Lesson resources

[Snowflakewater]

I’ve been creating from scratch and sometimes using things I see on Tes if I can see a scheme. I’ve not found it easy. Does anyone have any advice for reducing planning time? I just feel like I’m Doing it all wrong at the moment!

Does your school have any guidance, plans, curriculum progression documents, etc. in place?

Yes we have a long term plan, but we do the lessons. As I’m not very experienced it can be hard to get my head round. I just want to make sure they’re good and I’m doing it justice

Unless your school is using a particular scheme for that subject, creating your own resources is fairly typical. Personally, it's how I prefer to work but it can be more difficult to start. Eventually, you'll find the sorts of things that work well for you as a teacher and for your class. The time needed with also decrease as you'll be more decisive when creating your resources.

In the meantime, do you have a year group or subject partner that you can work alongside whilst you build up for own confidence in your ability to do this?

Really? I’m so used to a pool of resources that we dip into! Then adapting from there. I suppose that makes things a bit rigid and all lessons look the same. I’m just not massively imaginative that’s why it takes me so long to plan. I’ve seen a few things on Tes but obviously sometimes the LO doesn’t match up properly.

Some schools do work like that, with a pool of resources and existing lessons that staff pull from and use, but it's not something I've personally experienced. It seems far more common way of working in secondary schools than primary.

If that has worked better for you in the past then it may be that you create something smaller for you personally now. Perhaps a bank of lesson "types/structures" that you feel happy with and can be adapted to fit a range of subject areas.

OP is secondary, @Iamnotthe1

I am indeed. Do you think it’s more or less common to have this in secondary?

More common, although am not sure.

What subject?

Ah, in that case, yeah. It's much more common in secondary. Most of the secondary teachers I know teach from a departmental scheme (either bought in or one they've created themselves at some point and then use).

In my sister's school, during lockdowns, two members of the department was assigned to a specific year group and each created half of the lessons for that year. They now use that as a scheme.

I have taught maths in a couple of schools and neither have had any resources which are shared in a department - it's all our own stuff. It's pretty time consuming but I think it's much harder to teach something well unless you have been through the process of planning it fully. Once you've been teaching for a while it gets much quicker!

For sure but I always feel I’m missing something or doing it wrong! I love the process of it and I enjoy creating lessons but always worry.

Have you asked your mentor for advice?

Join your subject’s Facebook groups and find your people on Twitter. There are a lot of very generous teachers out there who share their resources.
It might be worth looking at the Oak and Greenshaw Learning Trust resources as well.
What do you teach?

I haven’t been assigned one. Also yes I have asked and I’m told “they’ll be assigned soon”

Are you an ECT?

Not good enough. It's a part of your statutory entitlement.

Are you absolutely sure you're registered for year 2? I had to complete a return to the dfe for my new ECTs in July, including the details of the mentors

Well I’ve left it to the school to sort out. I have to be enrolled as I’m on the ECT programme there and I’ve been to the tutor meeting and Im doing the webinar for their choice of provider. Only issue Is it’s completely different to my first year provider.

Should I chase it up a bit more?

Also to add to this even though I’m supposedly enrolled with the new provider I’ve had no actual correspondence from them in reference to logging in or actually completing the final steps of training

You sound a bit passive, OP. You need to talk urgently to your ECF provider tomorrow.

Not passive at all, I raised it at the beginning of term and I’ve been really busy so I’m not sure what else I can say

I chased it up a few times and then my manager said they’d follow it up. I’ll pop by tomorrow and just mention it again as I do need to clarify what’s happening

Should I chase it up a bit more?

Yes. You should've had at least one proper meeting with your mentor by now. "Popping in" and "mentioning" things isn't the way forward. You need to know now.

You sounded passive because you said ‘I’ve left it to the school to sort out.’ I can only go on what you tell us here.

I mean this kindly OP but we’re nearly halfway through the half term. You don’t know who your ECT mentor is or even if you are registered with a provider when by now you should have had at least one, maybe two mentor meetings, and you’re posting on MN to ask for help with lesson planning. This isn’t how it should be and you have a statutory entitlement to proper support. You need to raise it urgently in school today (and not ‘popping’ by and ‘mentioning’ things), you need to ring the provider to check you’re on their records, and if necessary you should consider contacting your union.

Good luck.