Teachers- what are we doing today?

[BelleSausage]

As an antidote to the accusations that we are doing bugger all I thought I’d keep a lockdown WFH diary here. Feel free to join in as an illustration that staff are doing lots in this time.

What am I up to today?

New term has started. I don’t usually teach Monday or Tuesday but I consider that out the window now. Will be putting in about four hours today between meetings and work setting and making explanation videos for students and answering e-mails queries.

I also have DD (4) to look after this morning as DH and I have divided the day in two shift so we can both get chunks of work done. Will be mostly reading and answering e-mails this morning. Can’t do anything that requires quiet until I can lock myself in the office this afternoon.

I’ve got a Teams staff meeting at 3 and that should take another hour. So maybe five in all.

Over the holidays I’ve been making talking Power Points for the students. School are keen for us not to do video lessons with younger years.

How about you all? What are you up to today?

I’ll also be sometimes dressed as a witch while answering e-mails and sometimes also excavating a dinosaur. So good at multi-tasking!

Had a run
Logged on to find link video I set whilst scheduling lessons last week doesn't work any more. Fixed that.

Briefing. Respond to tasks.

Email classes chasing work

Set rest of scheduled work whilst trying to help my two do theirs.

Book onto online cpd event on Friday.

Respond to eleventy billion messages on teams from Yr7 who can't use the tech.

Speak to colleagues via WhatsApp video about assessment

And it's only lunchtime!!!

Teaching live lessons to Yr 10 and Yr 12 via Teams. Had Yr 12 P1 so straight back into it and Yr 10 last lesson today. Also had a tutor period to catch up with my form. Between lessons I have been trying to home school/entertain/split up fights between by 5 and 8 year old.

Summer yet????

Monitoring the work set. Have emailed all classes to reiterate where the work is for this week and what is expected of them. Explained where/how they need to send it so that I can mark.

Now working on SoW planning for next year. Have done 4 hours work so far. Expect to do more.

(Just having lunchbreak currently).

Oops. My immediate thought was 'bugger all!'
But that's because I spent a while on the phone with my colleague on sunday sorting what we would be setting and then time getting it all prepared and scheduled for 2 classes. All over had to do today is check my email.
I'm making the most of the weather and am in my summer house reading.
I shall spend this evening sorting, responding and generating doable activities for my pupils.

@GuyFawkesDay

I totally feel your pain with Yr7 e-mail. Mine are still flailing a bit with the tech. Just have to take a deep breath and keep answering the same question and hope it sticks.

for all!

This morning was intense! Lots of hellos, lots of queries from children and parents alike.

Many more emails from staff than is usual.

It's settled down now.

I've learned how to record my phone screen, which is new to me

So far today I have:

-Uploaded/scheduled my SMHW for my classes this week.
-Wrote out my "to-do" list for the rest of the week.
-Planned work for Y12 for later on this week.
-Planned work for Y9 and 10 for next week.
-Answered lots of queries from Y8!
-Checked the work my Y8s have submitted and responded to each individually.
-Given feedback to my Y10s who have submitted work so far.
-Done my GPDR CPD.
-Read and fedback on the school's proposed method for grading Y11/13.
-Answered some emails from students/parents who have concerns about the grading process and reassured them that I won't just be rolling 9 sided dice to come up with the numbers.

I've just taken a break for lunch and to tidy my flat- I find this way of working a lot more mentally draining than being in the classroom!

Oh, I've also been practicing with PowerPoint Narration- but I'm not sure I'm brave enough to use it with a class yet!

Just sacked my TA as she was being abusive to her 1-1.

Will probably have to reinstate her tomorrow as I'm off site and need her to supervise years 3 and 9.

In school this morning with Key Worker Children.

Now home checking up on my 2 teenagers' work.

This pm, creating PSHE + P4C resources for next week for all year groups.

This eve, call with year group partner to discuss next week's Maths and 'Choose an activity' grid.

Also, lovingly tending and photographing 32 sunflower seedlings that we had just planted when school closed and about which we keep getting concerned emails...

I miss my class.

I'm also on 'holiday' as I spent the Easter hols organising & distributing free school meals in our area. I have, however, spent the morning catching up on emails, speaking to staff as a welfare check and organising access to phone numbers for pupils families so I can begin to call them later in the week to check in and see if they are needing any support.

This afternoon though - I'm sitting in the sunshine for an hour or two and reading a book on my kindle. Ok, ok, I admit it's a work related book (When the adults change... I highly recommend it!) but still I consider it down time.

We're on an "on call" rota as well as actually "on" rota, so up and ready this morning just in case it became my turn to go in again. We are expecting more of the vulnerable/EHCP children in this week, so that may come round quickly if they all turn up one day.

We are setting work weekly, and because our HT has asked for it all to go out via a limited number of specially created email addresses, it has to be in a few days in advance. The main downside of this is that I don't expect to see if any work is actually being done/is too challenging (SEN) till after the second lot has to be set. So I'm deep breathing on that one.

We have also all been asked to big chunks of online CPD. I love this on the whole, so have found myself doing many more than my 0.6 part time hours. No complaints from me though. I'm going to be a complete ninja when we return!

I live abroad, so it perhaps differs a little from schedules in the UK, but here we go.

6:30am - Alarm goes us so I can get up and get ready to watch key worker children. I actually teach secondary, but it's a massive school with a primary, middle school and secondary school all attached. I volunteered to come in several times over the holidays because the school is trying to relieve the primary school teachers who have been doing this on rota for 5 weeks.

8am to 12pm - Looking after key worker children.

12-2pm - Preparing online quizzes for all my classes and answering emails. Still not finished ...

2-4pm - Checking my DC school work to see what has or hasn't been done, then playing catch up on the bits they haven't managed. Tried to supervise DC music practise and break up a fight at the same time.

4pm and on going - Preparing a language entrance test for potential new students, which will happen next week. Emailing those parents to organise a time to video call these students and do the test. Also trying to ignore both DS who have been sent to their rooms after fighting and are both wailing and tantruming. DH unavailable as running errands for his elderly parents and his sister, who broke her leg tripping up her garden path one week into lock down.

I spent most of the day faffing about with CAGs and convoluted systems and wrangling the shitty broadband connection, making tea for three males who eat me out of house and home, and trying to soothe DH because he doesn't know what download or save mean...

And fielding various emails.

And a bit of MN debate.

And I finished a book.

Brilliant to hear from people!

I got less done than I intended- DD was absolutely not in the mood for anything other than crying and snacking today. 🤷🏻‍♀️

But managed to send out e-mails to all my classes, check all work uploaded, have my meeting, talk to the exam board and start to check my NEAs.

Not bad for today. More NEAs and questions from Yr 7 tomorrow I expect. Yr10 have gone to ground. Will see if I can get a response from them tomorrow.

I'm not paid for Mondays but we had inset today. Two Teams meetings including CAG and my work for this week was all uploaded at the weekend, so I've been converting next week's lessons for online teaching - it's taking longer than I'd hoped! Normally use IWB software so converting to PowerPoint and typing in what I'd normally hand write. I've bought an inking device which plugs into my laptop so I just be to become familiar with it and it should speed things up.

There is a particular parent who is making me miserable at the moment. I need to find some way not to stew on the situation.

Sympathies belle : my DH wasn't in the mood for much more than crying and snacking either...

@NotQuiteThere

That sucks. We’ve all been there with a particular parent. Is there any way you could shunt there e-mails upwards so you don’t have to read them? If they are persistent and vexatious then SLT need to be dealing with them.

Already shunted upwards, Belle , at parent's request! Have to remind myself to the many messages of thanks and support I've had from other parents.

I'm looking forward to hearing from my classes again tomorrow - I imagine our first Teams experiences will have lots of funny moments!

We used google meet for a staff meeting this afternoon- my cat decided to bring a live bird in so my colleagues had the joy of watching me trying to remove it from the house.

Well done today folks!

Well, my day actually started last night because my bandwidth is so shocking and I spent just over three hours uploading work for Years 7, 8, 9 and 10.

Today, I:
I emailed each of my Year 12 students individually with feedback for what they had done on their coursework so far and then uploaded a step by step guide for their next part.

I checked the supporting work for Years 11 and 13 and added a few more bits.

I reset 28 forgotten passwords

I emailed feedback to some students who had uploaded work they had done.

I responded to three Year 9 pupils by email who suddenly wanted to choose my subject for next year and copied in the ’timetabler’

I think I’ve nailed grades and ranking for Year 13s in my subject. Am ready for a ‘meeting’ with colleagues to discuss. Oh, GCSEs next! Heavens!

Had my DC by my side doing the new National Oak Academy lessons, whilst doing this.

Responded to a few MN threads

Handed over some PPE masks I had put together over the weekend to Head of school PTA, to deliver to NHS

Endured Peppa Pig/Bitz and Bob and other CBeebies horrors the rest of the time, ha ha!

Cheers everyone. You are a bunch of legends!

Primary school (Y6) and SLT here.

I've been in with our key worker and vulnerable children whilst also managing our online learning via Google Classroom. We've had lots of parents unsure about what to do today with it being the first day back on "normal" lessons so there's been a lot of supporting them in getting back into the routine of it all.

I managed to get some time this afternoon to call some of my class and their parents, which was lovely, and had many positive comments about what we are doing and how much it is helping their children.

This evening, I've been prepping the my next set of explanation videos to support the learning for the rest of the week and feeding back on Google Classroom on the creative writing challenges that have been submitted by my Y6s.

Teaching normal timetable via teams - live, planning lessons for remote learning, planning new courses to teach from next week, updating IT skills, meetings plus other whole school responsibility.n

In all day with our children who are in. Interesting trying to 'teach' children from nursery to year 4 in one group!