Seeking the opinion of teachers, soon to be teachers and ex-teachers

[Tuitiontod]

Hello all, first time poster here (though I've long known of the wisdom of mumsnet from my better half). I am looking to get the opinion of all of you in the world of education about something. I used to teach and found a huge stress in getting materials ready, prepared and customised for my students everyday as well as marking on top of meetings, reading etc.

If there were a website where you could:

• Select activities for the children to undertake in class.


• Select extracts and specific reading


• Select premade challenges for Maths and English


• Upload specific texts or challenges you want printed out and delivered
  


• Have these customised into your schools particular font and size
  


• Have these precut to your schools specific size
  


• Have these delivered to the school on the weekend so you could start your Monday with EVERYTHING you needed materials-wise
  

Does this sound like something that would make your teaching career easier?
I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback about this.

It sounds costly

No. Are you thinking of primary, because as a secondary maths teacher, printing a few worksheets is not a big part of my job.

And because I plan lessons the night before, there would be no time to get anything delivered anyway.

I don't want stuff delivered over a weekend - when would I decide what I wanted for Thursday for example? I decide that on a Wednesday after I've taught my lessons. Progress isn't linear, or sometimes even guessable.

I like a combo of Twinkl, Classroom Secrets, Hamilton Trust, Literacy Shed Plus, Vocabulary Ninja, White Rose etc. I don't need a one stop shop - the variety is the thing that makes it easy to find what I need.

No this is not required.

Well, most schools don't get deliveries at the weekends because they're closed. Would it all be left in a box outside for anyone to take?

Also, I get a budget for printing in school so I'm not likely to pay for my own printing to be done. And many schools have Maths schemes so no hunting for resources. Sometimes things change so I look for resources at lunchtime or for the next day. I can think of many reasons not to pay for a service like this.

No, this doesn’t sound like the sort of thing I would use. I can print things at school free. This sounds extremely expensive and you would have to be very forward thinking with your resources and planning. What if the delivery didn’t come in time or it was left
outside the school on a Saturday and went missing!? This would end up having to come out of my own pocket which I wouldn’t do.

No, sorry but this really isn’t something I would use. Apart from anything, it sounds expensive!

Not something I would be interested in, sorry!

I can't quite imagine being so organised that I could order everything for a week. If I could, and the school paid and it was all trimmed etc that would be amazing, but if seems so far off reality that I can't imagine it! I use 15+ tasks a day when you take into account differentiation, starters etc and only manage that by sorting day by day. Interesting that @noblegiraffe said in secondary she doesn't spend much time photocopying; in a mixed class primary I probably spend at least half an hour every day printing resources, putting success criteria onto labels, trimming stuff so it fits in books etc. It's ridiculous the amount of different things I print for each day.

I think the point above about stuff getting lost is a good one - what if your box didn't arrive? You'd be completely screwed. Also at some point surely children's work is going to go more digit so I can't help but think it would be setting up a business to sell something already on the way out.

I don't spend much time photocopying either. That's because we have a technician who does it. I regularly plan far enough ahead that the bulk of my copying is done well in advance - but I'm certainly not paying for it myself!

No. It’s not needed. Most secondaries have a reprographics department who would do that for us, and I don’t know a single teacher who could tell you at the end of one week exactly what they’d need for the next.

I probably spend at least half an hour every day printing resources

We have a photocopying budget per month (with no rollover) per teacher which means half an hour of printing would mean no printing for the rest of the month.

I project or write a lot of questions on the board, and sometimes use textbooks which massively reduces the need to photocopy.

Also in secondary we don’t have ridiculous learning objectives.

Primary photocopying budgets must be massive.

Fascinating! Sorry to hijack, I just find the differences between primary and secondary very interesting. I must print between 50 and 100 sheets daily (plus 3-5 stickered sheets of learning objectives) despite having a very small class and being quite economical in fitting several things to a page. Teachers in infants appear to print even more. Unfortunately even in Y4 only fairly high ability children are any good at copying from the board and I've never worked in a school with any more than one teacher copy of a maths textbook (and that's if you're lucky).

No. Lessons often need to be adapted to suit learners needs or address misconceptions. You can't plan for everything that far in advance.