a question for teachers re: writing SoWs

[snowangels1]

I'm a teacher who is specialist in their subject field and the only subject specific teacher in this area at the school. I'm on maternity leave soon and trying to sort out all my scehems of work for my mat cover and for an inspection which will take place at some point in the next 2 terms.

I've done KS3 but KS4 is causing me a headache as it's vastly different from the old teachers sow I'm developing it from (I've redone it to make it better (IMO) and also change of spec).

What's the minimum you can put in a sow and still be a decent piece of work?

So far I've got typed in all the weeks and what area each lesson. Is it necessary to do learning objectives/teaching activities/homework etc etc for every week for SoWs?

I sound like a terribly badly organised poor practice teacher, which I assure you I'm not (I work darn hard at my job!). It's just up until now I've just used my own notes and planning for GCSE lessons, having to get it down in the 'proper' way is taking so long and I've got a really bad back making computer work hard. I just don't want to do more than the necessary at this point.

I would include at least the things you have listed (sorry!). Our school stipulates that we include specific starter, main and plenary activities and links to worksheets/textbook references, etc too.

Can you recycle any of the old scheme to make life a little easier for yourself?

Good luck! When I came back from my first mat leave I was a spare teacher so I spent a whole term rewriting schemes... yawn!

argh, thanks running monkey. This is so frustrating. I work in a small private school and I tend to have the same general pattern of lessons for GCSEs but always alter the actual lesson content and teacher methods depending upon the group I have and what methods they respond well to, so all the suggested activities I have to type in will be essentially just for the form filling as I won't adhere to it when I teach IYKWIM. Just feels like a waste of effort/time.

IKWYM! I don't actually think most people in the department I work in look beyond the learning objectives then go off and do their own thing

If it helps, when I was rewriting last year I would go through a scheme and fill in the learning obj's and then go back thought and see if we had any existing activities you can fill in for each lesson to cover the activities. Then I'd fill in any blank bits.

I wonder how much (if at all) the inspectors check the teaching activities

You can almost guarantee that the one thing you don't do is the one thing they'll look at though!

Mind you, last time we had Ofsted in the inspector came into my lesson for less than 10 mins, didn't read my lesson plan or overview of the class and still managed to grade me

well I'm glad of small mercies that I'll be on mat leave when the inspection takes place so at least I'll miss out on the main stresses etc.

My dept's KS4 SOW (maths) is pretty basic, the chapter title and the outcomes for that chapter with a reference to the syllabus, the GCSE grade for each topic and a suggested number of lessons to cover it in.

I would hate a SOW with prescribed teaching activities and homework. Our KS3 SOW has some suggested activities with links to resources but I usually ignore these in favour of my own.

"I don't actually think most people in the department I work in look beyond the learning objectives then go off and do their own thing."

I'm not sure what's wrong with that - as long as all the objectives are covered and assessed adequately.

Unless you mean your department doesn't have many shared resources, just the objectives, which I agree is a nightmare (been in that position many times).

I hate prescriptive SoWs. One of my favourite parts of teaching is developing resources and trying out new ideas. My ideal one would have LOs, a time frame, and a selection of resources to use or not use as the teacher sees fit (loads of model answers, questions, mark schemes etc). It requires more planning by individual teachers, but that's no bad thing.

freerange I don't mind people doing their own thing at all although it is a bit frustrating in my case as I was specifically asked to write comprehensive schemes that could be picked up and taught and then they're just not used!

I posted a reply but lost it so sorry if I am repeating myself. We have prescriptive schemes if work but we share the planning so people do not feel that lessons are imposed in them. If you want to do your own thing you can do but it means teachers are not spending hours lesson planning. They often tweak what is there. It frees staff up to run clubs, revision sessions, masterclasses, trips , give quality feedback and marking and have a life.

My SoW has, for each lesson, title, LOs, keywords, suggested activites, and homework

well, I'm STILL working on it and am doing the same as willowfae does only without keywords. It's taking me so long as I'm also doing worksheets to accompany and cross reference with - sure this is too much work!!