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Ok so lets get started with an overview of what we’re up against - Achieving a work/life balance seems completely unachievable for many teachers as we drown under the mass of paperwork and accountability requirements that seem to foul up the education system at the moment. So we're going to continue to look at what they are and how we can deal with them in a more relaxed and sensible fashion in order to smooth our path in day to day teaching and also in our life at home.
As an initial observation - our lives must have some sort of balance in whatever we do. Without it we will find that whatever is dominating our time and attention will detrimentally affect all other aspects of our life and in turn this will boomerang back to affect this dominating factor also.
Without lapsing into the philosophical lets put it in context. If your teaching (and its influence) is affecting your home life detrimentally then this will in turn boomerang back to affect the quality of your teaching and your time in school
We all know how great we feel when we have been involved in some activity with the family or friends - something that's exciting, fun or adventurous or maybe just the happiness of family life. This gives our lives a fantastic lift and we feel rejuvenated and enthusiastic and this is shown in all we do. Of course we bring this back into the classroom with us and our teaching seems to sparkle more and everything seems more fun and enjoyable. Even those difficult children seem more mischievous than their usual pain in the backside!
We can reverse this and apply it to a great day in school where everything has gone well - its been fun and the class has succeeded in whatever you have taught. You will take this feeling back into your home life and feel bubbly and lifted.
But only if there is a balance between the 2 sides
Unfortunately teaching is a career that has the potential to swamp teachers with all its demands and requirements (Headteachers face an even bigger challenge to resist this!). What we need to do as teachers is to actively look at these demands and work out just what is important and what is accompanying and unnecessary rubbish that we can dispense with.
At this point I am going to have to disappoint our ECT colleagues by telling you that your workload for the first 2 years is going to be high. There is no way around this - however I have said high but not stupidly high. The reasons for this are simple - you have just started on a new career and you are on the steepest of learning curves. Everything you approach and implement is new and will take you longer to research, plan and prepare. You will have to adapt to new schemes and systems which initially will seem totally unfathomable and unnavigable.
But in going through this process you are building up your experience and knowledge and as you gain this you will find that the time taken to complete tasks will reduce. However this is the reason that I have said DON'T buy or borrow term plans, lesson plans or computer lessons - you need to personally go through the processes of research, planning and teaching to gain this foundation of knowledge and experience and its this foundation that will enable you to approach things more efficiently in the future.
Right lets look at specifics and the elements that start to drag things down in our teaching lives - we’ve looked at the first 2 on Marking and Feedback and in the coming articles we will continue down the list.
However in the case of planning which is causing a lot of concern for colleagues I will look at this as a separate unit in the next article.
Here's a list
MarkingFeedback on workPlanning
Assessments
General paperwork
Overall organisation and management of the school
Computerisation
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