How much planning do you actually do?

[MrTumblesCrackWhore]

In the days as a new teacher in a sixth form, I had a timetable of 24 lessons a week. I worked in the evenings and the weekends but i still had to walk into lessons, knowing what I was about to teach, just not with a structured lesson plan either mentally or on paper. I have to say, I was a pretty ok teacher in those more spontaneous lessons ...roll on a decade and I have less hours on my timetable and I'm physically unable to walk into a lesson without lesson objectives, structured Paul Ginnis type activities planned to within an inch of their life, plenaries, differentiation, refs to SMSC and employability etc. My students achieve as well as they did when my planning was much more skeletal in the early days but my enjoyment of the job and the challenge has diminished. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I could ever walk into a lesson and totally make it up in the spot but I do miss the freedom and flexibility to go off on a tangent and just talk to the class or experiment with another teaching method. One of my best lessons ever (and this has been corroborated by two ex students who cite this lesson as their reason to become teachers) was when I felt the students had had enough of my teaching from the front that day so I asked them in pairs to each teach an aspect of the topic they were studying. They did brilliantly. Does anyone else wing it a bit?

Primary here - A4 page per lesson, so that's 4, 5 6 or pages per day.
Learning objectives, success criteria, key questions, key vocabulary, links to previous learning, cross-curricular links, resources, fully detailed differentiation, how L/O links to any IEPs in class, how I will stretch more able, how additional adults will be deployed, IT use and weblinks, what AfL will take place including self and peer-assessment, we still have the space for range of NC levels within class and how lesson targets specific hard-to-learn / move up a level areas but with no NC levels now???? ... Then PTO for lesson evaluation, next steps in learning, any AfL notes and action before the next lesson.

When I started teaching 30 years ago it was one page per day or even week! Does it make me a better teacher? Do my children make any more progress than with a simpler system? NO!

Isit, that's when I realised what an insane petty dictatorship primary teaching is. 30 years teaching, and I was still expected to plan in as much detail as an NQT.
Not plans that were helpful and useful to me, but for show and so that SMT could check we were complying with whatever the expectation ths month was. No spontenaity and a poor use of hours and hours of my time.
Why we don't get issued with a booklet per week of outstanding planning from central office to follow, I don't know.

I coped for the last few years as I had saved my plans from previous years and used them as a starting point. Now we have a brand new curriculum, so everything is totally from scratch! Maybe that is why I'm working 70 hour weeks and worry there is no end in sight for these ridiculous hours. Thank goodness my children are grown and flown the nest - I couldn't do it with them around.

We are "outstanding" - have been for decades and several inspections. Previously I'd provide observers with my plans, but they barely look at them. SLT observations don't pay much attention unless they are worried about something. Subject leaders, SENCO and GT&MA coordinator collect a sample once a term to monitor so I pick one I've actually completed to the "standard". TAs are supposed to have these plans prior to lessons so they support correctly, but as the plans are written / adapted in light of previous lesson the evening before they rarely get time to read them once they arrive in the morning.

I'm trying to persuade the rest of the SLT something like The Five Minute Lesson Plan would be good!

As a supply teacher, I get to see the complete inconsistency across two counties in primary. The planning varies in depth, quality and amount from school to school within one city, let alone a wider area.
So if one school is outstanding with a sensible expectation of planning, why is another school good and wanting three times the paperwork?

The joke we have is that one of the reasons for all this paperwork is for continuity should I become ill and need someone to teach my class for several weeks or more (not talking about a D&V or bad cold couple of days). But the level of work is more likely to lead to stress related meltdowns sending us off on sick leave!

It's another good reason for employing a decent supply teacher, they shouldn't need everything spelling out in every detail, they should know what they are doing with that age group and be able to work with any TA/support staff to clarify specifics related to individual children.

I've worked in schools that required a4 plans for every lesson, down to the most minute detail. It was entirely unmanageable and I eventually left as my mental health was in the gutter.
Current school is different. The deputy is extremely meticulous and I know would love everyone to be planning in this way, but luckily we've all out our feet down and said it is unworkable. Now we plan a week on an A4 grid but still have weekly timetables and medium term plans.

What gets me is we have to hand it in for weekly scrutiny. I am so against this and am dating and saving all the post it notes I get back stuck on it.

Luckily we don't have to hand in our planning each week, but very occasionally the HT will ask to see our planning folder. The folders should always be up to date and in a prominent place so she can pop in and just pick it up for a quick scrutiny. Fortunately she is far too busy to remember to do this more than once in a very blue moon, but it still hangs over us.

I could cope with that, Friday, but handing it weekly really gets to me. What criteria are they using to judge it?

Several schools round here expect all weekly planning to be uploaded to the server, and management and subject co-ordinators check it regularly. It's seen at least weekly by someone.
The planning files are taken in half-termly and checked, but must be available at any time on request.

Local school in SM has to hand it in every Monday, then again on Friday with the evaluations, a cross section of books to show how the lesson plans, work, marking and pupil response to marking ties up. Almost the whole team (many of whom are really good and dedicated teachers) have resigned.

I must confess to not always fully completing the sheets (so sack me!) and I haven't been caught out yet. Ahh - tempting fate here.

We have long and medium term plans in a file, both online and in paper form - one in the classroom and one in the head's office.

We then plan in timetable form on one sheet of A4 for the week. The skills from that are transferred onto a skills planning form (the head is aiming to be able to show that the new literacy and numeracy framework is embedded in our planning for when Estyn come visiting soon).

Terrifying. Where's the trust as a professional? I'm terrible at writing evaluations but when I mark I make notes to myself (either mental or on a post it) to help alter the next day's teaching.

Bullocks, posted too soon. Just to add that IME, excessive paperwork is the absolute death of creating teaching.

I am not working at the moment but when I went into teaching I was amazed at the amounted reinventing the wheel that went on and the impact it had on teachers.

Over a few years all of our departments had centrally produced differentiated schemes of work in advance, sometimes working with neighbouring schools. Resources were made and copied in advance. The only planning we wanted to see after that was perhaps a few lines in their teacher planners about minor adaptations in light of the classes needs.

I don't plan the next lesson until I've taught the previous (secondary maths) how can you when you don't know how they got on and where they got to?

My planning varies from a note in my planner ("adding and subtracting mixed numbers") which I will just make up as I teach, because I've taught it loads, to something a bit more structured, with maybe some slides and resources.

If I had to fill out lesson plans all the time, I think I'd quit. I don't need them, so they wouldn't be for my benefit.

I think that teachers have to balance what is ideal with what is realistic. I think it is realistic to have resources and plans in place which are put together by a greater team sharing minds. There will be times when you need to tweet or depart from those plans but the expectation that teachers should assess at the end of every lesson and then plan a new lesson as a result as that is not sustainable and realistic unless you are a super teacher who has no interest outside of my work.

In a way though, philoslothy, I think teachers are their own worst enemies. Every school without exception I've been at had a few individuals who would be "competitively busy" and were absolute vocal martyrs about the amount of paperwork they produced. It does a massive disservice to those of us who manage our time effectively and use it to do things that actively benefit the kids.

E.g. I come in at 6:30 to do paperwork, etc. but not many people know that as i don't have reason to mention it. I leave earlier than most people, at around 4:30 usually, and there's a couple of people who often comment on this. It drives me mad! Yet me data is consistently strong and we have a great time in year six.

I would simply refuse to hand in lesson plans and if that meant that I had to leave so be it.

I agree catkisser.

I was told by other teachers on here that I could not possible leave work at 4pm once a week, that is impossible to not work over the holidays. The implication was that I was some kind if shirker or lying. However despite that I was quite open about the fact that I was working in excess of 70 hours a week. How many hours is one person expected to work? Why is needing to work long hours seen as a good thing?

Yup, tis ridiculous!
For me, it all clicked into place when I realised the most important things are the teaching, the marking and the planning. NOT insanely written lesson plans but knowing your children and providing appropriate work for them. Also ensuring it's fun! Last week we went on a massive snail hunt in the woodland as part of an evolution study and uploaded our data to a worldwide study. They LOVED it! Much more important than ensuring I've included sufficient detail on my daily lesson plans.

Yy to the martyrs and competitive overworking! Also, don't like the I don't do any work in my own timers either!

Isitfriday - how on earth do you find the time to plan in that level of detail?! I'm in awe!

I worked weekend and evenings but not the holidays, aside from one residential trip a year. I also helped out with DofE but not in the holidays. I saw the holidays as my time and staunchly refused to work in them, I thought that was more than reasonable.

Isitfriday - how on earth do you find the time to plan in that level of detail?! I'm in awe! - You are assuming I do them as fully as the HT assumed when creating this form .

I have the set sheet, complete Monday's fully, then just make a few notes on the following days! I use my own short-hand and don't write that neatly so I know what I've planned but the detail is hard to decipher. Much of the differentiation, IEP, etc. is the same session on session. I'm originally from an EY background so use post-it notes liberally as AfL, notes, adjustments. I know I'll get caught out eventually, but hey ho! My excuse is that I'm working in a new Key Stage on a brand new curriculum and I draft my plans but fine tune them as I go. That is taking me long enough.