Feel like an idiot- should I cut myself some slack?

[avocadosarentmiddleclassed]

During the easter break I have worked out my notice as a Nanny, moved house, written my dissertation and hardly seen my family.

I start a new (my first job as a teacher in a reception year 1 & 2 class tomorrow).

I completely underestimated how long the planning would take for this week, I started this morning and at half eleven at night I still have to plan for... Friday's maths, Tuesday's science, Thursday's RE and 4x morning SPAG 10 minute inputs, why did I think I could do this on one Sunday.

All of the school planning is handwritten so I've had to design planning sheets to suit the class groupings.

At least it's Inset day tomorrow so I can do some tomorrow night too.

I hope the head doesn't expect my planning tomorrow .

I can see a late night coming... any reassurance that I'm not the world's biggest idiot welcomed.

[Stopmithering]

Firstly, well done on getting the job and good luck!
I don't teach primary but secondary, and yes, the planning can completely take over your life! As you settle Into the job, I'm sure you'll get more and more efficient at planning and it won't take quite so long.
Not sure about the "planning sheets". - can you ask your colleagues for advice tomorrow as it could be you are spending time making materials someone else has already made?
Also, remember to enjoy it, your children will appreciate you all the more if you are happy, relaxed and enjoying what you do.
Sleep well!

[avocadosarentmiddleclassed]

Thank you for your reassuring words, Ive done what I can tonight and will do more tomorrow evening.
I will try to just relax and be happy nouns expecting miracles in the first week anyway I suppose.

[kickassangel]

When I first started teaching the planning took about a day and a half each week. Twenty years on, and I just have to pull up my resources from last year, tweak for the current lot, give it a quick read through and I'm good to go.

Don't plan too far ahead, you'll be surprised how often you have to change plans, but do have some go to time fillers for kids who finish quickly.

I would get something on a computer to speed things up, no-one can insist you fill it in by hand. Are you rally having your plans checked? That hasn't happened to me since 1994.

[WombatStewForTea]

On the first day with a new class I always spend the morning getting to know them, playing lots of games etc. If I were you I'd bump your morning lessons for Tues to Wed and drop everything back a day. That will at least give you some more time.
Have you had any cross over time with the previous teacher? Do you know topics etc.? Does the school have medium term plans etc. for you to go off for topics? I'm guessing it's a small school if you've got R/1/2?
As for having to hand write everything? How ridiculous!

[avocadosarentmiddleclassed]

Thank you all, I was unbelievably tired today, I find that with learning so many new systems, groupings, lessons, children, staff I get to a point in the day where I am so saturated by the bombardment of new information that my brain kind of shuts off and i feel really tired.

I have known the school for a long time because I did a long placement there last year so luckily I know the staff reasonably well and I've been doing voluntary days throughout March to help me get to grips with it all. Reassuringly, some of the parents remembered me and told me how happy they were that their child will be taught by me, so it's a nice friendly situation.

I'm just trying to get my head around the Science, RE and Computing that I'll be teaching this week, some of which I really need to swot up on because I hadn't come across these particular areas whilst doing my training so that takes a lot of time.

I can't wait to be at the stage where this is all second nature.
Anyway must go and plan English, Science and SPaG for tomorrow eek!
Thanks for the name game Troublewithangels

[toomuchicecream]

I decided my quality of life was worth buying in some plans! Have a look at the stuff on the plan bee website. All the IWB slides, differentiated pupil activities and other resources (ie photo cards) are all there for you. Yes - I know I shouldn't be spending my own money on school resources but £44 bought me several complete schemes of work, ready to teach.

My NQT mentor gave me much good advice, not all of which I remember. But one bit which did stick was that she planned as little as possible before meeting the children. She did the first week of term and then sat down that weekend and sorted out everything else. She said she'd spent too many weeks in the summer holidays producing plans which she re-wrote once she'd got to know the children. She's absolutely right - planning for children I don't know takes ages longer than doing it for ones I can imagine while I'm planning. So I'm doing enough to get me through this week (new school for me too) and then I'll sort it properly next weekend.

Planning for mixed age classes is even worse - that's one of the reasons I left my last job teaching a 1/2 mix - it just took me hours to plan each weekend as I was often doing everything in duplicate. I worked out that for the 15 morning lessons in a week I was planning 27, but only delivering 12 of them myself...

And yes - changing jobs is exhausting. The minute I've planned my Maths for tomorrow I'm off to bed. Good luck for tomorrow. Once the children come in you'll realise why you're doing it all :)

[toomuchicecream]

How's it going? Have been thinking about you x

[avocadosarentmiddleclassed]

Thank you all, Ive been loving it, I can't believe how smoothly it's gone (compared to what I was imagining!)
I have a very good feeling about this school :)
The only thing is the work load, Ive got about 4 hours ahead of me tonight because Im determined to at least have saturday off but being with the children makes it all worth while.
I hope you all had a good week too!

[MidniteScribbler]

Remember not to reinvent the wheel. Whatever you want to teach has already been planned 1000 times already by other teachers, and many of them have kindly uploaded those plans to the internet. There's nothing wrong with using a great sounding lesson plan that you've found online or that someone else has given you. Type the topic and lesson plan in to google and you'll usually get heaps of options. Pintrest is great for ideas as well. Don't burn yourself out trying to come up with a whole lot of original new lesson plans, especially in your first week.

Good luck.