Trainee teacher drowning in planning

[75gab]

Not sure if anyone will be able to help...
I’m on my first placement at a lovely school with supportive staff and mentor. However, I’ve spent all of half term writing an assignment and now how limited time left to plan a 5 lesson SoW and other lessons for this week. With the amount of time it takes me to do one, I have no hope of getting everything done by Monday deadline. I’ve worked myself up now to such an extent it’s ruined any hope I had of a break during the week off. The stupid thing is I’m getting good feedback, I can manage behaviour, I just can’t get my head round planning. I’m a mature student with 2 children who I’ve hardly seen since I started in September and I spent this morning looking for ideas as to other jobs I can do. Don’t feel I should quit because of this one thing but it’s ruining every evening and weekend. The course doesn’t seem to be teaching us how to teach - not sure what I’m paying for.

What year/subject?

I could have written your post word for word.
Pm me?

Secondary English. I have classes in KS3,4&5.

How many lessons are you teaching? It's still early days. Could you cut them back? Do you have to hand in lesson plans in advance?

Could you get some lessons from tes and other trainees?

Are you primary or secondary? What subject?

Can you have a browse on TES to see if you can look at any example lessons for the subject? Might give you some ideas?

You need to start with the lesson objectives - what do you want the pupils to be able to do?

So, as an example, an objective might be:

To be able to calculate the weight of an object. (Sorry, I'm a scientist so this objective may not mean much to you).

Then think about what needs to be done to allow the children to meet that objective.

So, for my example above, I would need to explain what weight is and show them the formula.

Then, I would model how to use the formula.

Then I would likely get them to do a couple of practice questions on mini whiteboards so I can assess who has got it and who needs more guidance.

Then an opportunity for them to practice - could be a written activity or a practical activity. I might assess while they work giving feedback or we might self/peer assess.

Finally, a plenary - might be an exam question or a quiz of some sort.

Once you have this, consider how you will differentiate your lesson.

So, I might have scaffolded practice questions for those who need support. I might have questions requiring pupils to rearrange the formula or convert between units for the more able.

Has your mentor done any joint planning with you?

I have 6 lessons across the 4 days I’m in this week (1 uni day). All plans are supposed to be emailed to class teacher 48 working hrs before. Problem is everything taught in this school is new to me or was studied too long ago to really remember so I have to read/study it first. Yr 13 lesson will take me all of this evening at the minimum to plan if I start now 😩

I’ve used TES but even then I struggle to make other people’s plans work for me.
I was hoping that the other students on my course would be more inclusive but Im almost 20 yrs older than most of them and they have their own private WhatsApp group ( that I’m not included in). I’ve gone out of my way to be friendly and helpful - I’ve shared my resources etc, provided a friendly ear but I think we are all probably dealing with our own struggles!

Thanks for the suggestions PumpkinPie2016. I’ll try to use that structure to focus. I have had two joint planning sessions but I found the one teacher’s method really confusing and the other although it made more sense I still couldn’t see how the pupils were going to learn what he said they should from the activities. I need to understand the reasoning behind their choices of techniques so that is can then understand how to apply them myself.

Does your school not have schemes of work for you to edit? Even as an experienced member of staff I virtually never plan from scratch.

OP have you tried #teamenglish on twitter for help?

Try teachit.co.uk (All English stuff).

Or I may have stuff (English teacher, but in Scotland so may be different). Let me know what you need and will have a think.

What's the topic? I'm secondary English and may well be able to help.

There is often a weird thing where trainees have to plan from scratch while established teachers get to use past schemes of work. ,I guess it's because you do need to be able to plan from scratch as there won't always be schemes available, but it does mean the least experienced teachers are under the most pressure.
I'm not secondary so can't help with specifics, but just wanted to reassure you that what you're going through is par for the course and things do get better. It's never an easy job, but it does become manageable and even enjoyable if you find the right school. At this stage, you're doing everything for the first time, over time more of it becomes automatic and it is less overwhelming. There is far more to it than it appears from the outside and it is a tough learning curve.

To be frank, it probably will ruin-or dominate - every evening and weekend at this stage. The plus side is obviously the holidays when you will still be knackered and pressured, but you will get to see your kids when others maybe don't. It will get easier if you find the right school.

Its so early for you, but if you're getting good feedback, try not to ruminate on whether you've made the right choice. Just keep telling yourself something like "this is hard but it is do-able. It will get easier. Yes, I feel like I'm drowning but everybody does, even if they don't all show it. This is a worthwhile career where I'm going to make a difference and eventually earn a good wage to support my family. I've got this." Try saying it to yourself, out loud, every time you find yourself dwelling on how hard it is. It's not the job that does for us, it's the crippling g self doubt. Hold your nerve, do the next step that's in front of you and it will get better. Honest!

Hi OP,

Secondary English too.

Excellent suggestions above. One thing I found really helped with my planning was to begin with 'What do I want them to have learnt by the end of the lesson.' Just one thing. Simplify it. Then use Bloom's Taxonomy (remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate, create) to take you through 'activities' to achieve the one thing you want them to learn.

Build your questioning, success criteria, and self/peer/teacher assessment around that. Get some independent learning into year 13 too, will hopefully cut your planning down too.

You are slowly building your own planning and your own resources, but be realistic. Don't try to do absolutely everything from scratch, beg/borrow/steal and tailor to meet the individual needs of your classes.

I'd second the bed, borrow, steal approach as well - rightly or wrongly it's been my approach this week

Thanks all for the words of wisdom and very helpful pointers. I now know which direction to head in.

I have a ‘context’ lesson to deliver for A Christmas Carol. Any suggestions for activities to avoid it being a history lecture please? I have a plot quiz to start the lesson off with some light revision.

....and sorry to hijack your thread OP but can I say exactly the same thing but in a primary school.

Thanks everyone for all the really helpful pointers, suggestions and pep talk! I feel like I know what direction to go in now.
Any suggestions for specific activities to prevent a context lesson for A Christmas Carol turning into a history lecture. We watched the film last lessons so I’m starting this lesson with a quiz to revise basic plot, characters etc.

There's a whole unit of planning on this on Twinkl. Do you have a log in?

Soontobe60
I’ll have a look thanks

Here's the link
www.twinkl.co.uk/resource/t4-e-021-new-a-christmas-carol-in-context-lesson-pack

Have you signed up to LitDrive? It's an amazing - and free - resource for secondary English teachers. You also want to have a look at Twitter and a user called S.Pryke. He has an amazing Christmas Carol scheme that he's shared.

Quiz quiz trade is always a good activity to make transfer of 'facts' a bit more interactive, or a YouTube clip on the Victorians/context with questions the pupils have to answer while they watch. I'm a boring sod now though and just make them listen and make notes while I talk 

I feel your pain - planning takes so much time. Start with the end result so you have a clear learning intention and make sure you don’t drown them with content in the middle.

Don't give up! You will get so much quicker at planning over time. Much harder to learn to manage behaviour if that is a struggle for you imo so if you are getting good feedback and can manage behaviour well then this hopefully will be the right career for you!

By the end of NQT year you will look back and be astonished at how long it took you to plan a single lesson!