NOT TEACHER BASHING but do why do teachers have to do hours of planning every day?

[mostwonderfultime]

If the syllabus is the same every year which it is, do you not just use planning from previous years?
I'm sure I'm being naive but just read this on another thread.

If the syllabus is the same every year which it is

Because it isn't.

I've been teaching since 2003 and never had one year to the next where I wasn't teaching at least one new exam specification or a curriculum change for a year group.

“I’m not teaching bashing but...” is the equivalent of “I’m nit racist but...” or “No offence but...” you are doing exactly that. Teacher bashing.

The curriculum changes every year, it is not the same and no I am not a teacher.

Well, it's at least partly because children aren't the same every year. And teachers need to teach the kids in front of them, not an imaginary cohort of robots.

But also - curriculums aren't static. They evolve. As does pedagogical theory. On the whole, teachers tend to want to improve their practice year on year, feeding in their experience and new learning. And that means fine-tuning their planning.

A) The syllabus keeps changing. Where do you get the idea that it’s the same every year?
B) Classes change year on year. Last year I had top set Year 11s. This year they’re very much middle-to-low ability. This means using different resources and creating new lessons, or at the very least adapting them.
C) What works for one child doesn’t work for the next.
D) Management want to us try out new techniques every fucking week.

The longer you've been a teacher the less planning is required - it's more like tweaking existing material. However, by that time you've usually got additional responsibilities that take up time previously spent planning, so it doesn't get loads easier.

I previously taught year 2 for 5 years. Every cohort was different and needed different levels of ability work. We also changed topics as a school due to a mixed age class so they didn't get the same thing twice.

Aside from the above if you plan a sequence of lessons for the week and the children don't understand on day 1 or it goes wrong/takes longer than expected then the rest of your week needs changing.

I think it might just be called differentiation. And if you didn't do it you'd be a crap teacher.

That is what is called long term planning. So there will be tweaks to that even. But yes, you will have a curriculum map of what you will teach, and when. That will be broken down into scheme of work/topics and themes.
Short term planning is along the lines of... we're all doing the novel 'Private Peaceful'. Top set of 32 kids will maybe tackle some intricate imagery and vocabulary so you'd plan an interesting starter, maybe some flipped learning and then scaffolding for a written task.

Whereas a very low set of 12 students with one TA to share may need a starter activity introducing 'War' and ' Soldiers' you may need find a video clip. There maybe a child with sensory overload who has to go with the TA whilst the clip is on so you plan an alternative for them.
You have to plan for differing cohorts needs in each lesson. All kids are different.

OK it was just after reading on another thread that a Primary teacher already works 60 hours a week and secondary teacher 55 hours a week.
As dc are only in school for 35 hours that's a hell of a lot of planning and marking.

Differention, digging out or making resources, adapting the curriculum to your class. I can typically do a days planning including prep in an hour and a half, but that's secondary. For me it's the marking and data input that can take so long

that's a hell of a lot of planning and marking.

Yes it is, isn’t it? Perhaps that’s why we’re all so tired and defensive all the time.

Syllabus changes regularly, you teach different year groups every year and different sets with different abilities. Different resources and initiatives are introduced, policies change. Some teachers teach multiple subjects (I teach 3 languages). The way you teach things evolves - you have new ideas and you change things that didn't work well. You move schools and a new department has new ways it expects you to do things.

Lots of reasons.

Lots of parents seem to on the one hand expect teachers to be interesting and innovative and to make their little darlings behave and learn by entertaining them, but then express disbelief when teachers talk about the long hours of prep it takes to achieve this.

There is other admin too. Meetings, subject leadership, sorting out issues that have arisen during the day, etc.

Teachers also might re-plan or change things after marking. The purpose of marking is partly to see gaps where students haven't fully understood something, so even if I'm teaching a similar class those gaps will be different.

I also have found that getting better at teaching doesn't necessarily make the planning quicker because I want to try new thing or I see better ways of teaching something. Resources from when I started teaching are often not the way I would teach something at all now.

"Not teacher bashing" but yet here you are?

@mostwonderfultime

OK it was just after reading on another thread that a Primary teacher already works 60 hours a week and secondary teacher 55 hours a week. As dc are only in school for 35 hours that's a hell of a lot of planning and marking.

Who do you think gets there at 7am to photocopy/get resources set up/ICT ready etc? Thats 10 hours of the week already.

I have no idea and wish I had an answer. For me I spend at least 3 hrs planning a day. This will be informed by their last piece of work and targets, their interests, stretching the more able with degree level stuff and helping the less able to be able to answer to hit the mark scheme. I could spend less time planning but then the students will be less engaged, will find the work boring therefore depressing, it might not get the target grades, they might not learn enough (all students in a class are meant to progress every lesson) and then I would have to teach it again (not enough time and boring for others) or they might not get the grades they have potential for.

Lots of reasons.

Changes to the curriculum.
Teaching a different year group from the previous year.
A new cohort of children with different needs.

There is an awful lot of unnecessary paperwork in teaching that’s got very little to do with the actual job. It’s not just preparing what’s going to happen in the classroom.

And I've been teaching for 15 years still spend an age. If I dont then I can tell students switch off, get restless feel disillusioned etc

As dc are only in school for 35 hours that's a hell of a lot of planning and marking.

Yes it is. It's not rocket science to see why. How long do you think it should take to plan an hour's lesson, including making any resources you might need, going through the steps through which the students need to progress, thinking about differentiation for varying abilities or special needs within the class, thinking about assessment opportunities and how you would show at the end that progress has been made?

If one thing has become crystsl clear on MN during lockdown, it's that most parents have very little idea of what teachers actually do or about what a lesson in a real school in 2020 actually involves.

There really is a hell of a lot demanded of teachers. Not all of it is entirely useful or necessary but is part of the job because this week ofsted want to see every statemrnt responded to in pink/purple/whatever. Or planning rewritten.

But besides that how long would you like me to spend markimg your child's homework/essay that week?10minutes? X 30 children thats 5hours. If I have 5 classes that day thay would be 25 hours that week. At secondary I taught more than 5 classes... do you see?

Also meetings and checking email/responding to parents/ training etc all have to be done outside of teaching hours.

Imagine preparing a presentation for work. Usually you'd research it, spend some time putting a powerpoint together etc. Imagine doing 5 different presentations a day. And another 5 completely different ones the next day. And having to mark assignments from eah presentation. And also be responsible for everyones progress in the presentation. Add to that people coming into the presentation who dont want to be there/disrupt people next to them (maybe the equivalent would be coming in hangover or talking very loudly) and then imagine that 1/3 of your group need help accessing that presentation which you also need to plan for.

All this that I'd previously have done within 9-5 of my old job is now done outside of the job as you are actively presenting.

Does that go someway to help?

1. the syllabus does change
2. You're not guaranteed to teach the same year group every year so one year you could have e.g. Primary 1/YrR the next you could have Primary 6/Year 5.
3. You tailor your lessons to suit the class you have because one size does not fit all and you will have a wide range of abilities in every class.
4. Reflecting on what has and hasn't worked in previous lessons to improve future ones.
5. Other school admin

What about those of us who lead a subject too. Monitoring, resourcing, curriculum prep all needs doing particularly as Ofsted are now all about deep dives into curriculum subjects.

My dcs’ primary does topic based learning and the topics are whole school and don’t get repeated. I imagine that makes reusing material from previous years as it stands pretty much impossible.