Wondering if your principal will buy you a Christmas present or not? Well, if you've done any of these six things, you should be just fine. If you're worried about being on the naughty list, though, then you should brush up on these six helpful tips.

Be the Helper

If you really want to get on your principal's good side, all you have to say is "I can help." Even better, say it loudly, and often!

An administrator is often burdened by a million different responsibilities on any given day. And trying to convince staff and teachers to help out often feels like herding cats.

By regularly volunteering to help out, you stand out as a leader in your school. Do this enough, and your Christmas present may just be a promotion.

Keep the Door Open

At the end of the day, your main job is to help students. But when the day ends, most teachers leave campus right away; at least some do.

To impress the principal, be the teacher who stays afterward from time to time with the door open. This sends a clear message to students: they can come to you if they need help or simply need someone to talk to.

And opening doors for students also opens doors for your career. You never know when your principal will walk in and see what a good job you’ve been doing.

Help the New Teachers

Remember how frantic your first year of teaching was? Well, there are always new people at your school who are finding this out the hard way.

A principal usually makes an effort to train and mentor new hires. However, a busy principal often doesn’t have enough time to really devote to those who need help the most.

One of the greatest things you can do as a teacher is to take a new hire under your wings. This may mean helping them with lesson plans or simply talking about how to handle trouble students.

With the holidays around the corner, the greatest gift you can give your boss is to share your knowledge and passion with a new teacher.

Be a Departmental Leader

Be honest: has your department been doing the same old thing every single year? There’s a simple reason for this: inertia.

Teachers often fall in the trap of assuming what worked one year will work the next year. And before you know it, you’ve all been doing the same thing for a decade!

To get on your principal’s good list, you should step up and be a real leader in your department. This may include coming up with some interdisciplinary teaching ideas or simply organising some social activities to help your fellow teachers blow off steam.

It really is that simple: if you want to be noticed as a leader, then start by being a leader in your own area of specialty.

Reach Out

Many students fail tests and entire classes year after year. While there is no helping some of them, others may have been helped by a single phone call or e-mail.

When students struggle in school, the worst part is that everything piles up. By the time they want to get back on a solid academic path, it may already be too late.

It’s time-consuming, but one of the best things you can do is to reach out to your struggling students early on. When a good student suddenly fails a test, don’t wait for them to fail another one: reach out and see what the problem really is.

You’ll save their grades, and who knows? You may even save a life.

Bring New Ideas to the Table

If you get right down to it, the biggest part of a principal’s job is having a vision. They must visualise a better future for the school and then work to make that happen.

Teachers really hoping to get a present from the head teacher should do their best to help out with that vision. And that means bringing new ideas to the table.

Make sure you discuss your new school aspirations and ideas directly with your head teacher. They can implement some of them right away, and your more ambitious ideas might just change the entire future of the school.

Final Thoughts

It's good to impress the boss around Christmas time. But do not forget that the best teachers impress senior leaders all year round. To stay on the good list all year, be sure to follow each one of these tips.