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Teachers - Working Day
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Spinning out of my News thread, where there was a routine swipe at "idle teachers"
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Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s I had a lot of friends who were teachers (secondary and primary). Families did not routinely have more than one car in those days and many of my teaching friends were 'stuck' at school until a non-teaching partner finished work & they could share the trip home. So they did their marking and preparation whilst they waited.
The general opinion then was that if a teacher arrived at 8:30 and worked solidly through until 5ish (ie a normal working day for other jobs) then they would have no work to do at evenings and weekends, apart from occasional bursts to do exam marking and reports.
Essentially teaching could (if you wished) be a "9 to 5" job - but with much longer holidays than any other professional career.
Is this still the case - or has the load been increased to the point where it's just not feasible any more and significant evening and weekend work is impossible to avoid?
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Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s I had a lot of friends who were teachers (secondary and primary). Families did not routinely have more than one car in those days and many of my teaching friends were 'stuck' at school until a non-teaching partner finished work & they could share the trip home. So they did their marking and preparation whilst they waited.
The general opinion then was that if a teacher arrived at 8:30 and worked solidly through until 5ish (ie a normal working day for other jobs) then they would have no work to do at evenings and weekends, apart from occasional bursts to do exam marking and reports.
Essentially teaching could (if you wished) be a "9 to 5" job - but with much longer holidays than any other professional career.
Is this still the case - or has the load been increased to the point where it's just not feasible any more and significant evening and weekend work is impossible to avoid?
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In my experience it's impossible to do it in a 9-5 day
A typical day started for me at 7:15 setting myself up- photocopying materials, getting all the exercise books to the required rooms, going through emails about messages to pass on to form group.
Then teach 8:45- 3:30.
There was hardly any break time- morning break was spent keeping back pupils, discussing problems, setting up the next classroom or corridor/playground duties
Lunch time involved running lunch-time clubs, other duties or detentions.
After school there was usually either detentions, revision classes, departmental meetings or training until 4.30.
That still left marking and lesson planning.
Imagine how much marking there is. You teach maybe 120 students in a day. If you spend just one minute looking at each book that will take you two hours. Okay, you don't go through the books everyday but maybe once a week you need to go through it all, mark it, set targets. That usually takes all Sunday afternoon.
Lesson planning- you are expected to lodge a written lesson plan showing all the key elements of your lesson, objectives, measures of assessment, differentiation plans. You also need to provide a range of resources- extra sheets for the brighter students, kinaesthetic activities for those learners, resources for the weaker pupils who need support. That can easily be an hour a day.
Then there are reports, parents evenings, exam entries, homework setting and marking, phone calls /meetings with parents. That's more evenings and weekend time
Does this help?
A typical day started for me at 7:15 setting myself up- photocopying materials, getting all the exercise books to the required rooms, going through emails about messages to pass on to form group.
Then teach 8:45- 3:30.
There was hardly any break time- morning break was spent keeping back pupils, discussing problems, setting up the next classroom or corridor/playground duties
Lunch time involved running lunch-time clubs, other duties or detentions.
After school there was usually either detentions, revision classes, departmental meetings or training until 4.30.
That still left marking and lesson planning.
Imagine how much marking there is. You teach maybe 120 students in a day. If you spend just one minute looking at each book that will take you two hours. Okay, you don't go through the books everyday but maybe once a week you need to go through it all, mark it, set targets. That usually takes all Sunday afternoon.
Lesson planning- you are expected to lodge a written lesson plan showing all the key elements of your lesson, objectives, measures of assessment, differentiation plans. You also need to provide a range of resources- extra sheets for the brighter students, kinaesthetic activities for those learners, resources for the weaker pupils who need support. That can easily be an hour a day.
Then there are reports, parents evenings, exam entries, homework setting and marking, phone calls /meetings with parents. That's more evenings and weekend time
Does this help?
I haven't been teaching for anything like 25 years so I can't be sure but I believe it has increased. Some differences I would guess are:
- some students in the past would never get any exam passes. You could just keep them occupied with activities they liked. Now you still have to try to get a 'silk purse out of a sow's ear' and turn that U or G into an F .
- there are many targets set for levels of progress and teachers are expected to measure and report on progress regularly and develop individual plans for students
-mixed ability teaching is harder- I often need 3 lesson plans for one lesson to cover the huge range of abilities
- teachers are expected to have detailed lesson plans that cover every student and teachers are expected to record on the plan afterwards details of actual progress. I'm sure 30 years ago some teachers just used to come in and improvise.
- school reports used to contain a single sentence. Now 6 are expected per subject
- much more time is spent now on behavioural issues
- when marking we are not supposed to just tick the work- we are expected to write comments on how to improve and set targets
- some students in the past would never get any exam passes. You could just keep them occupied with activities they liked. Now you still have to try to get a 'silk purse out of a sow's ear' and turn that U or G into an F .
- there are many targets set for levels of progress and teachers are expected to measure and report on progress regularly and develop individual plans for students
-mixed ability teaching is harder- I often need 3 lesson plans for one lesson to cover the huge range of abilities
- teachers are expected to have detailed lesson plans that cover every student and teachers are expected to record on the plan afterwards details of actual progress. I'm sure 30 years ago some teachers just used to come in and improvise.
- school reports used to contain a single sentence. Now 6 are expected per subject
- much more time is spent now on behavioural issues
- when marking we are not supposed to just tick the work- we are expected to write comments on how to improve and set targets
i have noticed the differences between my school days at grammar 1967-1972 and my grandsons first 3 years of high school now, for one, he does not have any exercise books, he does everything online including his homework, the computer marks his work not the teacher and i don't expect the teacher designs the software!
I had 2 books for each subject and had to carry them around with me during the school day. Homework was handed in and returned after about a week marked. or sometimes the teachet would work along the desks marking the work for each person during the lesson. Teachers would be seen walking through the halls with 20 - 30 exercise books under their arm. We also always had a bible in our school desk, my grandson never uses a bible at school.
sorry, slight digression i guess
I had 2 books for each subject and had to carry them around with me during the school day. Homework was handed in and returned after about a week marked. or sometimes the teachet would work along the desks marking the work for each person during the lesson. Teachers would be seen walking through the halls with 20 - 30 exercise books under their arm. We also always had a bible in our school desk, my grandson never uses a bible at school.
sorry, slight digression i guess
this could have been us! myself and all my mates had a feathered skinhead
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