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.

Which exam board is it? If it’s Edexcel they’re not actually assessed on context for ACC so you can be quite light touch.

This is what I did last week (with very low ability group):

1. get pupils to note down what they already know about Victorian England. Share ideas and write some on the board (in my experience, it won’t be much!)
2. Watch ‘Dickens show - workhouses’ on YouTube (I have some questions about this if you’d like them?)
3. Get pupils to write short response to question What do we learn about Scrooge when he asks ‘Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?’
4. peer assess responses (do they use evidence and subject terminology? Do they link context?)

And yes, more generally, you will get much quicker. Don’t worry!!

I have a ‘context’ lesson to deliver for A Christmas Carol. Any suggestions for activities to avoid it being a history lecture please?

Muppets Xmas carol?

Why is it a carol and not a story?

Do your students have IT they can use for some research?

What is Xmas like for them at home? Do parents /older siblings work? If so do they get paid extra?

I'm not an English teacher but was on the same PGCE and in the sme school with someone teaching a Christmas Carol.

USE your planning. I know that sounds crazy but do actually use it. During your lesson tick off what you are doing, make notes of anything that comes up, so, "No Jess I don't know what coal cost at the time but I'll find out next time" means write the q and student name on your planner. Or give the class the task of finding out.

Pick a student each lesson to make sure they understand, this could be a child sho has been off ill, the class clown or someone with SEND - write this into your plan.

As soon as you can after the lesson review it with your plan, what went well? What was a disaster? if you know why it went well or not then put thatdown too and use this to build up your next plan.

Make sure any homework is on the plan and partially plan your next lesson starting with the homework for this lesson.

If you have a VLE or moodle use that, get activities on to it that you can give as extension activities or quizzes.

Use something like quizlet if you can and if not have someting on the board the students can start as soon as they are in the room.

One school placement all clases had to begin with a 'do now' which was a 5 min task, if you did not have anythign relevant for the start of the class then the task was, 'silent reading' it was great to be able to put that at he start of every lesson.

Start with a visual stimulus - I like to compare two Hogarth pics Gin Lane and Beer Street (they are a bit earlier but you do get the idea of difference between the comfortably off and the poor). Kids jot down what they see, feedback, focus on differences in class.
There is a bbc show on YouTube called 24 hours in the past - episode 4 is set in a workhouse. Pick a few mins of that and show it ; questions for the children to answer while they watch. Quick discussion.
Read the bit where the two gentlemen come into Scrooge's office - "are there no prisons?" Quick discussion. Then either read or watch the bits in Xmas present when Fred's Xmas is compared to Cratchits. Discuss.
Finish with some writing - What might Dickens be saying to his middle class readers about poverty? use evidence from the text to support.

There is , I agree, loads of great stuff online about ACC. Teachit has an entire booklet that I used for some resources, especially on context and things like York Notes really help. And kiera's lesson sounds great!

That said, you do need also to stand on your own two feet (eventually) planning wise- especially if you have sixth form. It is reasonably unusual for trainees to get sixth form, so in this respect you are lucky, but it is planning intense. What are you teaching them?

On the bright side, once you have planned things once , it's there for your future to tweak , or reuse. The first few years are very planning heavy (that said, I have been through so many curriculum changes that it has never really stopped!)

Beware the demon overplanning : it rarely leads to a good lesson!

I noticed you are a little older but do try to dredge up memories of how you learnt things at school and what effective teachers did as this can be a good resource, too. What are they doing with you at the uni, out of interest? Soem unis are great; some not so much. I know my lcoal one is very much in an outdated timewarp!

Get a Twinkl account OP, I have seen it’s already been suggested but it’s a life saver. Also build a collection of SPaG activities that you can stick on as plenaries. My kids love nominate- no prep needed. I’ll post a link to the rules.
Planning will take hours now please don’t stress because it’s the same for everyone.

Kiera- I’m going to use your lesson with one of my 1:1’s this week.

OP- I couldn’t find the rules of nominate online.
All students stand up- you ask a question and the first student put their hands up. If they get it right they pick two people to sit down, if they get it wrong they sit down. Keep going until you have a winner. Easy to change up the rules and you can think of questions on the spot, use a ball or get the students to write a question each.

Re: Christmas Carol - can you start by brainstorming the whole class - find out what they already know about the context:
Victorian Christmases
Victorian Work Ethics
Victorian Health and medical systems (Tiny Tim)
The Victorian Gothic and ghost stories of the era

It gets them involved and thinking from the start, makes them feel clever and included, and it always surprises me (and them) how much they actually know already. Sets them up for confident learning late rin the lesson.

I hate that student teachers are expected to plan from nothing -this is not how it is when you are a proper teacher. It is almost as if established teachers expect new teachers to suffer like they did.

I would go on TPT and buy stuff- I do that now and it saves me a lot of time. Keep telling yourself that it will not be like this forever but it is GRIM whilst it is. English will always be marking heavy but the planning will not always be like this- you can pull out the plans next year, that you have made this year.
I have kids and often feel guilty that I do not spend more time with them. However I am getting faster- I work 7.30 am till 4.30 and maybe 2 hours at the weekend for a big chunk of my year.The struggle is real.

5 minute lesson plan is your friend.
Past exam questions and flip chart sheets for as many classes as possible....get them to round robin to create a model answer to each question, from essay plan to final piece.