To think that YES, you can have reasonable hours and a good work/life balance as a teacher

[WistfulForTravel]

I'm 22, a 3rd year Primary Education BEd student, I love my degree and every assignment and placement cements the fact that teaching is my vocation and is what I want to do as a career.

However, I've been getting a lot of negative comments from my aunties and neighbors about how I'll never have a life again, how most of my waking hours will be consumed with thoughts of work, how I'll never even have one day to truly relax during the 13 weeks off, how it'll be a 7am - 9 pm job, etc.

I know teaching is more full on than some jobs, but is it really this intense? I am friends with a few teachers and they seem to have a healthy work/life balance (time for guys/sports/hobbies, at least one full weekend day off, out 1-3 nights a week) They have no kids though. I imagine it would be very different when you have kids.

Is it possible to practice effective time management + work very hard during the week so you can have the weekend off?

As much as I've enjoyed my course and look forward to my first class in September (eek!) my philosophy is more a 'Work to Live' not 'Live to Work'

Gosh chicaguapa- I hope I'm not so easily identifiable on here!

To clarify for non-teachers here; one of the things I find some trainee teachers struggle with is they start with the task of a lesson, rather than starting by looking at the success criteria required as the next steps in learning and designing the task to match these. It is easy to think of a fun task, then find some success criteria to match it, but to really ensure your student make progress we need to start with what they need to learn next (based on the most recent AfL) and then find tasks that deliver those objectives - and that is what can take time.

One other thing to consider with the primary work load is the time spent going off to buy stuff you need for lessons.
Quite often I decide to do some baking or that I need 3 dozen bouncy balls for a lesson or something like that so will go to town or to the supermarket after work or at the weekend to buy stuff.

That's the same for secondary, Pipbin. I buy packs and packs of those little highlighters from ASDA, coloured paper/card, laminating pouches etc.

Thanks for that Gruffalo -- certainly something I've struggled with and which my mentor has been really helpful with, with regards to helping me learnt to plan from my outcomes backwards.

LePM, only that it's always described exactly as you have. People seem incapable of just calling it a comp.

I agree, The Gruffalo. Whenever I'm helping PGCE-ers or NQTs plan lessons or SoW I have to keep saying

'Start at the end and work backwards. What is the final assessment? What skills do they need to develop to achieve well in this?

Now, where are they with these skills now? What are their targets? How do we get them from A to B? What about Bob? He is on Z. How does he get from Z-A-B? What about Elsie, she's already on B. How can we extend her further?

Now, we can think about the zazzy activities that we can use to help them engage and develop the skills they need.'

You see, LePamplemousse I quite get that the examples you give are nice, quick easy activities to plan.

But a year 10 Media lesson consisting of a quick PPT & a jigsaw activity with magazine covers - well, why are you doing that? what do you want them to learn?

Have you simplified these lesson outlines for the benefit of the non-teachers on the thread?

That all sounds terribly sneery - I'm struggling for a different way to phrase it, tbh. Sorry...

Oh & what TheGruffalo2 said about the priority being the learning not the doing.

Lep, what activities do you have in the lesson activities you describe that will support SEN children or those with EAL, what progress will the FSM and E6 children make in the lesson, how will you ensure that their progress is accelerated, what are the differentiated success criteria, how will you assess each child's progress during the lesson, how will you extend the HA children? We have to ensure our lesson plans cover all these areas and more!

Just going back to OP I've taught for over 7 years, I normally have my weekends to myself, report writing and sats time aside, I get in before 7 and leave at 6 but don't take work home. Yes I have to be organised, working in a large school as part of avteam helps- split planning etc between us. I love teaching and wouldn't want to do anything else. About to go on maternity leave and will go back part time- won't be able to work same hours but determined to find a way to make it work. Go for it and prioritise life aswell as work- first 2 years are the hardest...

Yeah, raven, obviously it's simplified to a large extent, I've got differentiated outcomes, a clear objective, etc. I'm doing fine, honestly. They need to be able to analyse magazine covers and their features in order to develop their understanding of how mags attract a particular demographic which we will then build upon in the production of our own magazines etc etc. But that's a bit of a mouthful and I don't really want to upload my entire lesson plan including my differentiation and assessment for learning plans.
I simplify the way I talk about teaching all the time as I often chat about it with my mum, for instance.
And I have to say, if you think I've got the whole way through my PGCE without realising it's about the learning not the doing you really must have very little faith in our teacher training providers. I've put up with a lot of criticism on this thread but I'm now getting quite irritated because that's ridiculously patronising.

spanieleyes, I think about all that stuff, but it's ridiculous that you are expected to include all of that on EVERY lesson plan. If you know your kids surely you don't need to. Obviously I've got differentiated outcomes and I've assigned roles for group work etc etc.

LOL at Drama lessons being easy to plan. Maybe for an occasional addition to English but actually planning fully differentiated Drama lessons for a full scheme of work is tricky.

Differentiated outcomes? I bloody hope that you're not differentiating by outcome.

My uni tutor who is a respected Drama specialist says that Drama lessons are easier to plan, Evil. Not everyone, therefore, would agree with you.

Oh for Christ's sake. Sometimes it's necessary to differentiate by outcome Evil. I don't share this with the children.

Anyway some people are really becoming ridiculous now so I think I'm going to duck out of this thread now.
Thanks to those of you who have actually given me good advice re: NQT year and have not just been condescending. I have already told my flatmate that she need to be prepared for a few tears and for not seeing me except to wolf down some dinner and go to bed when I start as a 'real teacher' in Sept. I really am going to go now because I do feel I'm becoming the scapegoat for some people's irritation/resentment of student teachers and NQTs.

Differentiation comes at the start, not by the outcome.

A drama lesson may be "easier" to plan. A full series of them is not. Using drama as part of English is quite different, I suppose. It can be harder to keep the lesson going though - it takes good classroom management.

It is not necessarily that the SLT don't trust us; we have to justify the funding provided to support pupils through interventions, those who have EAL, those in receipt of Pupil Premium to governors (who are not experts) and the LA. Schools get this money, but we have to justify cost-effectiveness. Detailed lesson plans show "value for money" as progress can be micro-tracked. The member/s of staff responsible for LAC, PP, EAL, SEN is required to monitor this and often needs lesson plans to do this. We have to identify these pupils clearly on planning, so I can check they have suitably challenging objectives, are making at least expected progress, are closing the gap with their peers, are receiving the support identified on IEPs, Behaviour Support Plans and other action plans, and whether that support is actually making a difference. After lessons we annotate plans with responses to learning and these form part of our assessment records (very useful when you have no written evidence of an APP statement and you have a statutory moderation!).

Well I know my kids because I see them for 6 hours every day, five days a week!

Differentiation comes at the start, not by the outcome. I was told at a recent an OFSTED inspector led LA INSET differentiation by outcome = an "requires improvement" or lower lesson grade, regardless of the rest of the lesson!

OP I haven't read the whole thread. I'm sorry that some people are giving you a hard time. Ignore it. I think teaching is such a personal experience.
For example I'm doing my PGCE and have struggled all the way through, where others have found it reasonable. You need to be optimistic to get through it, so the fact that you're ok at the moment is an excellent sign.
Good luck for next year.

Sorry, missed off the bit about
" How can I reassure the SENCO and parents that my children with statements and SEN have their targets addressed in every lesson, that my E6 and FSM children are having their specific needs addressed, that my EAL children can access the learning at the stage they are at"
but The Gruffalo2 said it much better!

So Media Studies GCSE, then? I think our cohort do something vaguely similar in ICT, actually.

I'd probably be wanting to prepare some annotated examples from different magazine genres, & a technical glossary as a handout, & something to evaluate their progress at the end, for that lesson.

It would be usual for us to have one member of the Dept. writing a Scheme of Learning & all needful resources, so the lesson wouldn't be overly onerous on the part of the person delivering it in terms of individual prep - but we all have stuff we're working on at any given time, so that high quality resources are available for everything we teach.

If it's working for you, great, but I think I can see why you aren't finding the prep too much of a strain! Mind you my best mate in the Dept. would be firmly on your team. She's very much of the opinion that we all spend far too much time competitively tinkering with resources just to score points off one another....

Sorry you feel patronised, but again, you're describing the doing rather than the learning. It wasn't immediately obvious - to me at any rate - that you had clear learning outcomes for the activities you listed.