With the new school year here, we’ve rounded up some of the back-to-school essentials for your classroom. From planners to visual teaching tools, these are just some of the accessories that can support your lessons, keep your students engaged and keep you organised throughout the year.

Dated Wall Planner

A wall planner can help to keep you organised throughout the school year, but you can also utilise a wall planner to keep your students engaged and organised too. You can pick from a weekly or monthly whiteboard planner, or even a full year. You can update the dates with key events, deadlines, homework assignments and reminders for either yourself or the entire class.

A wall-mounted planner somewhere central in the classroom will mean that everyone can refer to it to know what’s going on and what important events will be coming up soon. Alternatively, you could opt for a smaller, desktop planner for your own desk, and just keep it updated with events and dates that you need to have in mind.

Notice Board

Another back-to-school essential to keep the whole class organised is a felt notice board. Available in a range of colours and sizes, our felt notice boards are perfect for classrooms, providing a space to display notices, share information or present work from the pupils.

You could use a notice board to celebrate student achievements in art or writing, by pinning examples of exceptional work on the boards. This can help students to feel valued as well as encouraging each child to do their best work in the hopes of making it onto the notice board. Be sure to switch up the sort of work you present, so all skillsets have a chance to shine.

You could also use notice boards for themed displays on one of the topics you’ll be studying that term. This might include historical timelines for a specific period, or vocabulary lists for language lessons. These can be helpful for students to refer to in lessons and reinforce their learning.

Frameless whiteboard

A frameless whiteboard can be a great addition to your classroom for the new school year. With a frameless whiteboard, you can maximise your writing area by extending the writing surface to fit your space. You can arrange multiple frameless whiteboards in whichever layout fits the space available in your classroom, creating a seamless whiteboard wall.

This can be perfect for teaching, allowing for the maximum writing space. This means more visual aids and more space for students to collaborate, share ideas and problem solve together. It also allows for extra real estate to keep visual aids fixed to the whiteboard with a magnet, which can be useful if something needs to be referenced throughout the teaching of a certain topic.

Whiteboard Pens

Whiteboard pens are essential in every classroom. Every teacher knows the frustration of going to use a pen and finding it has run out, or not even being able to find your pen in the first place. Start your school year right with an assortment of coloured whiteboard pens.

Nobo offers a selection of whiteboard pens, from bullet tips, chisel tips and fine tips, liquid ink pens for easy flow and our glide pens for thick, smooth lines. All our pens are fast drying and easy to erase from both whiteboards and other dry wipe surfaces. Remember to include a range of colours when choosing your whiteboard pens, to help enhance your teaching with colour coded visual aids.

Whiteboard Erasers

As well as whiteboard pens, a key whiteboard accessory for your classroom is a whiteboard eraser. Nobo offers a selection of whiteboard cleaning tools, including microfibre whiteboard erasers that are magnetic, so they can easily be stored on the whiteboard itself. These microfibre erasers also have refill pads available, making them a cost-effective, low-waste solution. You can use these along with our cleaning sprays as part of your daily maintenance to keep your whiteboard looking pristine and clear.

Whiteboard Magnets

Another practical whiteboard accessory for your back-to-school shopping list is a set of whiteboard magnets. This simple, versatile tool can help you display visual aids during lessons or to display photos and messages for the class. With whiteboard magnets, you can easily move documents and loose papers around your whiteboard, whether you need more writing space or want to display something more prominently.

Our magnets are available in a range of strengths and designs to suit your needs. Our extra strong glass whiteboard magnets can hold up to six sheets of A4 on a glass whiteboard, and our large magnets can hold seven sheets of paper on a standard whiteboard.

Gridding Tape

Gridding tape might not be your first thought when it comes to back-to-school essentials, but we’re sure you’ll find this simple tool extremely useful. Our gridding tape is self-adhesive for use with whiteboards and has an ergonomic dispenser, allowing you to easily create neat and tidy tables and grids for all your teaching needs. Whether it’s brainstorming the pros and cons of a topic or setting out data in a table or line graph, gridding tape will keep your visual aids clear and concise. Our tape can easily be removed and repositioned if you need to adjust something, or if you no longer need that layout and instead want a clear board for writing.

Mini Whiteboards

Mini whiteboards can be a fantastic way of keeping students engaged throughout class. They can encourage independent thinking as well as collaborative working, providing an interactive tool for individuals or groups of students.

Mini whiteboards have a whole host of uses, from maths to art, English and science. They can be used for smaller groups to brainstorm ideas together before sharing with the group, or they can be used in quizzes to summarise a topic you have taught. The A4 mini whiteboard can be used upright or used flat on a desktop with its removable stand making it a useful addition to any school environment.

Get ready for the school year with Nobo

Nobo has a huge range of practical communication tools to support your lessons this school year. From whiteboards and notice boards to projection tools and signage, we’re sure to have the solution you need for your classroom. Take a look at our range of products today to see how we can support you.