The Golden Hour: Making the Most of May & June
By the time April rolls around in schools, most parents are tired. Tired of managing homework or lesson plans, tired of making lunches, and tired of managing pick-up schedules and activities. It’s easy to shift into cruise control and just ride things out until the end of the year. And that’s one of the biggest mistakes you can make.
Image Credit: Petr Vysohlid
In photography, the Golden Hour is that short time right before sunset and after sunrise when the light is just about perfect and you can take some naturally stunning photographs. The very end of the school year and very beginning of the next are the Golden Hour for education. They are critical times for getting a beautiful and necessary snapshot of where our children are, and putting the pieces into place so that we have to do less “editing” later.
Not taking action can cost you time and your child support.
I remember one parent I worked with (we’ll call her Andrea) whose third grader had been struggling with some motivation and attention challenges throughout the year. Some of this was due to a newly discovered reading comprehension challenge (Hello, third grade!) He had a phenomenal teacher and had made some good progress thanks to strategies they had put in place, but was still struggling. Over the course of the year, Andrea had many conferences with the teacher and had started conversations about getting some assessments done. She’d put in a ton of time helping her child manage the increased workload, soothing tears over homework, and agonizing with friends about what to do next. By the time the spring term rolled around, the teacher was busy with end-of-year activities, Andrea was tired, and because it was so close to the end of the year, she took her foot off the gas and started looking hopefully towards summer.
And then the teacher moved. Unexpectedly, the progress her child had made, the systems they had put into place, and all the notes supporting any possible testing disappeared. There would be no late-summer transition meeting, and Andrea had to start back at square one in the fall, trying to translate for a new teacher what struggles they’d been through and what strategies had worked for her child.
In the end, it was January before the new teacher had any meaningful interventions in place, Andrea found herself paying for extra tutoring out of pocket, and the much-needed testing was delayed almost a full year. Much of that could have been avoided if Andrea had taken a few simple steps to document and plan while school was still in. session. Not taking action during the Golden Hour cost Andrea time and money, and it cost her child a year of meaningful interventions.
“Unexpectedly, the progress her child had made, the systems they had put into place, and all the notes supporting any possible testing disappeared.”
Follow along as we walk you through the end-of-year “must-dos” so that you can start next year ahead, and not behind.
This post could easily be 10 pages long if I went through every individual scenario you might find yourself in. Instead of asking for that level of reading commitment, I’m breaking it up into two posts and offering a free conversation for anyone who might need to talk about this with more specifics. (And if you’re a current client, don’t worry, I’ve already got my eye on your world and we’ll be chatting soon!)
Today I want you to start by doing these three things. It doesn’t matter what type of school you’re in or if you homeschool. And they apply whether your child is attending school remotely, in-person, or hybrid. If you don’t see something you’re looking for, just drop a comment or send us an email -- we’ll be sure to include an answer in the next installment!
You don’t have to do these steps in order, you just need to do them.
☐ Step 1: Get organized. Seriously, don’t put this off until the summer. We’re not asking you to color code all of your child’s homework by theme or frame all of that amazing art (unless that’s your jam), but we are asking you to pull together:
all of their report cards from this year,
key emails about your child’s progress and goals,
and any conference notes you have.
Go ahead and stick them in a folder. Give yourself bonus points if you have one work sample in each subject from the beginning of the year and one that’s more recent.
Then give yourself a high-five, you finished Step 1! (That wasn’t too bad, was it?)
☐ Step 2: Request a Meeting. Reach out to your child’s homeroom teacher or advisor to ask for a “Summary and Goals” meeting sometime in mid-to-late May (DO NOT go any later than Memorial Day, and if your child is in a school that ends in May, you’ll want to schedule this even earlier.) If you’re a homeschool parent, schedule this meeting with yourself. Yes, I’m serious. We’ll talk more about why in the next installment, but for now, just put it in your calendar at a time when you know you won’t get interrupted.
☐ Step 3: Review. This is going to be the step that takes the most focus, so pour yourself a cup of coffee and clear an hour to do it well. Take a good look at the report cards, emails, and conference notes you set aside in Step 1. Highlight any goals or areas for growth that were mentioned in yellow. Highlight any successes or goals met in green. Then put them into a chart like this:
Don’t worry about those last two boxes. We’ll talk about how to complete them in the next post.
Congratulations, you’re on your way to a productive Golden Hour!
Once you’ve done these three things, you’re ready to launch. We’ll take you through the next steps for your specific situation in the next installment on April 28th. If you need help before then, don’t hesitate to reach out. I’m available for 1:1 ed coaching, and also have turn-key end-of-year packages available for families.
In the meantime, enjoy the sunshine, keep being an advocate for your kids, and don’t forget to have some fun along the way.
Thanks,
Rebekah