5 SIMPLE Ways to Build Positive Relationships with Students

Building positive relationships is such an important part of the classroom. I truly believe that relationships are foundational and the KEY TO SUCCESS! Let’s look at 5 simple ways you can build POSITIVE relationships with your students.

How Do You Build Relationships with Students?

What is the MOST important element of the student-teacher relationship? I believe that it is trust and that trust is founded from creating long-lasting POSITIVE relationships. Building relationships with your students will NOT happen overnight. For example, it takes time to water flowers and watch them grow. Building relationships is no different. This is why starting to build them at the beginning of the year and continuing it throughout the year is important for teachers.

Build Relationships with Students From Day 1

Building positive relationships with your students starts from day 1 and continues throughout the school year. Two of my favorite ways to do with was to send home a Meet The Teacher Letter to students before the first day of school to introduce myself!

Another one of my favorite activities to use to get to know students during the first week of school was with a show and tell bag!

You can read more about it HERE and also grab the FREE editable note too!

Here are 5 simple ways that you can build POSITIVE relationships with your students all year long!

5 Easy Ways to Build Student-Teacher Relationships:

1. Take an Interest in Student’s Interests

The first step to building relationships with students is simply getting to know them better. Ask them questions about themselves and notice the characters or themes on their backpacks. For older students have them fill out interest surveys at the beginning of the year. If they play on a sporting team-is it possible for you to ever make it to one of their events? Or maybe even just remember to ask them how the game went to show them that you care?

2. Positive Classroom Management

I believe in a no-yell approach to classroom management in which expectations are high, yet attainable. Students will then thrive because they are in an environment where they can both be and feel successful. It’s important for teachers to create a positive learning environment from the first to the last day of school. If you need some help with classroom management planning, check out the Classroom Management Bundle. It has tons of tools and strategies ready to easily use for the entire year!

It is important for teachers to create a positive learning environment for students in order to build relationships with them.

3. Show Students That You Care

Keeping in accordance with the above tip of a positive classroom management approach is to go the extra mile to show your students that you really care about them. Write encouragement notes to them every chance that you get. These p ositive notes can be quick way to show praise for a great day or awesome job on an assignment. They could even just be a quick sentence to show them that you’re thinking of them. You will be surprised to find that leaving notes of encouragement really helps build that trust with your students and starts to build that positive and safe relationship with them.

Write encouragement notes to students to build a positive relationship with them.

Positive Notes Bundle

I have an entire bundle of p ositive notes that you can print out and write or type on for students. The fun part is that they are even themed for different times of the year. So you will find an appropriate and engaging note to use during Halloween, Thanksgiving or even St. Patrick’s Day. This keeps it fun and exciting for your students to see different seasonal designs on their notes and have them as keepsakes! Don’t worry- there are anytime notes, testing notes, birthday notes, back to school and end of school year notes also!

4. Make a positive call home

One of my biggest tips for a successful year is to make a positive phone call home to every student’s family within the first two weeks of school. This sounds like a lot, but it is totally doable! Plus, the impact it has on building positive relationships with your students and their families is HUGE!! After this-try for 2-3 more positive contacts with families about their student throughout the year. This can be through another phone call, email, or positive note sent home!

There is always going to be a couple students in your class that need some extra love and support in order to have a successful year. Those students are going to be the ones that you call first. The reason for this is that there will probably be other calls that will need to take place later in the year. And you will want that first call to be a positive one! Check out more ideas for positive parent communication in this blog post. And if you need a way to keep track of parent communication then you’re going to want to check out my Parent Communication Log!

5. Keep Learning Fun!

Your students should be excited and engaged when they are in your classroom. Make sure to smile and have a blast while teaching the curriculum! Use materials that are fun, engaging, and integrated so that it hits learning standards/targets on many different levels. One way that I make sure to have fun is through using crafts in the primary grades, like this All About Me back to school craft! It’s so important for our students to love learning and become lifelong learners! We model this for them always!

all-about-me-activity-for-back-to-school

Resources to Build Relationships with Students

Are you ready to build POSITIVE relationships with your students this year?! You can grab any of these time-saving resources mentioned above to help make it easier!