]

Tankies really have one argument to defend their genocide denial and that is "western sources are propaganda and you can't trust them". Ah, yes, the most westernest of sources, my Ukrainian grandma.

[alpaca-clouds]

"Why didn't I learn this in history class?"

Lemme talk about something a bit more serious today. Because ever since I started to ramble once more about historical context for Castlevania Nocturne I have gotten asked this one so often:

"Why did I not learn this in school?" Or: "Why did I not learn this in history class?"

And I shall tell you why: Because school sucks.

I do not mean this in some exaggerated way or hyperbolic way or anything. School sucks. And you do not go to school to learn anything useful, you go to school for two reasons: a) So that you are out of the hairs of your parents and they can be exploited at their work place. b) So that you learn to listen to authority from a young age on and get some basic skills that you will ideally be able to leverage for your own exploitation.

I am sorry for sounding so darn Marxist right now, but that it is it.

And here is the thing: Because the entire school system is build towards exploitation, nobody actually wants you to learn about actual history. It could give you ideas, and that would be very tragic, wouldn't it?

Depending on the country you live in, history class mainly is concerned with two things. Teach you a bit about the bad stuff, and then also get some nice patriotic propaganda into your head. The latter stuff is especially strong in the US. I mean, pretty much every kid learns some variation of the entire darn "thanksgiving" bullshit. I just will leave you with the Adam's Family Values scene about this.

I mean, this is especially noticable right now of course, where everyone is crying about kids maybe learning just a little bit of real history in school - and so many people trying to forbid it.

In Germany, our history class basically goes like this: We note everything that has happened until 1900 in about three hours, only doing a very, very rough overview, and then we will talk about the Weimar Republic, First World War, Third Reich and Second World War at nauseum. Which could be good, if we actually talked about how the Nazis came into power. But if you ever talk with any random German who has not studied history, you will notice that most of them are of the opinion that the Nazi party was not elected in the popular vote, and that at least 40% of all people in the Third Reich were in fact against Hitler. Both of those things are not true. Nazis were elected - and they used some trickery to stay in power - and more than 90% of Germans were in full support of Hitler.

And the French Revolution? Obviously you will not learn about that. It might give you ideas. You know. Ideas what to do with unelected people who rule your country. And if you learn about the French Revolution, you might see how there are certain parallels to modern times.

You see, those who do not learn from history, are fated to repeat it.

Which kinda brings me to the even more radical part of this. You know what you can do to really fucking annoy those in power? You can learn about history. And you can teach others about history.

They will often tell you, that history is not as important as STEM. And in some way, sure: History will not cure cancer, and it will only do so much to help with climate change. But... It will teach you about how to recognize tyranny. And how to fight it. And frankly, under tyranny you will most likely not get cured of the cancer, let alone climate change. So yeah, tyranny - and getting rid of it - is important.

And, how did a wise man once say?

[thebluestbluewords]

Any random descendants headcanons you want to share?

I know I've been holding on to this ask for ages, but fear not!! I have FINISHED MOVING MOSTLY (I just have a couple boxes of craft supplies left to unpack, and tbh I mostly keep those in storage bins for organization anyway so it's fineeee) AND I HAVE SOME ENERGY ONCE AGAIN. 

Because I've been hearing a lot lately about my irl coworker's kid and her battle with school (she's been suspended twice in the last two weeks! And one of those weeks was spring break!) here's some VK school headcanons. 

As all of us book fans know, Carlos and Evie love school. They're TRAGIC, HOPELESS NERDS. 

Building on this, I think that Evie loves school so much that she's chronically overscheduling herself.  She's the girl who takes a full course load plus a bonus class just for fun, plus four or five extracurriculars.....plus of course she's doing the most for her required Auradon Prep volunteer hours, and on top of that she's running her fashion empire. She's the girl who has an absolutely ruthless schedule for herself, and she's never without her planner. During AP finals week, she's the one who schedules herself a five-minute cry break in the library, and then when her alarm goes off, she stops crying and gets back to work. She's spent so long being castle-schooled that she is not giving up a single moment now that she can experience school to the fullest. 

As a Very Important Headcanon Note, I do believe that Auradon Prep has a volunteer hours requirement for all students. They've got to have....something like 35 hours of volunteer work each year, which is about an hour a week if we're following a standard US school schedule. 

Lonnie organizes fun runs for charity as her volunteer hours. She's got a couple other international students on board too, and they work together on it. One of the school faculty supervises them and signs off on the hours. She organized one for the benefit of the isle, not that she's going to admit as much to the VKs. 

Evie refuses to participate in any Isle-based charity drives. She's on the junior kingdom advisory council, and that's enough time spent thinking about home the isle for her. Her school-sanctioned volunteer work is with an organization that helps bring fun STEM experiments into the public elementary schools. Of course she's going to design experiments that let the kids have a little bit of explosives. As a treat. The little girls deserve to know that they can look cute and cause chaos! 

Mal failed the required safety training, and isn't allowed to go into the elementary school with Evie. Apparently if you put curse words in every single one of your write-in answers, the school decides that you're not worthy of being a role model for the youth. 

She's getting her volunteer hours by working in the museum archives. It's mostly scanning boring, dusty old books into a digital archive. Totally dull stuff. She's only doing it because it keeps her away from the innocent public for her volunteer hours, and she's definitely not reading the books in the museum archive, which are mostly there because the kingdom did a very badly organized roundup of magical books when the magic ban first went into place, and nobody ever organized the piles of random spell books that have been collecting dust in the archive since. Totally not reading them. 

On an unrelated note, Mal's been sent to in-school suspension once every three weeks (the maximum amount that she can get away with before the consequences start stacking up) for accidental fire-related property destruction. On the plus side, she knows how to cast fireball now! 

Jay and Carlos are both doing their volunteer work through the on-campus junior sports teams. They're teaching adorable elementary students how to hit balls and not trip over their own feet. Jay is thriving. He loves kids and being adored. He's got a pack of under-ten kids who think he's the coolest thing ever. He gets to toss them around like boneless little sacks of meat, and they love him for it. He's doing great. Carlos is.....surviving. He's got two surly little pre-goth kids who are only in sports because their parents made them sign up, and they think he's the coolest student coach because he threatens them with physical violence when they don't participate. 

Middle school kids aren't required to do volunteer work, but Dizzy and Celia are HYPE to get student volunteer access to the AP chemistry labs once they're old enough to volunteer as lab cleaners. 

Squeaky and Squirmy are planning on running away to sea before they get to high school. They have not told anyone about this plan. 

Uma's pirates will eventually get a singular year of high school education each, during which they will cause at least thirteen new behavioral rules to be added to the AP handbook. 

Gil volunteers to crochet blankets for the Auradon City hospital, and accidentally finds his calling as a baby whisperer. Tiny babies love him. He's huge and warm and used to handling kids from all his half-siblings that keep popping up on the isle. What he lacks in critical thinking skills he makes up for in literally just picking up a kid and making them fall asleep. 

Uma creates a new volunteer position where she sits in the Isle Affairs office and bullies the adult coordinators relentlessly. She has one of them signing off on her volunteer paperwork, and another one of them paying her under the table for her consulting services. 

Harry is exempt from volunteer work, due to the unmitigated violence that lives in his soul. Also, he's like twenty, and refuses to do even a singular year of high school. He spends the time that Uma's choosing to waste in high school auditing college-level psychology classes so that he can learn better ways of psychologically tormenting their rivals. 

[rocketbirdie]

check out how my local elementary school is teaching multiples of ten to their 3rd graders