Time Management

maynooth_rules

Anyone else having severe difficulties with this. I teach 18 hours a week, three different subjects. Im really struggling to stay on top of everything. Anyone any helpful tips on what to do? The amount of hours work I am having to do at home is wearing me down. I struggle to understand how those with kids cope. I don't have a class of my own which also makes it difficult to get work done when I am off for a period.

starface

I am the same. I'm on 22 hours and form teacher- it is so so tiring.

Are you new to teaching? This is my third year and it definitely get easier every year! I used to be up doing work until 10:30 or 11 every night and now I'm finishing up around 8!!!

I don't really have and tips. Just make sure you make some time for yourself or else you'll feel really down. Keep reminding yourself that there are still loads of teachers dying for hours in a school so we're doing pretty good!

2011abc

You know it's becoming increasingly obvious that young(er) teachers are working themselves into hospital with ludicrous amounts of 'prep' and corrections . They will simultaneously report on marathon paperwork session and colleagues with serious medical conditions due to overwork / stress and bad diet / lack of exercise ...Go figure !

2011abc

starface wrote: »

Keep reminding yourself that there are still loads of teachers dying for hours in a school so we're doing pretty good!

Im sure they will be falling asleep surrounded by copies at midnight with a smile on their faces after reading that !

"Dying for hours" is right . Brainwashing of young teachers has clearly reached endemic levels .One of the most respected Maths teachers in the country once looked at me as if I had two heads at the suggestion of school work after 6pm ."That's family time " , he said .

Force out all the older teachers and the younger lot will swallow this without resistance on a third of the wages ?! Game over ?!

maynooth_rules

starface wrote: »

I am the same. I'm on 22 hours and form teacher- it is so so tiring.

Are you new to teaching? This is my third year and it definitely get easier every year! I used to be up doing work until 10:30 or 11 every night and now I'm finishing up around 8!!!

No im 6 years out of the Dip
I get the feeling that I am failing as a teacher a tad if I dont have every lesson prepared fully. Seems like the day of a teacher going into a class and just carrying on in the book from where they finished is frowned upon. Just this week seems to have been a killer. Im worried of an incidental so I am making sure all copies are marked, with feedback when possible. It seems to be a week where I have to give tests to most classes and extra curricular has kicked back in for full this week. Just feel like a zombie going around

starface

Brainwashed or not there is a lot of teachers from my dip not teaching in Ireland because they can't get a job here!!

I do feel I have to work my hardest to ensure I get CID.

I worked for a private company before going back and doing the dip and working late there was expected too (I remember getting the Luas home at 9 some evenings). If you want to do well you have to work hard. I can still be an alright maths teacher by not working late every evening but I want to be better than average. If I expect my students to work hard then I'll do the same for them.

evolving_doors

maynooth_rules wrote: »

No im 6 years out of the Dip
I get the feeling that I am failing as a teacher a tad if I dont have every lesson prepared fully. Seems like the day of a teacher going into a class and just carrying on in the book from where they finished is frowned upon. Just this week seems to have been a killer. Im worried of an incidental so I am making sure all copies are marked, with feedback when possible. It seems to be a week where I have to give tests to most classes and extra curricular has kicked back in for full this week. Just feel like a zombie going around

Why do you 'Have to' give tests. Are they being done across your subject dept. (common tests) or is there parent teacher meetings coming up?

Could the students correct the tests! Then they write what they did well in, and what they could do better into their copybooks.
Similarly, collecting copies and giving feeback all the time is going to kill you, get students to assess each other's work (maybe if you give guidelines on things they must mention). If they don't like the idea of peer correction then they can assess their own work and you could say you'll be taking up half the ones they assess themselves. Again... "What I did well (2 points) What i Must work on next time (1point)." (Inspectors love that self assessment moreso than teacher assessment, also students designing the test themselves).

When you have the tests all done and dusted have you learned anything new about the students that you didn't know already?
Have the students gained anything from the test. If they're getting C's every two months for years then does the test serve any purpose?
The feedback that you are giving... do they actually read it and act on it?
Do you find yourself writing the same feedback to a bunch of students... maybe built point common themes you find when looking through the copies and get students to take them down.
At the very least, if you're just trying to keep your head above water then just go around the room while students are doing a written task and do a quick copybook inspection (Big red Correct with your initials).

For the Extra Curricular you could try drafting in one or two students and give them a 'post of responsibility' to do paperwork or setting up stuff before you arrive. (At least you might have a few extra mins to eat your lunch and know that they'll be ready to go when you get there!).

But ya, I walked away from a pile of copies/tests today so I'll be squeezing them into my 'on-call' times tomorrow!

evolving_doors

starface wrote: »

Brainwashed or not there is a lot of teachers from my dip not teaching in Ireland because they can't get a job here!!

I do feel I have to work my hardest to ensure I get CID.

I worked for a private company before going back and doing the dip and working late there was expected too (I remember getting the Luas home at 9 some evenings). If you want to do well you have to work hard. I can still be an alright maths teacher by not working late every evening but I want to be better than average. If I expect my students to work hard then I'll do the same for them.

I take your point about wanting to work hard. But I'm wondering, when you worked for the private company was there any downtime during the day that things we'rent as busy. With teaching now there doesn't seem to be any down time, so much so that lunch is now part of my working day.

katydid

starface wrote: »

. I can still be an alright maths teacher by not working late every evening but I want to be better than average..

You don't have to kill yourself working to be a very good teacher. If you work too hard, you'll only be a mediocre teacher, because you won't have the energy to put into your classes.

Part of the problem is that you are new; after a few years you can revisit lesson plans and adapt them, instead of starting from scratch. When it comes to corrections and things, you will get used to maybe giving more homework and tests that can be corrected in less onerous ways than wading through copies.

You're right to look for advice on time management, but seriously, you need to see if you can cut down the amount of work you seem to be doing. You are not obliged to do extra curricular stuff, you know. A lot of teachers have given it up, especially since the introduction of Teacher's Detention.

Count yourself lucky you've only 18 hours...

gaiscioch

maynooth_rules wrote: »

Anyone else having severe difficulties with this. I teach 18 hours a week, three different subjects. Im really struggling to stay on top of everything. Anyone any helpful tips on what to do? The amount of hours work I am having to do at home is wearing me down. I struggle to understand how those with kids cope. I don't have a class of my own which also makes it difficult to get work done when I am off for a period.

Are you giving after school classes? Are you giving unpaid work to the state via extracurricular activities? How much respect do you feel you receive from the people who set your employment conditions? Not feeling respected but giving much more than you used to give in a time when your conditions were better is a recipe for your unhappiness. Not having a classroom adds immensely to the stress. It imposes substantial discipline issues on you in terms of moving around and settling classes, time pressure in going to and coming from classes and a lack of calm in your teaching surroundings. I've been there. Never again. I don't envy you for a second with this working environment. You need to back off from everything but the essentials.

You're definitely not alone. In our school the younger teachers have had unspeakably hard times, and that's just the ones who survived the first few years and ignoring the employment insecurity issues. I'm surprised a case has not been brought against both a school and the DoES for creating and sustaining an employment environment which does not protect the health and safety of teachers.

This month, for the first time in my career, I told all students that I was unable to stay after school anymore because of the impact of CP hours on the time I need to spend outside school. The kids who stay after school are always the most hardworking, admirable kids. It has always been a pleasure to give my after school time to them. It was not, and is not, easy to do this. Their results will suffer, and their escape from poor home lives by engaging in after school activities will be curtailed. I just cannot give so much of myself to this job anymore. I think you just have to know your limits, and be hard on all those people who impose on your time (even if, like me, you get satisfaction from afterschool volunteering).

Your time is your energy and you simply need to protect every second of it, and be kind to yourself. Caring and being passionate will zap your energy also. Try and stop being moved by all the tragic family lives, the kids coming into school from homeless shelters and emergency accommodation, the queue outside the school breakfast club at 7:55am each morning, the seemingly endless number of suicides of close relatives of students.... Focus entirely on teaching the subject you love and be the best and most inspirational teacher you can be in each of those classes. When the class is over disengage, as utterly horrible as that would have sounded to me even five years ago.

Some time management hints: since last spring I've stopped bringing any work home for correction. No exception. I never spend any time doing school work at home. Never. They correct each other's work in class and the corrections form part of the lesson. You also do not have to finish any course book. You have lesson objectives, not book-covering objectives, remember. You are obliged to cover the curriculum. There are many ways to do this smartly. Use somebody else's PowerPoint on whatever topic it is and don't waste time making your own. Use the "ppt" or "pptx" as part of your google search so only PowerPoints relating to your topic appear. In my school there is a general folder where everybody can use the resources. I was always too proud to use them and thus most of the PowerPoints etc in them have been made by me. Now, I just don't care about going online and using somebody else's.

implausible

You have to be realistic, about what you can do and about what will benefit the students.

A long time ago, I realised that it simply wasn't possible for me to lift copies from every class every week and to plan every bit of every class. Now I monitor copies in class, get students to mark them, spot check them and lift them on a rota (e.g. 2nd years this week). For senior classes I only lift long pieces of work like essays, rather than short pieces that I can look at in class or they can peer mark.

As for planning, I have detailed medium term plans and I write in the diary a one line summary or plan for each day. The learning intention is given orally, is only written up sometimes and can span a few classes.