It has been great this week to get stuck into some proper lessons.
In one week, I have discussed matters of life and death, human rights, criminal responsibility, abortion and IVF with different groups of students.
Despite all the hard work, I drove home last Monday evening genuinely happy about the day’s work. Absolutely exhausted, but happy.
I am a fairly animated teacher and sometimes I have to make the effort to act as if I am enjoying myself (especially on a Friday afternoon). However, this year so far I have had so many classes where I have been genuinely interested and excited by what my students have contributed to the lesson, that I have not felt the need to “act”.
Apart from a few missed lessons for CATs (cognitive ability tests) and language testing, my year 7 classes have powered through the scheme of work.
In my training year I only ever saw my classes once a week, so I had plenty of time to prepare and work out what we were going to do next. However, I now see my year 7 humanities classes six times a fortnight.
I don’t know how the core subject PGCE students did it last year! I feel that I can just about get on top of their next lessons now – but I know I would have really struggled last year.
The most difficult thing for me is the last-minute changes. All our photocopying has to be submitted 24 hours before the lesson and we are not allowed to photocopy anything ourselves. So when, on Friday afternoon, two of my year 7 classes needed an extra 15 minutes to complete their baseline tests, I had to change their lesson on Monday morning with less than 24 hours notice for reprographics – no worksheets for my class then!
It still feels like their next lesson comes around too quickly for me to get on top if it – especially when last-minute changes cause photocopying nightmares.
Speaking of baseline tests, I completely understand the rationale behind them and realise that it is incredibly important to know where your students are at so that you can plan for their lessons and their learning.
However, having six of my classes take baseline tests in the same week (with the expectation from on high that they would all be marked by the next lesson) has made me go a little crazy – 180 essays to mark in a week?! That seems a little excessive to me.
I know that other (more experienced) teachers are choosing not to stick to the timeframe given, but as an NQT I feel the pressure to live up to the expectations of the school.
This has meant getting to school by 7am every morning and leaving when I’m kicked out around 6pm – and I’m still not on top of the marking!
With the levels, the learning ladders, the EBIs (Even Better Ifs...) and the WWWs (What Went Wells...) and the learning questions, it takes so long to mark one paper, write all the feedback and log all the data.
At least the students here are used to receiving feedback and there is always a dedicated lesson for the students to respond in their books and make corrections. That makes all the hard work feel a little more worthwhile.
I am hoping that the marking workload will die down a little in the coming weeks and the early mornings and late nights can halt for a while. Despite all of that though, I am still enjoying this term so far!
- SecEd’s NQT diarist this year is a teacher of citizenship, RE and humanities at a school in the Midlands.