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Teachers help please

61 replies

Oaktree1952 · 27/12/2021 15:53

Please no teacher bashing I'm not strong enough at the moment.

What am I doing wrong? I seem to have so much planning to do for next half term and I'm sure there must be a quicker way. I work in a job share in a mixed year group class. It's a small school so we're the only year 5/6. I have three kids of my own, (7, 5 and 3). I plan maths and job share does English. Then foundation is split between us. I seem to spend so long planning it is getting ridiculous. Does anyone use things like Twinkl? Or Hamilton? I know some like them and some don't but I can't keep inventing the wheel so to speak. I'm not new to teaching (15years) but this is getting silly now. Im not sure if it is my school or just me. How to full timers do it? Generally I have no idea how you manage a life and plan?

What's really annoyed me is my friend complaining about the overtime he's needing to do and it's less than I'm doing and he gets £60k! My annoyance isn't with him complaining but with the pay discrepancy. If I was working full time my pay wouldn't come close.

OP posts:
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twirly52 · 28/12/2021 00:24

@friedeggandsauce
I haven’t got a problem with the a sheet of addition or subtraction but I do with a pack of homework sheets printed from online.
I think a child would learn better if something was made up with them at school. I think it helps children to recall what they have learnt in class better and picture it in there minds.
But to be constantly given printed papers looks like an easy way out for the teacher, I’m sorry but I’m just giving an honest opinion as a parent.
Teachers were dedicated in the past, they loved teaching and planning lessons…
Personally, my child (nursery age) was given around 10 sheets from Twinkl, one of which didn’t have instructions, just red dots with arrows..
Do I get my child to connect the dots, or do I get him to follow the direction of the arrows? Does it stop at the bottom of the page or does he connect with the other dots?
To me, it looked like a rushed job..

DietrichandDiMaggio · 28/12/2021 00:34

@twirly52 a nursery child does not need to be doing any homework at all.

Pollingbadly · 28/12/2021 00:44

Maths No Problem is super for workbooks and text books- lots of practice.

Nelson Comprehension is good for English.

Oaktree1952 · 28/12/2021 05:09

@twirly52 I'm sorry you're not happy with the prevision your child is getting at nursery. It's a big bug bare of mine that as a country we put so little money into our children's first experience of education. Most nursery staff and preschool staff are of minimum wage or not far above it. Of course they are printing sheets out from twinkl. Most of the hours they put in is done out of the goodness of their hearts and the love of the children so any corners they can cut should be taken.

@WhatHaveIDone21 yes I agree late nights before the end of term is the way forward. I must admit I was so exhausted with illness, my own children, Christmas prep and school that I limped towards the end of term just grateful that Christmas things were amusing the children. The joke is I've taught very little but year 5/6 for my whole career. I've been in this school for 4 years but we have a two year curriculum and what with covid and maternity leave I've not actually taught this term in this school before and previous planning is a little sketchy.

Thank you all for your advice and suggestions. I have been working today and have made some headway which is helping my morale.

OP posts:
Scarydinosaurs · 28/12/2021 05:22

I think something I find really useful is to breakdown how much time I’m spending on which bits of my planning, and then working out which bits are having the most impact.

What is taking up the majority of your time? Marking? Finding resources? Adapting them?

Are you spending time on ‘performative’ tasks that serve no purpose? Is this something you could request changes?

WhatHaveIDone21 · 28/12/2021 08:28

@Oaktree1952 it has been a very rough couple of years so be kind to yourself. Hopefully if you spend the time now planning it will save you time when you are next teaching these subjects.

The end of last term was particularly hard so make sure you do take some time for yourself otherwise you will be no good to the children when you go back.

Hercisback · 28/12/2021 08:36

Teachers were dedicated in the past, they loved teaching and planning lessons…
What passive aggressive bollocks is this?

Teachers can be dedicated and still use pre made worksheets!

Op I'm secondary so don't have any primary specific advice. My advice is around time management and ensuring that you make the best of your time. Set realistic goals, remove all distractions. Sometimes 'good enough' is good enough! Plan units of work at once rather than one off lessons. Then tweak daily as required. Mark as much as possible live in the lesson.

Pinkflipflop85 · 28/12/2021 09:14

@twirly52

Teachers dedicated in the past? My aunt was a teacher when everything was straight from a work book - no planning necessary.

Teachers nowadays are running themselves into the ground to keep up with the ever changing expectations.

As for moaning about dancing and nursery rhymes - you really are clueless. Nursey rhymes are absolutely vital in early language and literacy development and dancing will be helping to develop the gross motor skills which are also vitally important for writing.

friedeggandsauce · 28/12/2021 09:38

@Hercisback I've been sitting on my hands trying not to be goaded by @twirly52.

I hadn't realised it was for a nursery child, I'm shocked and quite saddened that her child doesn't have time to play.

I don't need to justify how teachers spend their time as she obviously has no idea 🙄

RuleWithAWoodenFoot · 28/12/2021 09:45

@twirly52

Personally I can't believe that accountants use things like SAGE software, I mean why don't they just use a calculator or even an abacus. It's like they're not dedicated to the profession or something.

What about people using computers? Unreasonable. Much better to handwrite everything.

This is a thread by a teacher for teachers, you don't know anything about it. If you want to make this comment, it needs another thread.

RuleWithAWoodenFoot · 28/12/2021 09:49

OP.

The thing that takes me ages to plan is writing. Everything else I use various online resources for. Things I use:

Literacy Shed + is a good one for writing planning and VIPERS style whole class reading teaching, Manic Street Teachers is great for writing using some of the Writing Revolution techniques.

I like Hamilton's science and foundation subjects, although also use some Twinkl things for those too.

Whiterose I find needs quite major tweaks, but I still use the powerpoints- I just mess around with them quite a lot.

I work in a 4 form entry school at the moment though, so we split it reading, maths, writing, foundation - basically everyone is planning one lesson a day and that's it. We're currnetly on our second rotation of the curriculum, so using our old planning from 2020.

CallmeHendricksGingleBells · 28/12/2021 10:01

@twirly52, May I ask on what authority you state, "Teachers were dedicated in the past, they loved teaching and planning lessons?"
Particularly as your child appears to have only got as far as Nursery in the system?
May I also suggest that perhaps you find somewhere else to post your unfounded opinions on teaching these days.

Margo34 · 28/12/2021 10:21

I'm part-time primary in a 2-form entry which is new to me, up until September I was in a single form entry and I found it so much easier!! I also trained in Secondary and had so much more time to prepare it felt like, it was much less of a workload than primary, but the attitudes of the children is what made it harder for me!

Anyway....be careful with your time and crack on as soon as children are out of the room. Plan lightly and not in tons of depth - inevitably jobshare will have their own take on how something should be delivered so don't overplan for them, keep it brief and they'll pad it out to suit their style. Use twinkl if it helps but don't rely on it so heavily as worksheets are quite closed opportunities - good for homework perhaps. Live marking as you go in lessons, have purple pens out in the tables and get children to respond at the time too, get them to mark each others.

BE decisive with your planning, don't digress and come back to it later - once you've started it, focus and finish it and decide not to revisit it or redo it.

Remember to focus on what the skill is you are teaching and less on the fripperies or niceties or things that would be nice to do.

Prioritise and stick to it. I tell myself I'll spend 20m max responding to emails for example, then 45m doing something else.

If you work through lunch, make sure you do actually take at least 15m break.

Good enough is perfect for me.

I do feel like working as a jobshare is so much harder than full time, you feel even more like you have to prove the jobshare is working, even if it is.

2toastornot2toast · 28/12/2021 10:30

I use twinkl alot and tweak. The CLL planning takes a while for me, maths we have a skills progression and I'm in the process of doing schemes of work to use. I have so much planning to do and a week to dk it whilst wanting to spend time with my own dc.... I need to get on with it!

CoffeeWithCheese · 28/12/2021 10:40

OK - I have minimal love for the outspoken MN teachers... but there's nothing wrong with using pre-made resources for things and mixed-age groups in a small school can be rough going planning-wise (although I think I only ever had one single-year group class in the time I was teaching myself so it was just what I was used to doing!) The days of lovingly hand making resources have been and gone - I used to, but it was my unwinding activity on an evening - I'd faff about on the computer while watching telly and it was something I enjoyed... that was why I still did it (basically if they paid a lot of money and I could actually draw - my dream job would be as a Twinkl elf!).

What do you have available in terms of what the school is subscribed to or has bought in? That's probably a place for people to start in terms of signposting you. I don't know if it's still available but the school I used to be a governor at got some matched funding to buy in a maths scheme and went to the PTA for the school segment of it as a too good an opportunity to miss situation.

Personally if it was me and I was still teaching - I'd jiggle the maths topic areas around a bit to get a block that you really find easiest to teach in place first (for lots of people it would be shape space and measures except 3D shape was guaranteed to give me a migraine for some reason) where it's more amenable to peer marking/less marking and use that time to get yourself back on an even keel.

CallmeHendricksGingleBells · 28/12/2021 10:46

"OK - I have minimal love for the outspoken MN teachers"
How, exactly, is that relevant to the thread?

Invasionofthegutsnatchers · 28/12/2021 10:47

@twirly52 please start your own thread. The OP specifically asked for advice from teachers and no teacher bashing. Not that the last bit should be necessary anyway but mumsnet generally hates teachers.

OP what are your constraints from SLT? Ours is very prescriptive with long term planning and styles of teaching but the absolute beauty of my current school is that we don't do daily plans at all, everything is on one a3 sheet for a 2-3 week unit of work for English and Maths, which is saved on the system from last year and we use flipcharts on active inspire to plan daily. If you have the freedom to use Hamilton trust etc then that will save you time.

PoorMegHopkins · 28/12/2021 11:04

A subscription to Literacy Shed will give you lots of writing, whole class reading and all your spelling. You still have to tweak for your class but it’s excellent value.
@twirly52 what is wrong with you? The op specifically said they were not in a good place and yet there you go.
OP if I can help at all you are welcome to message. Happy to share stuff.

BeingATwatItsABingThing · 28/12/2021 13:07

What do you mean by using Power Maths. I have the power maths books and use white rose. Do the children use the text books? Or do you photocopy the sheets? Is this the only maths scheme you use?

The children have the workbooks and we use the Power Maths scheme to structure our lessons. We deviate from it where necessary and adapt it when it’s not quite right for our children.

Soontobe60 · 28/12/2021 18:42

@BeingATwatItsABingThing

Meant to add:

We use Power Maths and spent whole days planning our English and reading units a couple of years ago so it should just be a bit of tweaking each term to make sure it works for the current class. However, I moved year groups and the planning handed over was so atrocious I had to change it.

What do you think of Power Maths? We use it too - I’m not impressed TBH. Do you set your children?
Clarkey86 · 28/12/2021 18:56

[quote twirly52]@friedeggandsauce
I haven’t got a problem with the a sheet of addition or subtraction but I do with a pack of homework sheets printed from online.
I think a child would learn better if something was made up with them at school. I think it helps children to recall what they have learnt in class better and picture it in there minds.
But to be constantly given printed papers looks like an easy way out for the teacher, I’m sorry but I’m just giving an honest opinion as a parent.
Teachers were dedicated in the past, they loved teaching and planning lessons…
Personally, my child (nursery age) was given around 10 sheets from Twinkl, one of which didn’t have instructions, just red dots with arrows..
Do I get my child to connect the dots, or do I get him to follow the direction of the arrows? Does it stop at the bottom of the page or does he connect with the other dots?
To me, it looked like a rushed job..[/quote]
Twinkl is generally very well matched to the curriculum, high quality and well differentiated.

A teacher could spend 5 hours making exactly the same thing they could find on Twinkl with a quick search.

You are being very very unreasonable Grin

BeingATwatItsABingThing · 28/12/2021 20:51

What do you think of Power Maths? We use it too - I’m not impressed TBH. Do you set your children?

I mostly liked it for my Y5 classes but there were lessons I thought were needlessly confusing. We skipped those ones.

I’m finding it harder now I’ve been moved to Y3 as many of my children are not proficient readers and there is a lot of reading in the workbooks.

We don’t set for maths but we do differentiate where necessary for SEND or children who haven’t grasped the concept yet.

BrutusMcDogface · 28/12/2021 21:03

@twirly52

First of all- a nursery child shouldn’t be doing homework at all.

Secondly- maybe teachers print off sheets for homework because they’ve been far too busy planning and preparing their daily lessons, lovingly and from scratch? For me, I always hated the expectation of setting regular homework and would rather have set it as and when relevant. Do you know how tricky it can be to set meaningful homework when you are sending it home to parents who aren’t teacher trained, to facilitate? Or for children to attempt to do themselves with no parental support at all?

Thirdly- get off this poor teacher’s thread. She’s asking for help and specifically asked for no teacher bashing.

BrutusMcDogface · 28/12/2021 21:06

OP- there’s nothing wrong with using twinkl ready made resources to go with your planning, and tweaking their existing planning to suit your classes. Nowadays there’s so much needless box-ticking that there just isn’t the time in the day to create the beautiful resources that you and I both did (I’ll bet my bottom dollar) when first qualified 15 years ago. Be kind to yourself.

LyraSilvertongueBelacqua · 29/12/2021 09:02

OP I hear you!

I've taken to using Twinkl and tweaking like the others say. I like PlanBee too (but it's my money not school's subscription so I don't use as much).

I don't love WRM so I supplement it with other things, but at the same time if it's what school are asking you to use then just go with it. I had a mixed class for the last two years and WRM doesn't work. They don't have "mixed age planning" despite their claims. I made my own LTP (I had y1/2) based on the y2 one and moved the y1 blocks to fit. Is this something you could do? I've not taught ks2 so I don't know!

Definitely use what's out there. TES always has free stuff too, not always the best but something a good starting point and often free. Always Google what pure going to teach/what book etc as there is ALWAYS planning that comes up from somewhere. Join some teacher groups on Facebook and ask if anyone has anything they'd be happy to share.

Let go of the guilt that we have to do it all. It's physically impossible.

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