Typical day in Secondary?

[MissingHours]

Hi, I posted here: Teaching in a wheelchair
http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/the_staffroom/2888037-teaching-in-a-wheelchair

Have spent weeks thinking about things and talking to OH and (grown-up) kids. They are very supportive but have one, very major, concern - they have major concerns about a typical day, arriving at school, during day, and work when home and during weekends, so thought I'd ask!

Should note, I've always been reasonably good at multitasking which I think should be an advantage!

We've also agreed I should volunteer, and agreed that if full-teaching is too much, the TA route could be attractive.

Many thanks, and all the comments last time were brill and really helped firm things up for both me, and my family :)

I'd be interested too, thanks op

It's a bit of a 'how long is a piece of string question'...

Here's what I did today as an example. I'd say this is fairly typical in terms of hours worked, but the actual content of the day changes significantly. Today was quite a lot of teaching/planing/resourcing, whereas other days might have more admin/report writing/data etc.

8.00 - Arrive in school
8.15 - Staff briefing
8.30 - Start teaching.
Teach form period and four one hour lessons. One free period (spent resourcing tomorrow's lessons)
Quick cuppa at break
10 minute break at lunchtime
3.15 - Finish teaching. Department meeting. Planning/admin.
5.30 - Leave school.
8.30 - Turn laptop back on to do planning after kids are in bed.
10.00 - Give up. Come onto MN.

I hope that helps.

Ok, here's mine.

Arrive 8.10, carry books upstairs (I'm on the 4th floor, there's no lift), make a brew, set up, nip downstairs to print some worksheets. Walk to main building for briefing then over to another building where my form are based.
9.00 Head back up 4 floors, teach in my room all day- 5 periods. Grab 5 mins at break for a cuppa/wee and usually 20 mins at lunch after sorting/tidying/talking to pupils/detention.

3.00 Dismiss kids, walk them down, back up, catch up with colleagues. If no meeting, look at next day's lessons and mark a set of books.
4.00 Go home, take a set of books with me.
7.30 until 10pm Planning, marking, emails, data, resources.
10pm: mumsnet

Yep, things like that are very useful.

Yesterday for me was:
8.00 arrive in school
8.15 staff briefing
8.40-11.00 teach then tutor period
11.00-11.25 - break - cup of coffee, catch up with girl in tutor group about her timetable
11.25-12.25 teach
12.25-1.25 free period - organising Yr 11 sample to send off to moderator
1.25-2.00 lunch time - on duty (but get a free lunch as a reward 😬)
2.00-3.00 teach
3.15-4.15 meeting

Rush to kids' school, pick them up, take them to their choir, get home, cook dinner. Sat down to work about 7.30, worked til just after 10.

I usually arrive at 7.30am, set up computer/PowerPoints/resources/talk with technicians if I have ordered anything (Science). If Fri, then staff briefing but otherwise check the online version and emails.

8.30am-10.45am teach in my room

10.45-11is break so I set up my next two lessons before lunch and nip to the loo.

Teach until 1pm when we get 30 minutes for lunch. I usually grab 10/15 mins to eat and the rest is spent on emails/sorting last lesson.

Then either a free (not everyday and not always last period ) or final lesson.

After school usually is a meeting/CPD/revision session/extra curricular session.

Then, once home I spend from 7.30pm to 10pm marking/planning/admin before I finally get to bed.

Typical day for me:
Arrive at 8.15am for staff briefing.
Go to my room to grab stuff for morning mentoring during registration(currently mentoring year 11 and 13)
8.50 - 10.50 teach, normally in my classroom
10.50-11.10 break when I usually manage to get a cup of tea, go to the toilet and photocopy.
11.10-1.10 teach normally in my classroom.
1.10-1.40 lunch which I normally get as long as I don't have detentions(I make sure to leave my room and have a proper break)
Afternoon registration
2-3pm teach.
Then meetings/planning/marking.
Pick up dd at 4
Tea, bath bed for dc.
7.30ish start planning/marking etc
Finish about 10.30. Fall into bed.

And repeat.

I know our TAs don't get any free/planning lessons during the school day, it could be science at one end of the school upstairs (nope, no lifts) then maths at the other end, then invigilation-well you get my drift.

I'm surprised that there seems to be a pattern emerging. Most of us do very similar week day hours.

Typical for me:
8:30 arrive in school (having dropped dc off as early as I could at breakfast club)
8:40 briefing
8:45-9:15 tutor time. I'm not a tutor, so usually walking round school talking to individual students regarding an extra role I have.
9:15 teach
10:55 corridor break duty. Drink tea and eat a snack while on duty.
11:15-12:55 teach
12:55-1:35 lunchtime. I pick up some photocopying from our repro dept and set up my lesson in the last five minutes, since I don't have my own room. Once a week I participate in a club (I don't run it though)
1:35-3:15 teach
After school: maybe a meeting or a club I help out with. If I don't have anything official scheduled I will do my weekly book scrutiny duties. I may need to mark a set of books.

I don't usually take books home regularly, as I'm part time so have proportionally less. I do teach lots of exam groups though, so will bring mock exam papers home with me. I'm an English teacher, so a set of yr11 language mocks will typically taken me 6-7 hours to mark. I always do this at home.

Arrive at school by 8:10 ( can't drop DS4 off at his school any earlier than 1/4 to 8 and then traffic dependent.)
Run around like mad thing, and make a coffee.
8:30 duty/briefing/ meeting
8:45 tutor time
9 am teach. We have a six period day. I teach a lot of six period days ( 4 this week)
Break run to loo, collect sandwiches, duty once a week.
Lunchtime, variety of catch up sessions, student clubs etc. I try to keep friday lunchtime free to chat to colleagues.
The rooms i teach in are on 2 different floors in one building and on first floor in another, no lifts and i have some ongojng mobility issues.
Finish 3:30 pm , on three days a week there are then meetings, student catch up or student club.
Try to leave school at 5 to 5 to avoid mad traffic, home by six, start marking/prepping at 8
Work and multitask ( ie piss around) for a couple of hours.
Sleep, repeat. Mostly very good fun. I am totally knackered by the end of each week though.

Given I'm in a wheelchair, and planning to teach Computing & IT any advice regarding the subject and managing a class would also be helpful.

There definitely seems a pattern between all your days, it's very helpful, thanks so much!

A lot will depend on the school.

I'm currently retraining from FE teaching to school and a change in subject.

I rarely use a wheelchair but do use a stick and have issues with fatigue and other things.

I'm one of three on the course with a mobility disability, one uses a wheelchair most of the time. There is also a student who is blind.

New build schools are great, older ones - not so much.

In my last placement I was criticized for sitting because then I couldn't see the entire class!

Current placement I wave impero - so I can see all the students monitors, take over their screen and broadcast my own screen (new subject is computer science).

Had fun with it yesterday, particularly tiring boy kept going off task and on to the internet, so I took control of his screen and put 'my little pony' on, which his friend noticed, and then someone else, then someone asked my to put it on the whiteboard, so I did.

One very red student who stayed on task with the rest of the lesson. Note - I know this class quite well, I realise it would devastate some other children and would only do it with a group like this, the boy now wants to be called 'Pinkie Pie'.

Hope this helps. Here's my day today:

7.50 arrive at school and do a bit of printing/photocopying
8.20 meeting with head of secondary and head of y11 (I'm head of y11)
8.30 emails
8.45 meet parent
9.00 supervise y11 corridor
9.15 send y11 students to tutor rooms and give announcements to each tutor group (there are 7) about today's exams, lunch, study rooms
9.25 cover tutor time for 2 absent tutors
9.40 teach y13
10.25 teach y12
11.10 cover departmental detention for colleague who had a parent meeting
11.25 toilet and fetch marking from office
11.35 teach y10
12.20 teach y12
13.05 y11 PSHE assembly
13.50 coordinators' detention
14.25 help with rehearsal for charity fashion show
14.55 toilet
15.00 free period - cover a physics lesson for someone on mat.leave. Y12 student came to discuss whether he should give up an a level.
15.45 teach y8
16.30 fashion show rehearsals (during which ate lunch)
18.00 fashion show begins - handed over to colleague and came home to get into bed as have tonsilitis and feel awful

Only marking tonight is a handful of past papers I've received today from year 11 students as part of their revision for Wednesday's IGCSE. Got up to date on all other marking at the weekend. Also writing a reference and completing online applications tonight for a student who's leaving and emailing all of his reports since 2015 to the 5 schools he's applying to.

Monday is my favourite day of the week.