9 High School Syllabus Must-Haves
Full confession: Steph loves a good syllabus. A nice thick packet full of clear expectations, detailed descriptions of each lesson, and an entire semester’s worth of due dates? Bring it on. Her color-coded planner is ready and waiting. But that joy Steph feels? It’s not something everyone (or even most people) experiences.
For too many years, we followed the traditional conventions of the high school syllabus, providing students and families/guardians with an overview of everything our class covered as well as our classroom rules and expectations.
The thing is? Most didn’t really care. And it made for a boring and overwhelming first day of school as a small mountain of papers accumulated on each student’s desk.
Do I even need a high school syllabus?
You’ll probably need to create a traditional high school syllabus the first time you teach a class. This can be completed more than a few ways (some of which require significantly less work on your part than others):
- Your site uses a department-issued syllabus created by committee (or your department chair) which is submitted to and approved by your principal.
- You are responsible for creating your own syllabus which you submit to your principal for approval prior to sharing it with students and families/guardians.
- You teach an AP course, which requires you to create and submit your syllabus to your administrator who approves it and then submits it to the College Board to get official approval for your course.
- You teach an AP course that already has an approved syllabus, which your administrator wants you to use. The administrator submits the existing syllabus under your name for College Board approval.
The traditional syllabus will likely include an overview of the content you’ll cover, the order in which you’ll cover it, and possibly both a timeline and the texts you plan to make use of throughout the year. This syllabus varies in level of detail depending on who’s asking for it. While your administrator and the College Board may want, and possibly benefit from, such detail, this is far more information than your students and families/guardians need or want.
Students and families/guardians don’t need to know everything, but they do want to get a feel for your expectations and what your class will be like. The traditional syllabus is basically theoretical and philosophical. Students and families/guardians want practical. (Unless the family member/guardian is also a teacher of the same subject, in which case they may want that traditional syllabus information, but that’s a very small number of people).
Using your high school syllabus to clearly explain your expectations and policies from the very first day makes it easier on everyone. Before any school has been missed, before any assignments are turned in late, before any plagiarism takes place, before anyone is stressed, frustrated, or feeling emotionally charged, all the information students and families/guardians need to really understand is ready and available. This is also helpful if, and when, behavior issues arise—it’s a lot harder for students and families/guardians to challenge you when you follow a consistent policy that you made readily available to them.
What should I include in my high school syllabus?
Whether you’re looking to revamp your lengthy syllabus or you’re creating a high school syllabus for the first time, there are a few essentials you’ll definitely want to include:
Why You Should Consider Using a Syllabus Template
Sure, you could open up a Google Doc, type out your classroom expectations in the default size-11 Arial font, hit print, and call it a day. But we’re big fans of a visually appealing, infographic-style syllabus, and we think you should consider it for a few key reasons.
While you have to set the expectations for your own classroom, you don’t have to spend hours creating a visually appealing template. Save yourself time by letting us handle the formatting: we’ve got fully editable infographic syllabus templates (minimalist, book-themed, and coffee-themed, so you can choose the one that best fits your personality). Even better? Each syllabus template includes a fill-in-the-blank scavenger hunt activity you can use on the first day of school to make reviewing this not-so-exciting document more engaging for students.
So, if you’re a veteran teacher, take that lengthy high school syllabus and give it a makeover. Condense it down to the basics for your students. And if you’re a new teacher, don’t make this task harder than it needs to be: keep it simple.