First Lesson Back | Meet Your New Class Toolkit

A complete, editable first lesson back toolkit designed to help secondary teachers meet a new class, establish expectations and routines, build relationships and create a positive classroom culture from lesson one.

This ready-to-use resource provides a structured 45–60 minute first lesson that can be adapted for almost any secondary subject or year group.

Rather than relying on generic icebreakers, the lesson combines purposeful pupil activities with clear routines, expectations and opportunities for teachers to learn useful information about their new class.

Included in the toolkit:

• 17 professionally designed editable PowerPoint slides
• Suggested 45–60 minute lesson structure
• Ready-to-use Do Now activity
• Editable teacher introduction slide
• Quick connection / getting-to-know-you activity
• Pupil learning-profile activity
• First-five-minutes classroom routine
• Classroom expectations activity
• “What does a great classroom sound like?” discussion task
• Reset, Repair, Return behaviour routine
• Collaborative class agreement
• End-of-lesson exit ticket
• Printable Pupil Learning Profile
• Printable Classroom Reset Reflection sheet
• Printable Class Expectations Agreement

Ideal for:

• First lesson of the academic year
• Meeting a new class
• KS3 and KS4
• Form groups
• Establishing classroom routines
• Behaviour expectations
• Building classroom culture
• New teachers and ECTs
• Teachers taking over a class mid-year

The resource is fully editable, allowing teachers to personalise names, routines, expectations and examples to match their own subject and school context.

The activities have been deliberately designed to balance relationship-building with establishing clear expectations, so the first lesson remains purposeful rather than becoming an hour of increasingly desperate icebreakers.

Suitable for use across a wide range of secondary subjects.

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