Six things to do before the summer holidays

The end of term is close. Before you sign off for the summer, here are six small jobs worth doing.

They take about twenty minutes together, they are all free, and they are all in the tools you already use. Work through them in order and you leave the year tidy and the new one half set up.

1. Hand the work back

Start in Google Classroom. Anything you have marked but not returned is still sitting with you, and the file still belongs to you, not the pupil. Return it and two things happen at once. The pupil gets their work and owns it again, and your marking for the year is finished for good. Open a class, tick the work you have graded, and click Return.

2. Archive the classes you are done with

Once the work is back, archive each class you have finished. Archiving lifts it out of your active list and makes it read-only, so no late submissions or stray messages arrive over the break. Nothing is deleted. Everything is still there in the new term to reopen or copy. On the Classroom home, click the three dots on a class card and choose Archive.

3. Sort out your Drive

Your Google Drive has quietly filled up all year. Ten minutes now saves you an hour in September. Make one folder named for this year, say "2025/26", and drag the year's files into it. Bin the duplicates and the half-finished drafts you will never open again. You start next year with a clean shelf and everything old still a click away.

4. Clear down your inbox

Do the same to Gmail. Archive the messages you have dealt with so they leave your inbox without being lost. Add a label or two for the things you will want to find again, like parents, exams and admin. The aim is simple. Come back to an inbox you can see the bottom of.

5. Switch on your out of office

Before you close the laptop, set your away reply. In Gmail this one is called the Vacation responder, under Settings. Turn it on, set the dates, and write a short line. Say that you are away, when you are back, and who to contact in the meantime if something cannot wait. Parents and the office still email over the break, so nobody is left waiting, and you are not tempted to keep checking.

6. Set next year up in Calendar

The last one, and the kindest of all. While the dates are still fresh in your head, put what you know into Google Calendar. First day back, the training days, when term ends, the trips and deadlines already on the horizon. You return to a diary that is half planned instead of a blank page.

That is the year closed down and the next one already begun. Twenty minutes today, and the you who walks back in for September will wonder how you managed it.