When does planning get easier?

[CuckooCuckooClock]

I'm in my third year now and still teaching loads of stuff for the first time and having to plan from scratch (well, tes) for most lessons.

I was talking to an experienced teacher recently and he was saying that his planning now is essentially one phrase like "the heart" for instance, and he has a bank of resources to select from and can just deliver the lesson.

When will this happen for me? I still feel like I have so much to learn and most of my lessons are a bit shit tbh because I'm still getting to grips with how it all fits together and which bits the kids really need to know and which bits they will struggle with.

If you're an experienced teacher, when did you start to feel like you had planning under control?

I’ve always taught in the independent sector and have always had SOW.

Op, I work in a pretty grim (in terms of ethos and workload) academy, but what keeps me there is my colleagues. We have a shared faculty office (don't you?) where we eat lunch together, gossip, chat, make each other a brew, bring cake in etc. Most schools I know are like this.
Don't you meet as a faculty once a week? If not, when do you moderate assessments, evaluate schemes, discuss revision, intervention, set changes, displays, all that?

Not independent, no. Just a state comp.

No faculty office sadly. I think that's one reason we never see each other. We do have team meetings every couple of weeks but the agenda doesn't include discussing resources. We do moderate assessments in it occasionally but have never discussed schemes. The agenda is stuck to and everyone rushes off at the end (including me because I have to pick up kids).

I don't really get how teachers have time in their day to chat with colleagues? I'm either teaching, doing revision at lunchtime or marking afterschool. How do you have time to fit in speaking to colleagues?

Set changes are directed from HoD without discussion with me.
I haven't been involved in displays (and have no wish to). A new one went up outside my classroom recently. There's a display person who sorts that out.

It can get very lonely indeed if you don't manage to find time to chat to colleagues. IME, the best things are:
Chat in corridors at break (even if you're on duty)
Make sure you have a proper break at lunchtime - do you need to do revision every day? That's a good time to catch up with colleagues.
Arrange social things - difficult when you have young kids I know but we used to have a proper night out at the end of every half term. It makes such a difference.

My old school started going downhill massively when the timings of break were changed. It was originally 15 mins at break and 45 at lunch, but they changed it to 25 at break and 35 at lunch. That meant that break time suddenly became long enough to do useful things so everyone stopped going to the staffroom - 15 minutes is long enough to get a coffee and have a chat but not much else. Suddenly there was pressure to actually do useful things at break and it all fell apart.

It's worth forcing the time - especially early in your career. Otherwise you can get all the way through a day and realise you didn't speak to a single other adult.

Lunchtime, after school, meeting times. Do you never ask each other what sort of day they've had?!

This is how you learn to teach- 'Ben is struggling with X, I've tried Y, what do you think?'

or 'I think they've got W, shall I move them onto Z?'

It's not a social chat, it's really important!

I get that it's important but that doesn't mean it's going to happen. I'd love to spend time chatting with experienced teachers about work.
I work 3 days and do revision 2 lunchtimes. The other lunchtime i usually spend marking in my classroom.
Break is 15 minutes. If I'm on duty I don't see another member of staff usually. If I'm not on duty I go for a wee!
If I do pop into the staff room the only people in there are office staff. I never see any teachers in there. I only go in to check my pigeon hole so probably others are the same.

It's worth making it happen - honestly. Sometimes all it takes is to feel that you have one "friend" in your dept and everything suddenly seems so much easier. Go into a colleague's classroom with a specific question and use that to start a chat. It's worth it.

I would say I realised at 5 years. I had a 4th year BEd student so I was available for class cover. It was often at 5 minutes notice and it was then I realised I could walk into a primary class of any stage and teach something reasonably well without prepping it first.

Why are you doing revision sessions? It doesn’t sound like a priority. Your priority should be to get SOWs up and running to benefit all students, not just Y11. H

I thought running revision for exam classes was the done thing. Everyone else at my school seems to be doing it.

You don’t do revision classes when you are on the edge otherwise.

They are a luxury.

I would agree that if you are 0.6 1 revision class a week seems more than reasonable.

I’ve been teaching for 15+ years and whilst my planning does consist of a couple of words like ionic bonding or reactivity series, I still find myself making and updating resources.
This year, I am teaching many more very low ability children so my resources have to reflect this.
Of course, changes in the curriculum also mean updating resources too.
It does get easier but it never ends completely.
On a separate note, I’m so disappointed that people now charge for resources on TES. I honestly think it goes against everything the profession stands for. We should be helping each other during the most stressful time in teaching history! Shame on TES!!

I get that there's always going to be adapting and tweaking to do for different groups but next week I've got one single lesson that I've taught before to mid ability and this time I've got to adapt it for low ability. Everything else is totally from scratch. If the lessons are going to be half decent, it'll take hours, which I don't have, so some of those lessons will have to be rubbish.

Would you be brave enough to reach out to your colleagues, op?
Send an cheery email: "Hi all, just to let you know I've put all of my PPTs and worksheets on the shared drive so feel free to use them. Class X said they liked the hwk worksheet on cells!"
I guarantee there will be others who could/would benefit from your work. We do this anyway, but our recent trainee uploaded her resources and we were grateful, and told her so. Isn't that how adults work together?
Def start looking for a new school. It's an isolating job as it is, without being ignored by adults who should know better.

Yes I agree that charging for resources is a bit cheeky as presumably most of those have been made as part of a teachers job so they've been paid by the school already. I suppose some people (not me obvs) put a lot of time and effort into fancy ppts and want extra money for the extra hours work.

Cuckoo, I haven’t read the whole thread. Do you teach Science?

I do already put all my stuff on the shared area. I have also sent around stuff I've been particularly proud of! But no one responded. I look in the shared folders for what I'm teaching next and they're empty so it may be that some people share and I've just never been lucky enough to come across their stuff because we're not teaching the same things.

Yes science

I’ve sent you a pm

I have been there, both with the unhelpful department, the useless HoD and the lack of a SOW (by the way, the only place I've worked with no SOW was a top achieving state school - they weren't hot on checking such things).

I think:
I) Decide what resources would make YOUR life easier and get hold of them. I have bought a heap of textbooks over the years, done printing at home to save stress on arriving at work (last thing you need when rushing commute due to childcare drop off), bought my own whiteboard pens because the ordering system was so slow. I know we shouldn't have to spend our own money, but time is money and a few resources can make a big difference. I see it as buying myself an extra half hour in bed and a loo break!
2) It doesn't sound like you're going to get any joy from colleagues (although it would be worth engineering a chat with each of them one by one - do one a week - you only need to find one person who's helpful and has resources they'll share). Go in their classrooms with a packet of biscuits on your one free break. I guarantee it'll work on someone! If you can't get any resources that way, buy some on TES, email everyone in the right subject area you've ever met at a conference or training. Hell, reveal your subject on here. I bet you'll find someone can help (I was offered Geography resources by a kind MNetter when I had a random period of it added to my timetable at short notice).
2) It sounds like your school is socially dysfunctional or badly led. No-one is the staff room is always a sign (unless it's just your faculty and the other faculties are living it up with their own kettles and biccie tin). Whatever, in situations like that no-one shares as no-one wants to stick their head above the parapet. But if you can find that one friendly individual, you may be able to make common cause. When I had a timetable in my second subject (and a useless SOW) I managed to get resources from all three colleagues like that - they hated each other but liked me I think.
3) Look for a new job. There are so few science teachers and you've negotiated part time once - you can do it again.

I meant to add that everywhere I've worked, I've put everything on the shared area and no-one has shared much with me.

However, I don't care because having a complete back up on the shared area has saved my life so many times, avoids arguments with students (yes we did cover XYZ theory/I did set ABC homework - look, it was on September 19th...) and it does kind of speak for itself if someone in SLT should take a look and wonder why only you have got resources on there.

Sorry to keep posting.

If you do anything outside your main job such as tutoring or examining and therefore do a tax return, you have the option of keeping receipts and listing them as expenses. After all, you need equipment like textbooks for any subject-related activity.

Quick question, do you teach all 3 sciences at ks4 or only your specialism? I've taught in 3 schools but found the planning workload significantly greater when I had to teach all three. Also, you're department sounds terrible! Definitely move schools.