NQT year "outstanding primary" should I expect to work 13hr days?

[SarfEast1cated]

Hi everyone, please advise! I went to meet the teacher I'm replacing in September today, and she said that in the Autumn term she was working from 7am to 8pm each day and 4hrs on Saturday. Does that seem right to you? If I worked those hours I would never see my DD who's 9 and goes to bed at 8.30. I'm panicking a bit now, do you think current teacher is exaggerating? In my PGCE placement school I was working 7am - 5.45 and I thought that was OK...

Teacher today works a much shorter day 8-5, marking during lessons and with a lot of planning provided by established partner teacher, so that has made me happier. I think my partner teacher and I will use the existing plans and tweak/rewrite as necessary so maybe our hours won't be quite so short as today's teacher, but hopefully more manageable than yesterdays.

It really does depend on the school (or more specifically HT). And you won't really know what the workload is like until you are actually doing it yourself. I've worked in 3 schools and have worked different hours in each. Saying you need to work smart is all well and good but if your SLT expects lots of meaningless paperwork to be completed you have to do it. Good luck.

I think some of the hours worked here are mad! There has got to be serious issues with the school systems and procedures for teachers to feel the need to work that hard. I'm in at 7.45 leave at the latest 5 and earlier some days. Might take some books home to mark if needs be. Get most planning done at school in my PPA time - it's all on the school system from previous years so don't need to start from scratch all the time, it generally needs shaping and tweaking to fit children I have now but not hours of work. There are some longer hours at certain points in the year (reports etc) but I really think people need to reassess what they are doing. My school is 'good' by the way and gets great results with happy children and staff.

Some of the hours posted here are insane! We have two NQTS starting in my dept this year, and I will be heartily encouraging them to not to work hours like that! Some ways to reduce the mark load are:

• marking during the lesson (get a verbal feedback stamp - SLT tend to like them as well!)
• if they're old enough, teach them how to peer assess. Takes a little while (I've taught yr4+ how to do it, its just a process)
• remember that there can be a streak of martyrdom perfectionism in teachers. The to-do list will never totally be done. Be kind to yourself!

You will be working every evening and some of the weekend for your entire career. Plus some of your holidays. Stupid hours when you're a teacher.

It's the planning, powerpoint/flipchart creation that takes me lots of time - an hour each planning per lesson really... I guess if your plans are existing ones from previous years that half the battle won.

"To spend time with family" is definitely code for "I've had enough of spending every second of my spare time ticking boxes, filling data on spreadsheets and providing 'evidence' and the rest of the time consuming bollocks that does absolutely nothing to help the children learn."

Oops, wrong thread.

You will be working every evening and some of the weekend for your entire career. Plus some of your holidays. Stupid hours when you're a teacher

I don't?? I'm on SLT, get outstanding observations and my pupils do well so it really doesn't seem to be holding me back.

Don't spend an hour making a powerpoint for every lesson!!! Use a few slides from a ready prepared one on Twinkl. Use a youtube clip- there are thousands of teaching videos available. Use Espresso, mymaths, maths antics, khan academy, literacy shed... it's all out there already, just find the right bits for what you are teaching. Write/ type stuff like learning objectives up on the board as you go- typing the learning objective up in front of them will make you take a minute to really explain it to them.

You're right though. One of the schools I'm involved with has lost 8 out of 11 staff...

You wouldn't see a man leaving business with the "leavingbto spend time with family" euphamism half as often. And parents all believe it!!

Those hours are ridiculous! I'm in a good school and it has a low turnover of staff. Head and slt are strong believers in having a work life balance. I go in at 8 and leave at 430 as have to fit round secondary age dd. Rarely take work home. Our marking scheme requires work to be marked during that lesson with immediate verbal feedback. Planning is done during ppa times. School subscribes to twinkl where plenty of ready made power points are available and TES has plenty of resources. We work as a time across the year group and Friday after school we make sure all the resources for following week are ready. All we need to do after school everyday is put resources away and set up for next day.

popfan it's okay to say use plans from previous years but some schools change their expectations of what they want on plans each year. And yes , I'm speaking from experience here.

If I sat marking in a lesson it would be severely frowned upon. Yes, in class verbal feedback and addressing misconceptions occurs but marking against LO and tasks for next steps/closing gaps has to be done out of teaching hours.

In regards to schemes and plans - schemes are not allowed and weekly plans have to be class specific and child specific, so only the long term overview can be carried over IF the topics are not changed ( and they have been in recent years).

marking against LO and tasks for next steps/closing gaps in situ is THE latest jazzy snazzy 'in' thing to do (thank goodness)!

Your SLT sound needy spotty. Why do they need all that detail about what you are doing? It will show in the books.

Marking against an LO and closing the gap has been around for years so not sure how it's the 'in thing'.

Not needy at all - wanting good quality feedback and education for the pupils- it's not for SLT....

Marking against an LO and closing the gap has been around for years so not sure how it's the 'in thing'

I said doing it in situ- so at the time, live, with the child next to you- while they are still bothered about that piece of work.

You can see I'm being tongue in cheek anyway right? You sound like a joy

Not one bit of what you posted came across as tongue in cheek - but in fact came across as judgemental and critical.

But don't worry I'm a such a 'joy' I wouldn't worry about my opinion...

Marking in situ is the biggest time-saver. Every kid I speak to gets something in their book.

Would think 13 hr days pretty normal and usually longer.

During my PGCE I did my first two placements with the same teacher.

I was at school 7am -6pm most days as were the others in the year group. I got home, ate dinner and then cracked on again. I worked all of Sunday too.

When I discussed it with the Class Teacher it became apparent that she worked similar hours. There was a high expectation of deep marking and evidence for every lesson in every book whether the child was in school that day or not.

In the end I gave up before my final placement. I've since seen the lovely head of infants working in Boots.

marking in a lesson would be severely frowned upon by whom?
marking against LO has to be done out of teaching hours says whom?
schemes are not allowed why not?
weekly plans have to be class specific and child specific why plan a whole week ahead? If you are going to respond to their learning accurately a week you planned on Sunday would never still be right by Friday.

If all this is your opinion of how planning and marking should be done then that's fine- do it your way. However, you very much present it as an edict from above. There are other ways which are not worse.

It's not down to the individual 'opinion' of a young teacher though, it is down tho the pressure from the SLT / HT.
Fab, if you work in a school where they acknowledge people won't perform at their best if working 13 hours a day. However, there are FAR too many schools where they don't seem to either recognise, or care about the welfare of their staff and thy ask for more and more and more from staff year in and year out.

That said, I worked for over 20 years, in 4 different schools, under 7 different HTs, and have always averaged 11 hrs plus per day worked. I've worked different patterns of times over different times of my life, but the average over time remained fairly static. (More is asked now than it used to be, but you do get PPA which you didn't used to, and, of course, there is the internet and you don't have to do battle with sticky back plastic

lowdoor - go away!

No idea why you've taken issue with my comments on how my school works and what my day is like.

Take your judgemental attitude elsewhere - I've been in education for over 25 years and have no interest in your 'disapproval' or judgement.

I'm not judging you, I feel sorry for you that you and/ or your school (I can't tell which it is) think that things that would save a lot of time are 'not allowed'.

Do not feel sorry for me. I love my job.