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.

I teach Economics. Do you think I should reuse last year's material

@Phineyj, that made me howl with laughter!

@hashtagbollocks

Are they satisfied with the answers I doubt it. Probably just confused as to why a valid question about a job she doesn't do has been met with such vitriol

@hashtagbollocks ‘ Probably just confused as to why a valid question about a job she doesn't do has been met with such vitriol’

Probably because we’re sick of shit like this;
‘ why are teachers so stroppy at the moment?
All a bit hungover?’

"Do you get it now, OP?"

Nor are police officers not expected . OMG! I am so sorry.

And "what happened" should have been outcomes.

I am not even going to look at the rest. I am going to make a cup of tea and comfort myself with chocolate chip banana muffins.

of the night
it was in response to the sarky/ accusing comments to the OP.
I think many teachers on here really aren't showing themselves in a good light over the last few months,
Word of advice, when you do go back to work full time in school, don't go on strike because you really won't get much public support

I think it depends what years you are teaching. I should imagine primary is easier than High school. I also imagine that after a few years, they are pretty fine tuned and able to change their tactic depending on the children. I cant imagine its hours and hours worth of planning. Teachers at our primary would arrive 8.30 ish and leave mostly by 4.

@viques

Teachers, like all other professionals only meet their pupils/patients/ clients/prisoners face to face for a small number of their working hours. Like doctors, lawyers and policeofficers they spent an inordinate amount of time before and after the face to face in planning, preparation, information gathering, reviewing, evaluating and recording what happened.

Lawyers of course are not expected to ensure that as part of their duties their offices are welcoming and stimulating places to be, reflecting the interests and diversity of their clients, setting out clearly the ethos and expectations of the practice and displaying the successful outcomes of their trials.

Nor are police officers are not expected to keep detailed records (on which their pay grades are assessed) of how the people they have arrested and prosecuted show that they have learned from the error of their ways and have made measurable progress in improving their moral standing in the community by not re offending.

Doctors are fortunate indeed in knowing that from month to month the basic anatomy of the human body will remain the same and that radical changes, say for example the position of the appendix in the lower right quadrant of the abdomen being moved to below the left knee cap, will not occur due to the personal whim of a 24 year old Oxbridge graduate with political ambitions who is a member of an advisory think tank group chaired by a bitter doctor hater who was once given a painful injection and an unpleasant tonic which soured their view of medicine for ever.

But as the song goes, " it all makes work for the working man (or woman) to do "

RIP Flanders and Swann.

This x 1000

@Appuskidu

If the syllabus is the same every year which it is

I think this piece of fiction means your post is not really worth taking seriously.

There are plenty of teacher bashing threads on here but this doesn't seem like one to me. It's entirely possible that the OP simply asked in order to be better informed. It isn't phrased in a disingenuous way either.

An ex (who was a twat, but, not relevent maybe) was a secondary maths teacher, he was also the school SENDCo, he didn’t get additional management time for being a SENDCo. He would ran SEN after school sessions three days a week until 4:30, he also had meetings with parents, professionals etc most evenings after school.

He taught year 7-13, not only did he have his planning due to an ever changing curriculum and the need for differentiation, he also had marking. His school did a mini mock every two weeks in years 10, 11, 12 and 13, so they also needed marking every two weeks. On top of that all class books needed marking/checking on a regular basis as there was book scrutiny every six weeks. I spent many an hour marking bits when he was behind.

I’m a so called city professional on a high salary, he earned around 1/3 of my wage and worked his arse off for it.

Whilst the curriculum changes how much does it change for GCSE? I must admit I really can't see how it is in any way a good use of time and resources to have each individual teachers creating resources. Why isn't there a central database of resources for each element e.g. standard schemes of work around each topic with differentiation to 3 levels included. This could then be taken and adjusted slightly by the teacher, if they want to.

To be fair the current situation is absolutely fabulous for Economics teachers and I have never discussed loo roll so much in my life.

The syllabus is the same, the children aren't. It's not hard!

@hashtagbollocks

of the night it was in response to the sarky/ accusing comments to the OP. I think many teachers on here really aren't showing themselves in a good light over the last few months, Word of advice, when you do go back to work full time in school, don't go on strike because you really won't get much public support

Some posters consistently snidey and critical of teachers haven't shown themselves in a good light either.

It isn't phrased in a disingenuous way either.

But the OP is stating that the syllabus is the same each year as a ‘fact’.

Which it’s not.

If they were genuinely interested, would they not ask, ‘How much does the syllabus change from year to year?’.

If I teach 5 lessons in one day, I usually need to spend half hour planning each. That’s time to amend resources, produce / copy resources, change depending on the cohort. Change according to spec changes. So that changes my day to 7.5 hours. I teach 11 different classes each week several times each. I have to try and mark at least half of them each week - there’s 30 in some classes, 20 in others so it takes me a few hours to mark each group.

Then add emails to parents, after school help sessions, informal meetings with colleagues and pupils, formal department meetings, staff meetings, training etc that adds a few more hours each week.

Add all that up and there you have how we spend our time.

"Some posters consistently snidey and critical of teachers haven't shown themselves in a good light either"
we're not the ones always saying "we're on our knees!"
Most of us are just getting on with stuff and not thinking we're a special case as the only profession who works hard or long hours

@TabbyMumz

I think it depends what years you are teaching. I should imagine primary is easier than High school. I also imagine that after a few years, they are pretty fine tuned and able to change their tactic depending on the children. I cant imagine its hours and hours worth of planning. Teachers at our primary would arrive 8.30 ish and leave mostly by 4.

You imagine wrong. The primary curriculum and teaching strategies change constantly. And primary teachers have to teach every subject. And find far more practical resources. And seriously, trotting out what time they leave? You know that many do their planning and assessment at home, surely?

Most teachers arrange their non pupil facing tasks around what works for them. Some do nearly all of it at home where their children have gone to bed. Some, like me, liked to separate work and home as much as possible in the week, so arrived at school at 7:15 and worked until 5:00 (and through my lunch hour) then allocated Sunday afternoon as work time.

Also where I work you don't necessarily teach the same topics every year. Especially if it's a split class or you didn't have say a year 9 class last year. Therefore it might have been a couple of years since you last taught it. And in that time the syllabus might have changed and so the emphasis of what to concentrate on might have too.

Also a couple of years ago the lesson times changed. So changes in how long a set lesson took had to be changed.

Whilst the curriculum changes how much does it change for GCSE? I must admit I really can't see how it is in any way a good use of time and resources to have each individual teachers creating resources. Why isn't there a central database of resources for each element e.g. standard schemes of work around each topic with differentiation to 3 levels included

Now this is a brilliantly asked question, and absolutely no teacher bashing at all.

I can only speak for my own secondary subject (English), but we are indeed still in the early stages after the GCSE 1-9 was introduced only a few years ago, so yes, the content of the curriculum and its mark schemes has all changed very recently.

In terms of having a central database of resources, I think it’s a nice idea in theory (a very good school I have previously worked in had a single teacher each plan a unit of work, then everybody shared all of their resources together, so you had every single unit of work for the price of creating one), but would be very hard to implement practically.

This is largely because EVERY class is so different, and definitely not to only three levels of differentiation (I’m assuming you’re referring to a kind of top, middle and bottom idea?). Then, you need to add in the availability of resources in each school (some can’t afford to buy new books for KS3, or can’t afford to print loads of additional worksheets, etc), students who have English as a second language, students who have vision issues, and the list goes on and on.

I think even if there was the creation of some amazing central lesson database, you’d still need to spend ages tweaking it to suit your classes.

But the OP is stating that the syllabus is the same each year as a ‘fact
no they're not; they're really not.
What happened to be kind eh?
OP you're being unfairly picked on by some on here

Tabby when I left school by 4 it was to pick my kids up but I’d then work at home. The great thing about the job was that everything except the teaching and meetings could be done outside the school premises which gave me flexibility. But it does mean that the hours that you see teachers leaving and arriving may not correlate with how many hours they are working.

Teachers at our primary would arrive 8.30 ish and leave mostly by 4.

I have never worked in a school where teachers arrived at 8.30!

Most teachers are in by 7.45 (many by 7) and don’t leave till the caretaker kicks them out at 6.

The question has more than been answered. So I'd just like to share a snapshot of my life growing up as the eldest of two children whose mother was a teacher

Throwing some parallels to the things people are screeching about now they're working from home whilst looking after their own children.

Every holiday, even the few where we went away, the bags of marking came out. The planning. We had to give her time to get on with her marking and planning. She was still present for us because she was a superstar, but when she sat down to do this work it changed her and you knew that nothing short of a limb hanging off should be brought before her. Her salary was what kept us all going.

I later went to work with her, at the same school. If I wanted a lift with her, she always arrived at the school between half six and seven o'clock, and sat there in her classroom for a few hours to prepare and set everything up.

She stayed behind after school to talk to parents, talk to other staff, take more meetings and she ran after school homework clubs to help the children who needed her.

We never begrudged her any of this. She was one of the best teachers I ever saw in a classroom.

When everything changed and teachers had to begin to fill out so many more forms for Ofsted, and other bodies, keep extra records of various things I admit I don't understand, SHE begrudged the time it took away from what she saw as the important parts of being a teacher, and her time to nurture her pupils.

This is what it's like to be a teacher. Progressively more and more paperwork taking up time originally ploughed straight back into the students. Teachers are not paid enough.

Most of us are just getting on with stuff and not thinking we're a special case as the only profession who works hard or long hours

BINGO!!

I’ve got a line now (not quite a full house yet, as holidays haven’t come up), what do I win?

I am not being unkind!

The OP began stating

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.

The syllabus isn’t the same each year.

Stating it is, is simply incorrect.

If the OP said-‘am I right in thinking the syllabus is the same each year?’, that would have been a far less antagonistic way to begin a post.