New MacBook?
This years new fleet of MacBooks have less storage, 250GB instead of 500GB, however this is more than you should really need for your purposes for the next 3-4 years, as long as you don't try to hoard all of your files you've ever 'just in case'. So my advice is that you are better off not to to migrate the entire contents from your 'old' MacBook. The reality is 250GB (that's 250,000 Megabytes) is way more than you need for your school work, but not enough to store everything you've ever done including several kitchen sinks, that stuff should be moved (archived) to a separate backup drive.
A nice shiny new laptop is a good time to start from scratch, and it's also the easiest to manage. Any attempts to import/transfer content from the your overloaded MacBook to your new MacBook is just likely to end in frustration, because of the storage restrictions you will likely encounter in the next three years, it's time to rely on cloud synchronised storage (Google Drive) rather than local storage.
Just make sure everything that's important to you is in your Google Drive and rely upon that for transfer. That's it.
Check the 'name' of your Mac, just Go to Preferences, Sharing, and you will see the name, you can change that to whatever you like, but your name would be a really good idea.
If you use Inspire (formerly known as ActivInspire) you will need to ask IT Support to install the resources that make it most useful.
Infant School Teachers
If you are in Infants, do not use your own iCloud account with it, as you will need that for your class iCloud account. If you are not in Infants, go ahead!
If you are in Infants and you desperately want to use your personal iCloud account then you will need to make a separate account for that to work, although my advice would be to use a separate computer for your personal life like maybe your old MacBook?
Teachers who insist on migrating everything...
In the process of setting up your new MacBook you will be have the option to utilise a migration tool... You can use this migration tool to only transfer the user profile/s from your MacBook Pro which incorporates all your system preferences but it is relatively small in data size. This means things like passwords and preferences are migrated, but not loads of files. Guidance from Apple with illustrations here.
Or if you prefer you can choose to migrate everything, or just select specific items to transfer (migrate) like iPhoto, and iTunes - but be careful, I've seen teacher iPhoto libraries that would make Neptune look like a ping pong ball.
Other things that might be handy, you can ask IT to do these for you, or DIY:
Tab management: Install some useful Chrome extensions, eg AdBlock, Clutter Free, The Great Suspender
Customise your TrackPad settings to enable tap to click and 3 finger drag...
Open up the App Store, sign in with YOUR Apple ID and update everything
Start as you mean to continue—the Fundamental 4: Organised Drive, Desktop Zero, Backup on the Bar, Bookmark Bar Folders...
To use your laptop like an Apple TV install Reflector, use the trial version, then ask IT for the code to unlock it.
Finders Keepers?
Make it easy for people to return your Macbook to you by having a message display that makes it clear who it belongs to...
Force Click?
If you'd rather drag and drop the way you used to, you might want to turn off the force click and haptic option:
Photo and Music Libraries
You will probably find most of the files on your old laptop can be transferred via 'the cloud', but if you've been using iTunes or the Photos app, they will require a different approach.
You can locate the relevant library and copy it over to an external hard drive, then copy it back into the same location on your new Mac.
You can find you Photos library by clicking Go on the menu in the Finder, then Home > Pictures.
To find your iTunes library click on Go > Home > Music
You will probably have to enter your Admin password to prove you have the rights to copy this content at some point in the process.
You can use the Migration Assistant to transfer all your old info to the new Mac from a Time Machine backup, my advice is DON'T select everything, (you probably won't have enough storage space) just select certain items to migrate, like your iTunes/Photo library, and your Computer & Network Settings. You probably don't need to transfer Application as your new Mac already has all the software installed that you need.
Once it has loaded, you can click the arrow to open up the User Account, then tick the items you want to migrate, like Music and Pictures.
You can also copy over your libraries from a Time Machine backup, once it's connected to your new computer. Just open the Time Machine app, find and copy the files you want.
