I don’t know if it’s just because it’s sinking in that this for the long haul, or because it’s the start of what is normally the best part of the year or what, but I’ve found today really hard.
I teach sixth form and so have a very Y12 heavy timetable and obviously they need to be kept up to date as much as possible. I’m not required to do live lessons thank goodness but it’s taking ages to get everything sorted on Teams because lessons where I might bung them a handout and then talk around it and give them a bit of writing to do now need to be proper PowerPoints with narration and structured activities. So although I have medium term plans and schemes of work it’s all needing way more work from me than usual. Plus every assignment I set needs some sort of written feedback, even stuff I’d usually tick and flick because it’s not really fair to just return work without a work to students who have tried hard to get things in. And this is taking AGES. It’s so much harder than writing comments by hand in spare moments which I usually do.
Then I teach practical BTEC work so I’ve had to rejig the year so they’re doing written work from other units as we’d reached a standstill on their original units. And I’m constantly worried about what we do when this work runs out. And about the 25% of the class who have done nothing since March 20th and who I’m constantly trying to chase up to no avail.
Plus my two primary aged DC have had an influx of work from their school which is great but it’s more to juggle. I don’t know, I’ve just felt very overwhelmed and tired today and I MISS WORK! Although I don’t want to go back until it’s safe either.