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What's your school's expectation re: planning/scrutinising planning?

9 replies

CatKisser · 09/09/2014 19:39

I'm curious as management here seem to think that anally scrutinising our planning is the way to fixing all our perceived problems.
Currently, in terms of planning we do a Long Term Plan, Medium Term plans, a weekly overview with LOs for each subject, and brief daily lesson plans for every single lesson. Also, as Lit leader I had to do long term plans for every year group. I can just about cope with this, as last year the dailies were much more extensive.

What I'm not happy about is the weekly planning scrutinies. We have no criteria for these and no real idea what they're looking for. Also, my union says I shouldn't be handing in planning for regular scrutiny. The person scrutinising is a real paperwork fiend who sends work emails at 4am on Sundays and I will never live up to her expectations wrt paperwork.

Work is not a happy place currently. What's your schools view on planning?

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Thatssofunny · 09/09/2014 21:06

We have one long-term plan showing all subjects, which covers a page. I have medium-term planning for foundation subjects, which are slightly more detailed. No weekly or daily plans for these subjects. I have the same for Science, but provide colleagues with more detailed planning, if they need it.
We do short medium-term plans for English and Maths (one A4 sheet - objectives only). These transfer into weekly plans, which have individual lessons, groups, structures and objectives on them. I work from that and then annotate/change as we go along. If I stick to the same topic throughout a week, I plan up to about Wednesday and then fill in the remainder as the week unfolds.
Planning gets looked at about once or twice a year.

To be honest, planning is supposed to help the teacher, not be an exercise in creating more paperwork. There's no point in having pages and pages of planning that nobody ever looks at. It's meant to be flexible.

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CatKisser · 09/09/2014 21:23

Thanks, I appreciate that. It sounds like we are about similar in terms of planning - only you seem to avoid the mad scrutinies. They just really panic me. For various reasons, too long to go into here, one of the SLT members has massively taken against me this year, I have no clue why, but I'm most definitely "on the outside." And noticeably so. I'm scared this person will try to discredit me to the Head when it comes to planning and book scrutinies.

I love teaching but feel really miserable - and so early in the term!

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Littlefish · 09/09/2014 22:18

TLT should not be asking for planning to be handed in on a regular basis unless it is part of a planned subject scrutiny. Contact your union.

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Littlefish · 09/09/2014 22:19

TLT = SLT

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CatKisser · 10/09/2014 05:57

Thanks LittleFish, I think I'm going to.

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DownByTheRiverside · 10/09/2014 06:24

Mine was like yours.
Except the daily lesson plans had to be as detailed as possible.
I left.

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CatKisser · 10/09/2014 16:50

Down I am just about to begin a detailed job search. I LOVE working in our gorgeous little village school so much, but it's going to be a very difficult place this year. Blame, denial, unhappiness... There have been tears all round today from a colleague who's been treated fairly shittily by the Head, and she's already been onto the union.

I'm realising beyond doubt that the absolute best part of working in education is with the kids, in the classroom. Management bollocks and LA level stuff is all deceitful, dishonest, job-justifying bollocks.

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DownByTheRiverside · 10/09/2014 16:59

Tralalalala
It's why I love supply work. All the fun, none of the politics and stress. yes, less money but it's worth it for me. Rather live on student fare through the summer and have a life worth living again.

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CatKisser · 10/09/2014 17:02

Sadly I can't take that risk. I live alone and am making great headway on becoming debt free. I can't risk having no income.
Happy schools do exist - I've been there. And there are lovely people where I work - but some dicks, also.
Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

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