A Guide to Mastering Locker Skills

Are you a parent of a Great Hearts student who will be using a locker for the first time this year?  Is this milestone in their school career causing you or your child a little bit of stress or anxiety?  Anytime something new is introduced into our lives it may trigger fear of the unknown and sometimes failure.  With the following advice from middle school teachers, we hope to help ease these fears for you and your child by helping you know what to expect, how to prepare, and what to plan for.

We’ve got 5 tips below to help your middle schooler navigate their first time using a locker to ease their stress on the first day:

1. Plan ahead.
   The first tip is to plan ahead so you can limit how many times a day you need to access the locker.  Many of the lockers offered are stacked one on top of another.  Keep in mind that this can mean more time to get into the lockers during the school day, especially if you must wait for someone who is accessing their locker above or below yours.  Take a look at the schedule and take supplies for more than one class at a time.  Some of the academies require that backpacks be kept in the lockers during the day but will allow small totes to be taken to class.  Please check with your academy to find out what is permitted.
2. Practice using a combo lock.
   You will be issued a combination lock along with your combination code.  We recommend that you purchase a simple combination lock that can be found at retail stores like Target, Walmart, or Amazon before school begins and allow your child to practice unlocking it.  Knowing how to work a combination lock with ease before the first day of school can serve as a big relief to a student.
3. Purchase a locker shelf.
   When loading and unloading materials into the locker some may find it difficult to keep things organized in a tall narrow space where things tend to stack on top of each other, making it difficult to grab needed materials when needed.  Many families purchase locker shelves at Target, Walmart, or Amazon.  These are perfectly adequate and usually inexpensive, being made of plastic or thin metal.  Some families have built shelves out of wood that can last a student’s entire academic career.  If you like this option and are handy with wood-working tools, you can contact your academy for specific locker measurements and build accordingly.  Some families have even made these shelves in bulk and sell them on various parent groups on Facebook.  This gives space for books and binders to be stored vertically and gives other items such as lunch totes and school bags a place to be stowed.  Inexpensive book ends are also helpful to keep books from falling over as things are quickly taken from the shelf.
4. Keep your classics at home.
   Speaking of books, your child will have several “Classics to Keep” that they will be reading throughout the school year for Literature and Composition.  There will likely be too many pieces of literature to keep in the lockers alongside textbooks and supplies.  It is recommended that your child only keeps the book they are currently using for class and keep the other classics at home until the teacher requests for them to be brought to school.
5. Keep your schedule accessible.
   Lastly, your child will most likely want to decorate the inside of the locker.  For this we recommend using magnets to post pictures and art they want to hang.  Please check with your academy for any limitations on locker decorations and make sure decorations are kept to the inside of the locker.  A great tip is to include a copy of the schedule on the inside of the door, especially for the first few weeks of school.  How many of us haven’t had that reoccurring nightmare where we arrive to school but don’t know what class to go to next.  Even as adults.  But that’s a different article all together.  The point is to remove any unnecessary obstacles during the first few turbulent days of school.

There are many tips and tricks that have been used through the years, but these were just a few to help you and your child transition to life with a locker at school.  The important thing is to find the organizational methods that are sustainable for you, and more specifically, your child.  With a little planning ahead, your child can experience a little less anxiety and keep their minds focused on the academics they have in front of them.