GL Assessment’s survey of more than 800 school staff, found that “marking and data collation continues to be a major source of concern and stress for teachers in England”. Bearing that in mind, Beyond shares our workload reduction toolkit for teachers! Continue reading Workload Reduction Toolkit: 5 Ways to Reduce Marking Workload For Teachers
Know a stressed teacher or two? It’s no surprise when you consider the recent revelations on teacher working hours and their never-changing work-life balance… Continue reading Work-Life Balance: Is a 50-Hour Week the New Normal?
Meetings are important. Or so we’re told. They keep a department up-to-date on important developments. Brief a whole school on wide-reaching changes. And sometimes… just bore us to tears. “Why don’t we have food?” One of the reasons you might … Continue reading 5 Things on a Teacher’s Mind during a Meeting
Going out, having fun, enjoying life! All the things that stop when you start teaching… Continue reading 5 Things That Stop When You Start Teaching
April Fools’ Day is a day of wariness on all fronts. You can’t believe anything you read, hear or see and those excuses your students offer for no homework or being late are dealt with even greater scrutiny. That being … Continue reading 4 April Fools’ Day Pranks Teachers Can Play
You don’t want to compromise the school rules by being caught shovelling food down your hatch whilst rushing through the corridors, but you’re also absolutely starving. How do you put hunger off enough to get you through a busy day … Continue reading 5 Snacking Secrets for Teachers
In the words of the bard, we are time’s subjects. If there’s one thing to be said of time, it’s that time definitely works differently for teachers. Sometimes, time slows down… With half term but a few days away, you might have noticed a strange phenomenon. Time is, in fact, slowing down. Each hour-long lesson actually takes somewhere in the region of 3 or 4 hours and that commute that you could’ve sworn takes 34 minutes takes approximately 2 hours on the way in and on the way home. You might notice that this particular pattern of time dilation occurs when … Continue reading Time Is Relative in Teaching
I read an article recently about a school that had stopped teachers from marking altogether. Instead, every two weeks, the teachers had a one to one with pupils to discuss their work… Can you imagine how liberating that would feel? Unfortunately, most of us aren’t lucky enough to work in a school like that and marking becomes one of the most difficult things to manage as a result. Until your school stops marking entirely, here are some of the things I find helpful to make it manageable: Strategic speaking and listening units: I always look at my year as a whole … Continue reading Making Marking Manageable
Stress. Pressure. Strain. It doesn’t matter what synonym you use for it, the outcome is the same. Sometimes the never-ending to-do list can make you feel overwhelmed and under-resourced. What do you need to tell yourself to cope with the demand of your role and make sure that your life isn’t all work and no fun? Accept your limits This is an important one. The fact is that you aren’t going to get everything done in the day. You can productive and efficient yet sometimes, there just aren’t enough hours in the day. This doesn’t mean that you should stay … Continue reading Turn ‘Stress’ into ‘Rest!
I trained at a school where each teacher planned and resourced their own lessons. Every teacher was teaching the same topic, yet each individually planned a scheme of work and delivered a range of lessons. And they were so territorial about their lessons. Worksheets were not shared. Lesson plans were not emailed around with a cheery ‘Hope this helps!’ Every man for themselves. When I was employed at my first school, the department shared everything. Lessons, worksheets, ideas and links were shared by email, in department meetings and over cups of tea in the staff room. It was a breath … Continue reading Why Departmental Sharing is so Important
