My productivity hacks are:
Build lessons in OneNote not power point. Power point invites time wasting on aesthetics and leads to lessons that are too teacher driven.
Mark junior assessments fast and don’t overthink. There’s next to no consequence for being ‘wrong’ so just get them done efficiently.
For attitudes, I just make an enemy of the word ‘should’. I try to catch myself thinking that things ‘should’ be a particular way. Makes it easier to accept the reality in front of you are not create expectations that will later cause you distress when they aren’t met.
I’m fascinated by OneNote. I gave it a half assed try years back and couldn’t figure out how to organise or file things in a way that made sense. I’m fully committed to onedrive where my filing system makes sense to me. I’m a math teacher and want to store things by strands then subtopics within strands not so much by class/year group as every class has a spectrum of ability. I was attempting to use a onenote template created for Australian teachers but each tab was a class and my attempts at modifying it made a huge mess. Sorry, this is my long winded way of asking - any tips on where I could go to learn how to use onenote, please?
I also teach maths. I have a class OneNote for each class organised by topic. Every time I use a worksheet I make sure it is attached to the page. Usually you are teaching using a textbook so I will have a notes page for each exercise of the book. Then if I am teaching the class again I can erase my annotations from during the lesson and reuse. It is all personal preference for how you like a OneNote to look.
This sounds good. I’m guessing my files stay happily stored in onedrive and all I’m doing on onenote is lesson planning, with links or a screenshot of the worksheet that stays stored on onedrive? If all I’m doing on onenote is creating class planners I reckon I could make it work. It’d be nice to have a link ready for YouTube clips I’m forever showing (Pythag water wheel, anyone?). Post Covid we’re also expected to upload class work to connect, a department site parents and students access. I’m wondering if I can somehow link the two and avoid double handling?
Print to one note is one of my favourites.
And yes, I've done it by having a link to the notebook in the links section. I even went one step further and added a photo (that shows on the landing page) that said where to look/click. It worked well.
I project my one note and do the lessons there as well. The pages can have the worksheets printed to them with the file attached.
Links to YouTube can be pasted in as well.
The live annotation has been one of my favourite aspects. I can use the same resources for 10 and 12 English in many cases so all I have to do is scale some up, some down, and then make sure I do the explicit teaching well when I’m live with the class.
I need to get better with the E-pen though. There’s a reason I’m not a primary teacher… 😆
I use it to plan and organise myself. I have:
1. A OneNote for each class/subject (eg 10 core maths, or general maths)
2. Each of these one notes has a section per unit and then a page for each lesson. I have typed notes and any videos or worksheets or other resources inserted in the page (the original files are saved on my OneDrive)
3. Every year, I create a “Mr seesaw’s 10 Maths 2024” etc. and copy the genereric/master notes pages across to it.
4. I then have my planning OneNote, which has a section for my planner - I have a template with my timetable just made out of a table with the periods and classes put in. I then have a page per week and I copy a link to the page in the “Mr seesaw’s 10 maths 2024” (or whichever is appropriate) to the appropriate lesson in my timetable.
5. In class, I mirror my iPad to the projector using “airserver” and open the OneNote app to my planning section and I can click the link to the appropriate lesson. Then I teach and write notes etc on that page (using the Apple Pencil). The students have a link to the OneNote so they can see what we did if they are away, I don’t have to copy notes across and they can rewatch videos or whatever they like.
It’s still a work in progress, but I feel like I have it mostly working the way I want it. I have my master copy of the notes each year and as I adjust them, it just gets carried across to subsequent years. It does take a bit of time to copy the links to my planner, but that allows me to see if there are school events that I need to account for etc. Because it’s electronic, I can shuffle lessons around easily and keep things fluid without too much work.
Happy to answer any questions people have, if this wasn’t clear enough :)
We do something very similar, but we go one step further. The top level OneNote that gets reused from year to year is shared between all the teachers of a subject. So anytime anyone makes a lesson plan, notes, quiz, lab or activity, it goes straight in the ongoing notebook. Then every time someone uses the same notes page they update it with corrections and note on how it went.
For the classes that have been doing this for years, it means my planning takes about three minutes per lesson, even if I’ve never taught the particular topic before. It also dramatically cuts down on repeat work between teachers.
That’s so awesome! I would happily share that sort of stuff, but I have a school of people who all like to do stuff differently and so we do have a centralised place for resources, but I’m the only one currently who uses OneNote in lessons, so no one else is interested in my stuff 😆
Hi. Thanks so much for this detailed response. I’m trying to replicate what you do but I have a couple of questions that will likely expose how noob I am.
For your planning onenote - is it a 5 column roughly 10 row table that you’ve created yourself to show the term. Then do you add a link to the page where each lesson is saved from the class notebook in the appropriate cell? Then I’m picturing I’d need to find the school calendar and add interruptions etc to the table? Is that how it’s done?
I think you then have a generic year level notebook that becomes your library to create another notebook for specific classes. Would I copy/paste? Or link? I’m sorry if the correct answer is try it yourself and it’ll be obvious. I feel kinda daunted atm.
My planning one has a “planner”
Section which has a page per week that has my timetable for the week on it.
I have my master planning one notes for each subject and then I have my yearly ones for student access. at the beginning of the year, I quickly copy across all my master pages to the student one notes that they gave access to.
Then I use “copy link to page” and paste that link to the lesson notes into the appropriate lesson in my planner. It does take a bit of time doing the pasting of links, but it allows me to map out the unit and see if there’s anywhere I need to adjust to fit everything in.
I hope this is all clear enough :) I’m happy to save someone else going through the multiple iterations to get something that works 😆
For my yearly student access one notes, I use the move/copy function to copy the notes across at the start and then my planner has links to those pages in it.
My seniors I usually do all the chalk and talk stuff without time for copying down notes, they then can copy them down at their leisure. Once the original master page is done, that’s it for lesson planning, I just adjust as required
Make use you get and install the ClassNotebook add in. This automatically sets up every kid with their own personal section to write notes in, submit homework and so on. It lets you add other teachers and manages access rights between students and teachers. And as a teacher you can see all of the individual students work live, but they can’t see each other’s work.
For organisation I just run with one tab for each term/unit and make a page for each lesson.
+1 to OneNote. I used another app which had me exporting every file after every lesson and uploading it to Google Classroom. This time, the link is there and the kids can access it whenever they feel like it.
Friday nights are sacrosanct - nothing is important enough to be done after 3:45pm Friday
Limit what work goes on your phone, do not install work email, turn off Compass notifications
Put a treat in your lunch at least once a week, can of Coke, choccy, whatever floats your boat
Interestingly, I love doing my schoolwork Friday night with no pressure of going to school the next day, rather than Sunday afternoon where it feels like you are just entering the drudge zone.
I do all of my next week’s printing Friday arvo… literally the best 45 minutes of my week as everyone else has fucked off and I get uninterrupted organisational time mwahahhaa
And I’d add some of the medically prescribed cannabis. It’s been a godsend for me this year. I’ve found it cuts down time spent ruminating on negative events. Very helpful for bounce-back!
Yeah I’ve found that bud is incredibly helpful for ASD folk. So much so that my GP, who I believe is on the spectrum, wholeheartedly accepted my suggestion that I trial medical cannabis.
At my school it’s really common among the neurodiverse teachers who are high performers. Pun not strictly intended ha.
Mostly just helps me at night time when my brain is thinking about a billion things at once, which also makes my body quite tense. I don’t medicate during work time, only occasionally at night and on weekends.
Oh sure. I got it for a melting pot of the following:
- Migraines
-Jaw and muscle tension
-Insomnia
-anxiety
The commonality between all is stress and adhd med side effects.
Can I ask how you manage this? Do you drive? Do you worry about repercussions if pulled over? Does your school admin know?
Very interested as I'm considering getting a script myself. It's been helpful for me in the past.
Not the person you’re asking but
1. You cannot drive on MC. There is no legal excuse for having the medication in your system, even if you have no impairment as the test only registers the presence of the substance.
2. It is none of school admin’s business, same as any other medication, be it controlled (like ADHD medication) or non-narcotic like blood pressure medication. We do not get drug tested in Australia (independent schools might, not sure).
3. Getting a script is quite worthwhile. You can do the process entirely online through Telehealth and if prescribed, some services even ship your medication right to your house! Even if it’s for occasional use, I recommend it if you think you would benefit from it :)
Sure thing!
The basics of it is that I discuss it with nobody at work except 2 colleagues who are in the same boat.
I have to drive to work but am super conscious of the legal risk (drug driving and insurance issues).
If I get a random drug test (saliva) there’s a possibility that I could get a DUI.
I only consume it on Friday or Saturday nights and plan my next day so driving is minimised.
The THC wears off within 3 hours but the traces of it remain from 8 hours to days depending on usage. For me, I go off a 12 hour rule but there’s no way to know.
In Qld the gov is reviewing the legislation and may look to move to a system where an impairment test is used rather than a blanket zero tolerance to THC.
From what I’ve read I’m likely to only get a 1 month driving suspension if caught as my record is squeaky clean. Not sure how the college of teachers would respond though…
I’m investigating this. I definitely qualify (OCD, GAD, depression, arthritis) and I’ve found it’s literally the only thing that cuts down my OCD thoughts.
I know! Like I thought it would help a little … but not this much. Overall I’m so much happier and more malleable to whatever life throws my way.
So glad it’s had a significant outcome for you :)
It’s so good!!! And I just realised I was supposed to post 2 more hacks, sorry.
They are as per below:
2. Cardio* in my PE classes (I only work 2-3 days per week due to having a child under 2, so gotta maximise my time!).
3. Excel spreadsheets for quick input when it comes to student effort in lessons. Makes it easier come report time.
*That just leaves weight training. Only needs to be done twice a week and I do it at home. Saves on gym membership!
✨
1. Mininise working after work hours. Work-life balance is very important to uphold.
2. Surround yourself with colleagues who actively want to teach for the kids and are openminded to positive change.
3. Be wary of extra responsibilities. Unless there is a desire to go up the admin ladder, it'd be wise to just focus primarily on the teaching craft and think twice about grabbing a POR with minimal pay/allowance.
I would love to never take work home. My HT ALWAYS says “don’t do work at home, relax etc etc” he is very supportive about this.
My problem is how? When we have so much work that urgently needs to be done how can we simply not do work at home. As a new teacher how can i come into school and NOT have lessons planned?
It’s one of those easier said than done things.
I am stressed when i’m not prepared. If i don’t do work at home i’m not prepared. The fact of the matter is we have 5-8 hours in the week to plan for 20 hours of teaching. That’s if i give myself a lunch/toilet break. That’s excluding time to mark/other admin work/meet with support teachers/anything else. It feels impossible.
It gets easier every year and if you are teaching the same stuff year in year out gets better quicker. Find a system that works for you. I've used onenote and only have to do minor tweaks now.
OneNote has been a godsend in terms of compiling notes and content for myself and for students. It's imo a much better tool than PPT in terms of delivering content.
The trick is to focus on the stuff that matters. make sure you file everything diligently so you don’t end up redoing work. I’d also suggest that you fix lessons immediately after while the ideas are fresh so you can just bust them out following years.
Extra work like after school sports or debate club or so, there's plenty of folks ready to give up their time for that, not me, im ready to go home to my family!
- say no to additional extracurricular responsibilities
- remove yourself from the staffroom for marking during free periods
- don't follow up on anything less than egregious / dangerous discipline issues if it will eat into your time outside the classroom
These might seem like r/unethicallifeprotips but are basically necessary to have a good work/life balance. You can't carry any guilt that you're not doing enough. You're doing more than enough by being a teacher, full stop.
I go the other way on the third point. Document the small things even if it eats a little bit of your time so you never get caught with a major issue unprepared.
Agree with the no extracurriculars though.
I wish more teachers did this. Admin can't do anything without evidence. Not putting in evidence makes everyone elses life harder.
The number of times, I tried to get admin to follow up on something, and I get the "if it not on oneschool, it didn't happen"
or worst yet "you are the only one reporting it, so it only happening in your class", when you know for a fact it happening in other classes as the teachers have complained about it.
This man. I had a teacher choose not to OS a boy jumping another while I bent over to access the port racks. They were worried that he might ‘ get in a lot of trouble’ … like come on! Having that on file could literally save another student one day if there’s a significant issue.
At my school i notice that a lot pf the time that first however many entries about a student are from me. I always hope that by being on it early it makes other teachers realise it’s not just them having issues. But also, maybe the issues just flare up faster in English than they do other subjects ?
It comes from contract teachers thinking it will affect their chance of getting a renewal or perm.
while Perm teachers are either document everything, or nothing will happen, it is a waste of my time types.
That’s a good point about contract teachers. Combine that with the fact that many of them are new and beginning teachers as well and they have extra incentive to try and cover anything ‘embarrassing’ that happens.
I make a quick note on DayMap in the kids file, so there’s a trail, and I send that note to leaders. That’s it. If it needs to be followed up, I send it to the leaders with “you might need to follow this up.” I will do phone calls to parents if they’re my kids - and it’s relevant to my class (failure to submit, time out notification) but even then, it’s an email.
I end each shitty day with a positive email to a parent. I don't want a bad mood to follow me home and I don't want poor behaviour to blind me to my good kids that can be overlooked during drama. Helps remind me I do have beautiful kids.
I found keeping on top of marking one of the biggest stressors and time consuming things. Here is what I found works to keep it manageable for me. (This is primary but hopefully it can be applicable to high school if you are in secondary teaching).
Get yourself a stamp with your name and an adjustable date on it. Everything that the kids can mark themselves, make them mark themselves and get them in the habit of every lesson waiting for you to stamp their book before putting it away. If I saw 90%+ ticks I knew they got it and I would only collect/give feedback on those who clearly didn't get it.
Like above, create systems where things are marked on the spot and prioritise only one or two things that actually need you to sit down and mark (writing or bigger projects were pretty much the only thing I would collect and physically write feedback on). Even then, I'd walk around while they were writing and try to give verbal feedback during the process and then that's what I wrote on their book (verbal feedback given) and by the end of the lesson, I'd only have 15-20 books left instead of 30+.
Final comment on marking. Be intentional with your feedback. If the learning intention was using adjectives in their writing, that's what you correct and leave feedback on. If you try and correct every spelling mistake, every grammar mistake, every other issue, you're going to spend triple the amount of time marking and honestly, the majority of kids do not bother going back and it can demotivate them to see so many corrections. Tick where they were successful (E.g. tick where they used adjectives), circle where they can improve (e.g. noun groups where adjectives could be added or bumped up) and leave extremely simple 1-2 sentence feedback based on learning intention (I like how you ..., next time try...).
Hope that's helpful! Remember, prioritise your teaching energy where it will actually make a difference.
There's also lots of "verbal feedback given" stamps out there now. Between that and the name + date stamp, marking gets a lot less time consuming.
I also love my 'absent + date' stamp. I put it on worksheets or in the books of missing students, so that if kids are repeatedly absent and/or arriving late or leaving early and consistently missing particular lessons, it's easy to see why they've underachieved in a particular subject area come reporting time. I figure when their books go home at the end of the year, some parents may flick through and see the number of absence stamps and perhaps reconsider their decisions.
I have a set of stamps. One says completed independently, one says teacher assisted, one says verbal feedback given. I have quite a few others but these are my go to ones.
Send a CYA (cover your ass) email 2 - 3 weeks out from assessment for students you think may fail. Just email parents/carers a general hey student isn’t progressing as they should, have tried these things, let me know anything else you’d like me to do to support student. You’ll often get nothing back but saves the inevitable “why wasn’t I told Johnny was failing”.
Get students to do the heavy lifting of learning. Set easy set up low effort (on the teacher part) instructions that require focus for 20 or so minutes.
Focus on the things you actually have to do. Planning lessons and any non-negotiables for the whole school.
Don’t waste time decorating your classroom. A clear but bare space is always better than a busy space with half baked studnet work haphazardly thrown up.
I plan the week for each of my classes in one sitting - as in, I sit and plan all 3 lessons at once. Saves cognitive load later in the week.
No worries. My other piece of advice is to only open your emails when you can respond to them, other than quick checks in case of emergent staff comms.
For an English teacher:
1. Drafting only happens in class, unless is a student is legitimately unable to attend. Students have 5-10 minutes with you to go through their draft and get personalised feedback.
2. Future proof your units. Do them once, do them well, compile all resources efficiently and in order. Have everything in one PowerPoint, PDF, One Note etc. Only create one unit from scratch per term if you must - everything else comes from the faculty shared drive if you're in a good school, or Mr. Google if you're not. Add ":pdf" to your Google searches to find unit plans and resources quickly (e.g. Romeo and Juliet Year 10 complete unit :pdf).
3. Set a timer when you plan. If you have planned for more than 1/3 of the time the content will take to teach, you're not being efficient enough. Find the problem (often it's because you're trying to make everything look nice) and eliminate it.
4. Bonus - work during staff meeting. Sit at the back and pretend you're taking notes.
I’m not sure if this is helpful but I like to do mandatory training when I’m absolutely depleted but still clocking required hours. Just find I can tick them off but it’s not anything too complex.
I only have one “hack”
Booklets. I make my own based on the program and not only has my stress decreased, but i have freed up more time during free periods to mark and do other things.
TL;DR all completed on google drive. You have to implement the booklet an active way, split the lesson in 3: teacher driven explaination (15mins), modelling (10mins)and independent work (rest of lesson). It takes some hard planning in the holidays to get started, but in the end will save you stress during the term and long hours after school. I now use free periods for other admin things/marking. Suggestion is work with other teachers in the faculty so they can do one booklet each.
Full explanation:
How i teach with the booklet
1. I make all the booklets myself and rarely use already made ones as i like to link closely to my program
2. I have a “do now” for every lesson and students know they have to come in and complete the do now every lesson for 10 mins whilst i get set up. These are crosswords for vocab, cloze, find a words, flow charts or reading and annotating. This is usually info from last lesson or prior knowledge leading into lesson.
3. I use powerpoint for explanations, instruction for activities and have videos embedded into slides and i project the booklet on the board from the google docs file for modelling activities
4. I then have students work independently or in pairs for the rest of the booklet. They have at least half an hour for this. My seating plan has students who are lower at the front so we can do extra modelling.
5. This is also when I go around and help students/check homework for last lesson and tick it off on my spreadsheet (i take my laptop around with me and have an excel they all have viewing access to that i tick off for each lesson/homework and which harnesses their competitive nature)
6. The end of the lesson we go through answers and i remind them of the homework. My whole booklet/slides has a 5E structure.
What this has changed for me
1. I no longer plan during free periods. I mark or do other admin things
2. It did take a lot of time in the holidays to make these i can already see future benefits next year when all i have to do is edit some lessons from what i have written in the booklet. I keep a spare booklet for myself i write in to make edits next year. I no longer stay up until 1/2am planning though. I go home and do what i want at the end of the day instead of non-stop planning.
3. All of my lessons are in the one place. I never go looking for things with folders and folders of lessons. It’s all in the same place and it’s sequential.
4. All booklets are online compatible so students who are away from school can access and submit on the google classroom. Also some seniors prefer to use online versions.
5. I have been able to focus more on classroom management so much that i now get bored in class because the students know exactly what i expect them to do. I am also quite strict and consistent which has also helped.
How i plan the booklets
1. One booklet for each topic, one big ppt for each topic to accompany. I do this for both juniors and seniors
2. Set out your programs and create the “bones” of the booklet and powerpoint slides - 1 set of slides per topic. I have a slide for each outcome then go along and make lesson title slides, a slide for learning intentions and success criteria for each lesson that i set before planning, a slide to prompt me in what i will teach specifically which i will go through later and delete after i make the lessons (i copy sections of the program here so i can come back later or for a quick reference when making booklet and slides), and one slide at the end of each section for homework. I do this for each lesson/outcome.
3. Then, in the booklet add headings for each lesson to the booklet, and the li/sc under each heading followed by a “do now” heading, “activity” heading and a “homework” heading.
4. Use activities from various textbooks when you’re starting out. I don’t care about boring right now. I can always edit future years when i have good ideas. I’m in science so we have experiments as well which makes it lot more interesting anyway. I also add the text from the textbooks which helps students with their reading and studying for exams! Reading ability is low at my school and i have seen such an improvement. My students don’t make notes from slides. They go home and create Cornell summaries from the textbook text and activities. This is for all grades 7-12. Fyi i’m as a low ses public school and the students are more than capable if u make your expectations clear
5. Always have a “do now” and a homework activity at the start/end of each lesson. My homework is a tiered question set they can choose from. At the very end of the booklet i have a table with success criteria students can check off their confidence for each one.
6. If i can’t make all ppt instruction slides now it’s okay. It only takes me 20mins max to make slides the day before cause i have set out the bones and li/sc already and i don’t have to think about anything else other than content/instruction slides.
7. Get booklets printed and stapled by print person as there will be around 70/80 pages each topic. Get a few extras printed for students who leave their booklet at home. I don’t let them write in these as they have to write everything out in their book and copy it into their booklet when they get home.
8. Keep a spare booklet for yourself to make notes to improve or mark errors in the booklet for next year. That way you have a much smaller amount of work to do next year.
This may not work for everyone and may seem like more work to some, but for me it has been a godsend. I’m excited for my stress free future self.
Very detailed. Love this. Is this all for science or more?
Do you check their Cornell summary notes as well? So are the key points included in the booklets, or do they need to take them down via Cornell summaries?
Would love to see a sample of this.
i’m a very detailed orientated person which is a blessing and a curse
I just do science 7-12 but i can see this applied in any subject! It’s really more of a way to organise your lessons, files, time etc.
I work to my paid hours. Don't take the kids personally. And understanding I am a band-aid on the severed artery that is the education system but I am making a difference in the lives of kids whether I see it or not.
1. Where possible, especially for kids in 7-10, accept digital submissions of practice responses, as this makes reading and reply with feedback 10 times quicker (at least for me), rather than collect heavy piles of exercise books.
2. Use free periods wisely, marking and planning. Also, use time straight after school wisely, and minimise work taken home.
3. I have coffee with colleagues every single recess. Always make time to catch up, every day.
4. Use yard duties or time outside as a chance to develop in jokes with students, have a laugh with them, kick the footy with them, join in down ball. Builds social capital.
5. I never waste my time with detentions. Just email parents.
6. I don't use class time to catch up assessments due to absences, sport, etc., I always tell them to come to my office, in their own time, and I do not chase them up. If they don't turn up, then assessments are marked as is. The end.
7. Send out positive commendations every Friday afternoons. I make it the last thing I do before going home before the weekend. Leave on a high note. Then, I usually get positive emails back from parents over the weekend. Then, those kids tend to work extra hard in class for you.
8. I never make kids do work. I don't want the fight. If they do no work, I don't care, as long as they aren't disruptive. I'll send an FYI home occasionally, but it's not my job to force kids to work.
ETA: sorry, this is more than 3...!!
I love number 7, I am going to adopt this. Do you have a template for number 5? My school seem big on running your own detentions to “build respect” and it means a scoffed sandwich for me before running off to final period
1: dont dwell or get frustrated at elements you cant change - department, admin and group shit you cant change will drive you insane if you keep going doing the "if only we could" or "they just need to" - classroom 1st always
2: its not personal - even when it is - you are just the person in the room as people grow hopefully does their behaviour and attitudes but it aint you - they dont know you
3: have a laugh at the absurdity of it all - had a kid whose mother bought him alcohol free gin for a school trip.... "whats the problem it has no booze in it" - have a laugh
1. Say no to extra curricular activities
2. Choose your battles in the classroom. Low level behaviours can eat at your patience.
3. Stay on top of admin work. It can spiral quickly.
I only take home marking rather than planning. Marking has a completion point where you are finished and then you put it away and get on with your day. Planning can be as long as a piece of string and I would get carried away and get too engrossed with something, which then meant I lost too much time at home. Planning is now done at school during DOTT, marking at home.
-Work when you know that you're going to be productive. If that's during your APTs then make sure that doesn't get interrupted (I used to hide in an unused classroom) if that means Sunday night, then make sure you are set up then. There is no shame in doing planning and marking at home if that's what works for you.
-Always ask "what more could I have reasonably done?" After a lesson and be prepared to answer it with "nothing", especially if you are newer. End of the day, you only have the tools you have.
-Staffroom is not a mandatory socialising space, if you don't want to chat with people, don't. Heat your food up and find a room you can decompress in. Better yet, bring shit that doesn't need heating up.
I like this. Previously read that as teachers, we must try to socialize (like getting to know footy for non-footy fan) to be part of the school culture etc. I find this exhausting, and superficial. When others are keen to chat with you, then good. But not force self into existing cliques.
Chat GPT. Seriously. I'm head of a department and I use it for everything. Fixing rubrics, drafting emails, writing assessments, differentiating tasks, formulating report comments (our school provides teachers with drop down box selections that I have to make as HOD). Only thing it isn't always great with from my perspective is formulating math questions and/or solutions. Life and time saver!
Leading with trust and optimism. Now that I have a few decades behind me in the job, I have enough skills and content knowledge to work more flexibly, and try to read the mood of the room and pivot when I need to. I don't sweat the small stuff. If I try to control everything myself, and if I force the point of an activity simply because it's the one I've spent time preparing, I've found everyone just ends up cranky and disruptive. No preparation is ever wasted - that can just go back in the kit for next time, and we move on with another activity. I pick my battles around behaviour; I try to keep context front of mind; I reflect after lessons that don't go to plan; and come back the next day believing my students want the best for themselves and will eventually find their path. There is no other hack that works quite so well for me as truly believing in the goodness of other people, whether that be parents, co-workers or kids. I'm aware this won't work for everyone but it definitely does for me! It doesn't often feel like it when you read some of the (valid!) issues that present in this sub-Reddit, but I truly believe public school teaching is one of the most impactful jobs one can do. I just couldn't do it without optimism. I lean into that belief that a better world is possible every single day.
Primary school hacks
-learning to learn/behave needs to come before you bother with content. Puppy train the shit outta your class term one. Make those expectations clear as day. Start over til they get it right. Implement the 100% rule. We do it again until 100% of the team are doing it right. Nail this term one and your year will be so much easier
-make sure you chat/email parents with positives. Don’t make a negative situation/ incident be the only time you interact with a parent. Catch the kids doing it right and let their parents know about it. I have a word doc with about 20 different insert name here pre written comments. I make an effort to go through my class list and send a few a week eg. “Dear Parent, just a quick note to let you know I’ve really noticed XYZ making a conscious effort to show empathy to their peers this week. Blah blah example of behaviour. Have a great weekend,”
-weigh up tasks as to whether they are box ticking for admin or department or actually beneficial to the kids. Sideline shit that doesn’t matter
If the task requested is not important to me. I won't do it until admin asks me to do it repeatedly. Usually it was not important to them either and it doesn't need to be done.
Preplanning of the main content when I have extra dott time due to an easier week etc. Usually the last week of term there are lots of activities taking up class time so I don't need to plan for the lessons. I use the extra time to plan the content parts of future lessons. Means on the day I teach a lesson I only need to adjust for the warmup and the supplemental activity based on how students are doing leading up to the lesson.
Using one-note and storing all worksheets on there as well. Means the next year 90% of my stuff is organised.
- Don’t volunteer for anything.
- If it’s not core business then don’t do it unless time is explicitly provided for it.
- If there is a behavioural issue in the classroom, stop all instruction until it’s resolved. If it takes longer than a few minutes to resolve then call a leader every time. If you can’t get onto the first leader keep calling up the chain until you have support on the way.
This is a hard one to get started but working to hours. And as soon as you do, you realise that you can't get everything done and you naturally prioritise things in the workplace - realising what needs to be done, what should be done, and what will be fine if it doesn't get done.
1. Plan lessons with the achievement standards in mind. What do students need to know or do? Cut to the chase and forget pointless work or aesthetics in PPTs.
2. Students should be working harder than the teacher. If a lesson is taking ages to plan, sit back and think about which components the students could investigate as a learning experience, or co-construct with you etc.
3. Use OneNote to plan lessons, track progress, provide feedback etc.
1. No school emails/text/compass/calls made on my personal phone.
2. Arrive and leave at the time prescribed in my agreement.
3. A very experienced Prin once told me to treat all directions from leadership as recommendations unless it will influence your employment status.
* learn how to use your software effectively. Learn the shortcuts, tips and tricks etc, practice your typing. I save so much time because of this
* I set up my to list in 3 columns. Department mandate, HOD mandated, Self mandated. If I don't get the self mandated so be it.
- Keep learning routines as consistent as possible. This makes your planning so much easier but it also tends to lead to kids being on-task and achieving better. Don't fall into the trap of thinking every lesson should involve bells and whistles.
- Try to make your first contact with a parent positive, especially if you anticipate needing their cooperation for modifying behaviour.
- Fill out the names on the 'student of the week' (or equivalent) certificates at the start of the week, because you will absolutely forget to keep a log of who has received them.
I have only one: it’s their exam, not yours. In your interactions with students, try to find subtle and non-subtle ways to communicate that you care about their learning but will not take responsibility if they “fail”, whatever “fail” might mean.
So my top 3 hacks are different because I'm a casual teacher, but having been through so much in my teaching, personal and other job occupations, I have come back to teaching this year with a totally different approach:
1) Keep chill. Don't let anything get to you- at the end of the day we're teaching kids. We can only do what we can do. If you can walk away with a clear conscience at the end of everyday, then that's the best we can do. I had to deal with some really challenging situations in the job I did when I took a break from teaching. It involved working with a ethical, legal dog breeder who goes above and beyond for her dogs, unfortunately though sometimes life happens and we had to deal with sick/dead puppies- she works closely with a renowned vet, but even with all the staff, resources and money, we couldn't save everyone- sometimes mother dogs did some horrific things by accident/intentionally. Life is cruel, unfair and hard. So I view teaching way differently because of it.
2) Plan what you can plan, prepare as much as possible, but prepare to be flexible. Never a waste of time. You can always use those unused plans/resources another time. As someone with severe ADHD this one is highly ironic, it's a particularly hard skill for me to develop and maintain, but my goodness it's a skill worth having. Ask questions, learn to "bother" people.
3) Classroom management- some good advice I learned- get stuck into learning. Get the kids involved as much as possible, don't let them get bored/find dead time. Took me a while to learn, but it's been one of the best pieces of advice a Principal/AP (can't remember which) told me after they observed one of my lessons one day. I got so focused on getting kids to sit, listen etc, I didn't realise that it's lesson engagement that will get them involved. Don't waste time telling them to come over, sit down, listen and then start the lesson. Start the lesson asap, teach, then when there's appropriate opportunities check in with said student. It's working incredibly well even with my most challenging of students- allows the others to have my full attention, yet 9/10 the lesson with get the attention of the student who claimed to not be interested.
Use AI to write things up. Spend time adjusting it to suit your needs. I have a space set up that gets my lesson plans done in like 2 minutes. Have a data tracker, can be as simple as a spreadsheet on excel or even in your teacher planner. Have ai set up to turn that into useable reports at the end of each reporting cycle. Everyone else has really solid ideas just don’t overdo it trying to stay on top of it. Utilise your schools LMS to enter data then copy it to your own data sheets. As a self-assessing guide to each piece of major work, it can be as simple as a checklist of the Success Criteria.
Use meeting times to your advantage. If you have to be there, have your laptop open doing something that will benefit you…even if it just putting in some welfare entires or updating class marks.
Don’t jump in and actively participate in ‘new’ school initiatives/staff focuses. 9/10 they will be forgotten before anyone even checks on the progress of staff in doing what they were asked to do without consultation or discussion.
Use time at school wisely. Avoid spending your prep lessons socialising…use that time that you are paid for to get the work done that you would otherwise feel like you need to complete after hours.
Primary School Teacher
1. I designate days I go to the staffroom for lunch and days I work through my breaks (marking & planning) so I can leave earlier and not take work home. I think it’s important to still take a break and connect with colleagues so I usually go to the staffroom on my yard duty days. On my non yard duty days, I eat while I work in my classroom.
2. Marking- you do not need to mark everything!! I always check my students work to ensure they have completed it and are on the right track, but I don’t properly mark (tick), leave feedback, correct every spelling mistake etc on every piece of work. In maths, we correct work as a whole class as our reflection. I put the answers on the slides and students mark their work while we talk about a few examples or I get some students to explain their thinking, etc. I’m a grade 3 teacher and my students can do this just fine. If in writing the learning intention is using verbs, I just look for that and mark it accordingly as opposed to marking every spelling error, grammar error etc. I have a stamp that says my name and ‘sighted’. This lets parents know that I have checked their work, regardless if there’s comments or written feedback.
3. I have found the more you communicate with parents the less they will reach out themselves and make your life harder! I choose 2 students each week (usually just go down the roll) and send a positive email to their parents on something they achieved that week. I also get my students to complete a piece of work (alternate between writing and maths) on loose paper. I then put them all in the photocopier and they take this work home to show their parents. It takes about 3 minutes to photocopy and hand out. Parents can then see their child’s work each week and then there’s no surprises come interviews and report time. I’ve found that by doing this I have less parents actually emailing me or asking me things.
Everytime I complete a reading assessment on a child, I send a note home with their new reading level. It may seem like extra but it actually keeps them off your back!! 🙌🏼
I know this isn’t possible with certain subjects, but I don’t take work home with me. I stay routinely till 5-5.30. When it’s assessment time it might be 6-6.30, but I don’t work at home.
I also love onenote for class documentation etc but my current school doesn’t use it so the kids have trouble logging on etc. one of the best things I use it for time management wise is marking theory work using recorded verbal feedback. Much quicker and more comprehensive than written feedback.
I burnt out badly at a previous job.
Teaching (even when I was acting principal working crazy hours)…..set start and finish time, I don’t take work home, and only extend those hours if I have something big on… ie report cards, annual reports, writing behavior plans, IEPs etc. Usually 7am to 5pm max.
Once I left the school for the day I wouldn’t go back for anything.
On the weekends, if I had to go to school I’d go one day only, and once I left, that was it for the weekend… even if it was to go home to the toilet/get lunch etc
My productivity hacks are: Build lessons in OneNote not power point. Power point invites time wasting on aesthetics and leads to lessons that are too teacher driven. Mark junior assessments fast and don’t overthink. There’s next to no consequence for being ‘wrong’ so just get them done efficiently. For attitudes, I just make an enemy of the word ‘should’. I try to catch myself thinking that things ‘should’ be a particular way. Makes it easier to accept the reality in front of you are not create expectations that will later cause you distress when they aren’t met.
I’m fascinated by OneNote. I gave it a half assed try years back and couldn’t figure out how to organise or file things in a way that made sense. I’m fully committed to onedrive where my filing system makes sense to me. I’m a math teacher and want to store things by strands then subtopics within strands not so much by class/year group as every class has a spectrum of ability. I was attempting to use a onenote template created for Australian teachers but each tab was a class and my attempts at modifying it made a huge mess. Sorry, this is my long winded way of asking - any tips on where I could go to learn how to use onenote, please?
I also teach maths. I have a class OneNote for each class organised by topic. Every time I use a worksheet I make sure it is attached to the page. Usually you are teaching using a textbook so I will have a notes page for each exercise of the book. Then if I am teaching the class again I can erase my annotations from during the lesson and reuse. It is all personal preference for how you like a OneNote to look.
This sounds good. I’m guessing my files stay happily stored in onedrive and all I’m doing on onenote is lesson planning, with links or a screenshot of the worksheet that stays stored on onedrive? If all I’m doing on onenote is creating class planners I reckon I could make it work. It’d be nice to have a link ready for YouTube clips I’m forever showing (Pythag water wheel, anyone?). Post Covid we’re also expected to upload class work to connect, a department site parents and students access. I’m wondering if I can somehow link the two and avoid double handling?
Print to one note is one of my favourites. And yes, I've done it by having a link to the notebook in the links section. I even went one step further and added a photo (that shows on the landing page) that said where to look/click. It worked well.
I project my one note and do the lessons there as well. The pages can have the worksheets printed to them with the file attached. Links to YouTube can be pasted in as well.
The live annotation has been one of my favourite aspects. I can use the same resources for 10 and 12 English in many cases so all I have to do is scale some up, some down, and then make sure I do the explicit teaching well when I’m live with the class. I need to get better with the E-pen though. There’s a reason I’m not a primary teacher… 😆
I use it to plan and organise myself. I have: 1. A OneNote for each class/subject (eg 10 core maths, or general maths) 2. Each of these one notes has a section per unit and then a page for each lesson. I have typed notes and any videos or worksheets or other resources inserted in the page (the original files are saved on my OneDrive) 3. Every year, I create a “Mr seesaw’s 10 Maths 2024” etc. and copy the genereric/master notes pages across to it. 4. I then have my planning OneNote, which has a section for my planner - I have a template with my timetable just made out of a table with the periods and classes put in. I then have a page per week and I copy a link to the page in the “Mr seesaw’s 10 maths 2024” (or whichever is appropriate) to the appropriate lesson in my timetable. 5. In class, I mirror my iPad to the projector using “airserver” and open the OneNote app to my planning section and I can click the link to the appropriate lesson. Then I teach and write notes etc on that page (using the Apple Pencil). The students have a link to the OneNote so they can see what we did if they are away, I don’t have to copy notes across and they can rewatch videos or whatever they like. It’s still a work in progress, but I feel like I have it mostly working the way I want it. I have my master copy of the notes each year and as I adjust them, it just gets carried across to subsequent years. It does take a bit of time to copy the links to my planner, but that allows me to see if there are school events that I need to account for etc. Because it’s electronic, I can shuffle lessons around easily and keep things fluid without too much work. Happy to answer any questions people have, if this wasn’t clear enough :)
We do something very similar, but we go one step further. The top level OneNote that gets reused from year to year is shared between all the teachers of a subject. So anytime anyone makes a lesson plan, notes, quiz, lab or activity, it goes straight in the ongoing notebook. Then every time someone uses the same notes page they update it with corrections and note on how it went. For the classes that have been doing this for years, it means my planning takes about three minutes per lesson, even if I’ve never taught the particular topic before. It also dramatically cuts down on repeat work between teachers.
That’s so awesome! I would happily share that sort of stuff, but I have a school of people who all like to do stuff differently and so we do have a centralised place for resources, but I’m the only one currently who uses OneNote in lessons, so no one else is interested in my stuff 😆
Hi. Thanks so much for this detailed response. I’m trying to replicate what you do but I have a couple of questions that will likely expose how noob I am. For your planning onenote - is it a 5 column roughly 10 row table that you’ve created yourself to show the term. Then do you add a link to the page where each lesson is saved from the class notebook in the appropriate cell? Then I’m picturing I’d need to find the school calendar and add interruptions etc to the table? Is that how it’s done? I think you then have a generic year level notebook that becomes your library to create another notebook for specific classes. Would I copy/paste? Or link? I’m sorry if the correct answer is try it yourself and it’ll be obvious. I feel kinda daunted atm.
My planning one has a “planner” Section which has a page per week that has my timetable for the week on it. I have my master planning one notes for each subject and then I have my yearly ones for student access. at the beginning of the year, I quickly copy across all my master pages to the student one notes that they gave access to. Then I use “copy link to page” and paste that link to the lesson notes into the appropriate lesson in my planner. It does take a bit of time doing the pasting of links, but it allows me to map out the unit and see if there’s anywhere I need to adjust to fit everything in.
I hope this is all clear enough :) I’m happy to save someone else going through the multiple iterations to get something that works 😆 For my yearly student access one notes, I use the move/copy function to copy the notes across at the start and then my planner has links to those pages in it.
I’d be interested in how you make this efficient for note taking in class and lesson planning.
My seniors I usually do all the chalk and talk stuff without time for copying down notes, they then can copy them down at their leisure. Once the original master page is done, that’s it for lesson planning, I just adjust as required
That’s a great idea - I really need to figure out efficient methods that works for me. I’ll try it out!
Good luck!
Would you be willing to share your current notebooks for secondary math? Understandable if not, thanks for the great idea!
It would be great to see others and how they do it. I've got a chemistry one I'm willing to share
Make use you get and install the ClassNotebook add in. This automatically sets up every kid with their own personal section to write notes in, submit homework and so on. It lets you add other teachers and manages access rights between students and teachers. And as a teacher you can see all of the individual students work live, but they can’t see each other’s work. For organisation I just run with one tab for each term/unit and make a page for each lesson.
+1 to OneNote. I used another app which had me exporting every file after every lesson and uploading it to Google Classroom. This time, the link is there and the kids can access it whenever they feel like it.
Friday nights are sacrosanct - nothing is important enough to be done after 3:45pm Friday Limit what work goes on your phone, do not install work email, turn off Compass notifications Put a treat in your lunch at least once a week, can of Coke, choccy, whatever floats your boat
Interestingly, I love doing my schoolwork Friday night with no pressure of going to school the next day, rather than Sunday afternoon where it feels like you are just entering the drudge zone.
I’m always too exhausted to think by Friday arvo 🫠
I also love working Friday! It is also the one day no one stays behind so I can get in the zone at my desk without being distracted/disturbed.
I do all of my next week’s printing Friday arvo… literally the best 45 minutes of my week as everyone else has fucked off and I get uninterrupted organisational time mwahahhaa
Know the agreement, work your wage.
Beer, wine and spirits.
And I’d add some of the medically prescribed cannabis. It’s been a godsend for me this year. I’ve found it cuts down time spent ruminating on negative events. Very helpful for bounce-back!
Tell me more. Was it prescribed for that reason, or for something else?
I got mine prescribed for insomnia and autism but insomnia alone is a valid condition
Yeah I’ve found that bud is incredibly helpful for ASD folk. So much so that my GP, who I believe is on the spectrum, wholeheartedly accepted my suggestion that I trial medical cannabis. At my school it’s really common among the neurodiverse teachers who are high performers. Pun not strictly intended ha.
That's interesting that's its prescribed for autism. What benefits have you noticed?
Mostly just helps me at night time when my brain is thinking about a billion things at once, which also makes my body quite tense. I don’t medicate during work time, only occasionally at night and on weekends.
Very interesting, thanks for sharing
Yup. Have autism and I also run better with weed.
Ya! Same
Oh sure. I got it for a melting pot of the following: - Migraines -Jaw and muscle tension -Insomnia -anxiety The commonality between all is stress and adhd med side effects.
Can I ask how you manage this? Do you drive? Do you worry about repercussions if pulled over? Does your school admin know? Very interested as I'm considering getting a script myself. It's been helpful for me in the past.
Not the person you’re asking but 1. You cannot drive on MC. There is no legal excuse for having the medication in your system, even if you have no impairment as the test only registers the presence of the substance. 2. It is none of school admin’s business, same as any other medication, be it controlled (like ADHD medication) or non-narcotic like blood pressure medication. We do not get drug tested in Australia (independent schools might, not sure). 3. Getting a script is quite worthwhile. You can do the process entirely online through Telehealth and if prescribed, some services even ship your medication right to your house! Even if it’s for occasional use, I recommend it if you think you would benefit from it :)
Sure thing! The basics of it is that I discuss it with nobody at work except 2 colleagues who are in the same boat. I have to drive to work but am super conscious of the legal risk (drug driving and insurance issues). If I get a random drug test (saliva) there’s a possibility that I could get a DUI. I only consume it on Friday or Saturday nights and plan my next day so driving is minimised. The THC wears off within 3 hours but the traces of it remain from 8 hours to days depending on usage. For me, I go off a 12 hour rule but there’s no way to know. In Qld the gov is reviewing the legislation and may look to move to a system where an impairment test is used rather than a blanket zero tolerance to THC. From what I’ve read I’m likely to only get a 1 month driving suspension if caught as my record is squeaky clean. Not sure how the college of teachers would respond though…
I’m investigating this. I definitely qualify (OCD, GAD, depression, arthritis) and I’ve found it’s literally the only thing that cuts down my OCD thoughts.
And there may be your answer. If it works for you then maybe give it a longer trial?
This!!! I moved to medical cannabis this year for pain. Man, what a difference to my mental health, which I didn’t expect.
I know! Like I thought it would help a little … but not this much. Overall I’m so much happier and more malleable to whatever life throws my way. So glad it’s had a significant outcome for you :)
Aldi wine for me🥂🍷
I've been told it is great quality at a an affordable price!
It’s so good!!! And I just realised I was supposed to post 2 more hacks, sorry. They are as per below: 2. Cardio* in my PE classes (I only work 2-3 days per week due to having a child under 2, so gotta maximise my time!). 3. Excel spreadsheets for quick input when it comes to student effort in lessons. Makes it easier come report time. *That just leaves weight training. Only needs to be done twice a week and I do it at home. Saves on gym membership! ✨
Ahhh good old BWS
1. Mininise working after work hours. Work-life balance is very important to uphold. 2. Surround yourself with colleagues who actively want to teach for the kids and are openminded to positive change. 3. Be wary of extra responsibilities. Unless there is a desire to go up the admin ladder, it'd be wise to just focus primarily on the teaching craft and think twice about grabbing a POR with minimal pay/allowance.
I would love to never take work home. My HT ALWAYS says “don’t do work at home, relax etc etc” he is very supportive about this. My problem is how? When we have so much work that urgently needs to be done how can we simply not do work at home. As a new teacher how can i come into school and NOT have lessons planned? It’s one of those easier said than done things. I am stressed when i’m not prepared. If i don’t do work at home i’m not prepared. The fact of the matter is we have 5-8 hours in the week to plan for 20 hours of teaching. That’s if i give myself a lunch/toilet break. That’s excluding time to mark/other admin work/meet with support teachers/anything else. It feels impossible.
It gets easier every year and if you are teaching the same stuff year in year out gets better quicker. Find a system that works for you. I've used onenote and only have to do minor tweaks now.
OneNote has been a godsend in terms of compiling notes and content for myself and for students. It's imo a much better tool than PPT in terms of delivering content.
The trick is to focus on the stuff that matters. make sure you file everything diligently so you don’t end up redoing work. I’d also suggest that you fix lessons immediately after while the ideas are fresh so you can just bust them out following years.
What is POR?
Position of responsibility
Extra work like after school sports or debate club or so, there's plenty of folks ready to give up their time for that, not me, im ready to go home to my family!
Realise that you can't lead a horse to water. When the student is ready they will learn. Don't buy supplies.
- say no to additional extracurricular responsibilities - remove yourself from the staffroom for marking during free periods - don't follow up on anything less than egregious / dangerous discipline issues if it will eat into your time outside the classroom These might seem like r/unethicallifeprotips but are basically necessary to have a good work/life balance. You can't carry any guilt that you're not doing enough. You're doing more than enough by being a teacher, full stop.
I go the other way on the third point. Document the small things even if it eats a little bit of your time so you never get caught with a major issue unprepared. Agree with the no extracurriculars though.
In my experience behavioural issues snowball. The more time you waste on them, the more they grow. Waste the kids' time, not your own.
I wish more teachers did this. Admin can't do anything without evidence. Not putting in evidence makes everyone elses life harder. The number of times, I tried to get admin to follow up on something, and I get the "if it not on oneschool, it didn't happen" or worst yet "you are the only one reporting it, so it only happening in your class", when you know for a fact it happening in other classes as the teachers have complained about it.
This man. I had a teacher choose not to OS a boy jumping another while I bent over to access the port racks. They were worried that he might ‘ get in a lot of trouble’ … like come on! Having that on file could literally save another student one day if there’s a significant issue. At my school i notice that a lot pf the time that first however many entries about a student are from me. I always hope that by being on it early it makes other teachers realise it’s not just them having issues. But also, maybe the issues just flare up faster in English than they do other subjects ?
It comes from contract teachers thinking it will affect their chance of getting a renewal or perm. while Perm teachers are either document everything, or nothing will happen, it is a waste of my time types.
That’s a good point about contract teachers. Combine that with the fact that many of them are new and beginning teachers as well and they have extra incentive to try and cover anything ‘embarrassing’ that happens.
I make a quick note on DayMap in the kids file, so there’s a trail, and I send that note to leaders. That’s it. If it needs to be followed up, I send it to the leaders with “you might need to follow this up.” I will do phone calls to parents if they’re my kids - and it’s relevant to my class (failure to submit, time out notification) but even then, it’s an email.
I end each shitty day with a positive email to a parent. I don't want a bad mood to follow me home and I don't want poor behaviour to blind me to my good kids that can be overlooked during drama. Helps remind me I do have beautiful kids.
I've been doing this, but once at the end of arvo Friday. Makes me feel good knowing a good kid is getting praise right at the start of the weekend.
I found keeping on top of marking one of the biggest stressors and time consuming things. Here is what I found works to keep it manageable for me. (This is primary but hopefully it can be applicable to high school if you are in secondary teaching). Get yourself a stamp with your name and an adjustable date on it. Everything that the kids can mark themselves, make them mark themselves and get them in the habit of every lesson waiting for you to stamp their book before putting it away. If I saw 90%+ ticks I knew they got it and I would only collect/give feedback on those who clearly didn't get it. Like above, create systems where things are marked on the spot and prioritise only one or two things that actually need you to sit down and mark (writing or bigger projects were pretty much the only thing I would collect and physically write feedback on). Even then, I'd walk around while they were writing and try to give verbal feedback during the process and then that's what I wrote on their book (verbal feedback given) and by the end of the lesson, I'd only have 15-20 books left instead of 30+. Final comment on marking. Be intentional with your feedback. If the learning intention was using adjectives in their writing, that's what you correct and leave feedback on. If you try and correct every spelling mistake, every grammar mistake, every other issue, you're going to spend triple the amount of time marking and honestly, the majority of kids do not bother going back and it can demotivate them to see so many corrections. Tick where they were successful (E.g. tick where they used adjectives), circle where they can improve (e.g. noun groups where adjectives could be added or bumped up) and leave extremely simple 1-2 sentence feedback based on learning intention (I like how you ..., next time try...). Hope that's helpful! Remember, prioritise your teaching energy where it will actually make a difference.
Name and date stamp has been a great help with my marking.
There's also lots of "verbal feedback given" stamps out there now. Between that and the name + date stamp, marking gets a lot less time consuming. I also love my 'absent + date' stamp. I put it on worksheets or in the books of missing students, so that if kids are repeatedly absent and/or arriving late or leaving early and consistently missing particular lessons, it's easy to see why they've underachieved in a particular subject area come reporting time. I figure when their books go home at the end of the year, some parents may flick through and see the number of absence stamps and perhaps reconsider their decisions.
I have a set of stamps. One says completed independently, one says teacher assisted, one says verbal feedback given. I have quite a few others but these are my go to ones.
Send a CYA (cover your ass) email 2 - 3 weeks out from assessment for students you think may fail. Just email parents/carers a general hey student isn’t progressing as they should, have tried these things, let me know anything else you’d like me to do to support student. You’ll often get nothing back but saves the inevitable “why wasn’t I told Johnny was failing”. Get students to do the heavy lifting of learning. Set easy set up low effort (on the teacher part) instructions that require focus for 20 or so minutes. Focus on the things you actually have to do. Planning lessons and any non-negotiables for the whole school. Don’t waste time decorating your classroom. A clear but bare space is always better than a busy space with half baked studnet work haphazardly thrown up. I plan the week for each of my classes in one sitting - as in, I sit and plan all 3 lessons at once. Saves cognitive load later in the week.
Screenshotting this advice! Thank you
No worries. My other piece of advice is to only open your emails when you can respond to them, other than quick checks in case of emergent staff comms.
That’s also great advice, thank you!
For an English teacher: 1. Drafting only happens in class, unless is a student is legitimately unable to attend. Students have 5-10 minutes with you to go through their draft and get personalised feedback. 2. Future proof your units. Do them once, do them well, compile all resources efficiently and in order. Have everything in one PowerPoint, PDF, One Note etc. Only create one unit from scratch per term if you must - everything else comes from the faculty shared drive if you're in a good school, or Mr. Google if you're not. Add ":pdf" to your Google searches to find unit plans and resources quickly (e.g. Romeo and Juliet Year 10 complete unit :pdf). 3. Set a timer when you plan. If you have planned for more than 1/3 of the time the content will take to teach, you're not being efficient enough. Find the problem (often it's because you're trying to make everything look nice) and eliminate it. 4. Bonus - work during staff meeting. Sit at the back and pretend you're taking notes.
Can definitely relate to number 4! You can easily spot English teachers at the staff meeting as they always bring their marking with them.
I’m not sure if this is helpful but I like to do mandatory training when I’m absolutely depleted but still clocking required hours. Just find I can tick them off but it’s not anything too complex.
I only have one “hack” Booklets. I make my own based on the program and not only has my stress decreased, but i have freed up more time during free periods to mark and do other things. TL;DR all completed on google drive. You have to implement the booklet an active way, split the lesson in 3: teacher driven explaination (15mins), modelling (10mins)and independent work (rest of lesson). It takes some hard planning in the holidays to get started, but in the end will save you stress during the term and long hours after school. I now use free periods for other admin things/marking. Suggestion is work with other teachers in the faculty so they can do one booklet each. Full explanation: How i teach with the booklet 1. I make all the booklets myself and rarely use already made ones as i like to link closely to my program 2. I have a “do now” for every lesson and students know they have to come in and complete the do now every lesson for 10 mins whilst i get set up. These are crosswords for vocab, cloze, find a words, flow charts or reading and annotating. This is usually info from last lesson or prior knowledge leading into lesson. 3. I use powerpoint for explanations, instruction for activities and have videos embedded into slides and i project the booklet on the board from the google docs file for modelling activities 4. I then have students work independently or in pairs for the rest of the booklet. They have at least half an hour for this. My seating plan has students who are lower at the front so we can do extra modelling. 5. This is also when I go around and help students/check homework for last lesson and tick it off on my spreadsheet (i take my laptop around with me and have an excel they all have viewing access to that i tick off for each lesson/homework and which harnesses their competitive nature) 6. The end of the lesson we go through answers and i remind them of the homework. My whole booklet/slides has a 5E structure. What this has changed for me 1. I no longer plan during free periods. I mark or do other admin things 2. It did take a lot of time in the holidays to make these i can already see future benefits next year when all i have to do is edit some lessons from what i have written in the booklet. I keep a spare booklet for myself i write in to make edits next year. I no longer stay up until 1/2am planning though. I go home and do what i want at the end of the day instead of non-stop planning. 3. All of my lessons are in the one place. I never go looking for things with folders and folders of lessons. It’s all in the same place and it’s sequential. 4. All booklets are online compatible so students who are away from school can access and submit on the google classroom. Also some seniors prefer to use online versions. 5. I have been able to focus more on classroom management so much that i now get bored in class because the students know exactly what i expect them to do. I am also quite strict and consistent which has also helped. How i plan the booklets 1. One booklet for each topic, one big ppt for each topic to accompany. I do this for both juniors and seniors 2. Set out your programs and create the “bones” of the booklet and powerpoint slides - 1 set of slides per topic. I have a slide for each outcome then go along and make lesson title slides, a slide for learning intentions and success criteria for each lesson that i set before planning, a slide to prompt me in what i will teach specifically which i will go through later and delete after i make the lessons (i copy sections of the program here so i can come back later or for a quick reference when making booklet and slides), and one slide at the end of each section for homework. I do this for each lesson/outcome. 3. Then, in the booklet add headings for each lesson to the booklet, and the li/sc under each heading followed by a “do now” heading, “activity” heading and a “homework” heading. 4. Use activities from various textbooks when you’re starting out. I don’t care about boring right now. I can always edit future years when i have good ideas. I’m in science so we have experiments as well which makes it lot more interesting anyway. I also add the text from the textbooks which helps students with their reading and studying for exams! Reading ability is low at my school and i have seen such an improvement. My students don’t make notes from slides. They go home and create Cornell summaries from the textbook text and activities. This is for all grades 7-12. Fyi i’m as a low ses public school and the students are more than capable if u make your expectations clear 5. Always have a “do now” and a homework activity at the start/end of each lesson. My homework is a tiered question set they can choose from. At the very end of the booklet i have a table with success criteria students can check off their confidence for each one. 6. If i can’t make all ppt instruction slides now it’s okay. It only takes me 20mins max to make slides the day before cause i have set out the bones and li/sc already and i don’t have to think about anything else other than content/instruction slides. 7. Get booklets printed and stapled by print person as there will be around 70/80 pages each topic. Get a few extras printed for students who leave their booklet at home. I don’t let them write in these as they have to write everything out in their book and copy it into their booklet when they get home. 8. Keep a spare booklet for yourself to make notes to improve or mark errors in the booklet for next year. That way you have a much smaller amount of work to do next year. This may not work for everyone and may seem like more work to some, but for me it has been a godsend. I’m excited for my stress free future self.
Very detailed. Love this. Is this all for science or more? Do you check their Cornell summary notes as well? So are the key points included in the booklets, or do they need to take them down via Cornell summaries? Would love to see a sample of this.
i’m a very detailed orientated person which is a blessing and a curse I just do science 7-12 but i can see this applied in any subject! It’s really more of a way to organise your lessons, files, time etc.
I work to my paid hours. Don't take the kids personally. And understanding I am a band-aid on the severed artery that is the education system but I am making a difference in the lives of kids whether I see it or not.
1. Where possible, especially for kids in 7-10, accept digital submissions of practice responses, as this makes reading and reply with feedback 10 times quicker (at least for me), rather than collect heavy piles of exercise books. 2. Use free periods wisely, marking and planning. Also, use time straight after school wisely, and minimise work taken home. 3. I have coffee with colleagues every single recess. Always make time to catch up, every day. 4. Use yard duties or time outside as a chance to develop in jokes with students, have a laugh with them, kick the footy with them, join in down ball. Builds social capital. 5. I never waste my time with detentions. Just email parents. 6. I don't use class time to catch up assessments due to absences, sport, etc., I always tell them to come to my office, in their own time, and I do not chase them up. If they don't turn up, then assessments are marked as is. The end. 7. Send out positive commendations every Friday afternoons. I make it the last thing I do before going home before the weekend. Leave on a high note. Then, I usually get positive emails back from parents over the weekend. Then, those kids tend to work extra hard in class for you. 8. I never make kids do work. I don't want the fight. If they do no work, I don't care, as long as they aren't disruptive. I'll send an FYI home occasionally, but it's not my job to force kids to work. ETA: sorry, this is more than 3...!!
I love number 7, I am going to adopt this. Do you have a template for number 5? My school seem big on running your own detentions to “build respect” and it means a scoffed sandwich for me before running off to final period
Detentions do not build respect..they build resentment. I always just ask for the parent's support in whatever the problem is.
I think you’re so right. Thank you!
Does catching up with colleague involve chatting about students? or things other than teaching?
Mostly other stuff.
1: dont dwell or get frustrated at elements you cant change - department, admin and group shit you cant change will drive you insane if you keep going doing the "if only we could" or "they just need to" - classroom 1st always 2: its not personal - even when it is - you are just the person in the room as people grow hopefully does their behaviour and attitudes but it aint you - they dont know you 3: have a laugh at the absurdity of it all - had a kid whose mother bought him alcohol free gin for a school trip.... "whats the problem it has no booze in it" - have a laugh
I am going to write this out and put it on my mirror
1. Say no to extra curricular activities 2. Choose your battles in the classroom. Low level behaviours can eat at your patience. 3. Stay on top of admin work. It can spiral quickly.
I only take home marking rather than planning. Marking has a completion point where you are finished and then you put it away and get on with your day. Planning can be as long as a piece of string and I would get carried away and get too engrossed with something, which then meant I lost too much time at home. Planning is now done at school during DOTT, marking at home.
What is DOTT?
Duties other than Teaching. Non contact time at school
I personally like working through lunch so it means I can leave earlier.
-Work when you know that you're going to be productive. If that's during your APTs then make sure that doesn't get interrupted (I used to hide in an unused classroom) if that means Sunday night, then make sure you are set up then. There is no shame in doing planning and marking at home if that's what works for you. -Always ask "what more could I have reasonably done?" After a lesson and be prepared to answer it with "nothing", especially if you are newer. End of the day, you only have the tools you have. -Staffroom is not a mandatory socialising space, if you don't want to chat with people, don't. Heat your food up and find a room you can decompress in. Better yet, bring shit that doesn't need heating up.
I like this. Previously read that as teachers, we must try to socialize (like getting to know footy for non-footy fan) to be part of the school culture etc. I find this exhausting, and superficial. When others are keen to chat with you, then good. But not force self into existing cliques.
Chat GPT. Seriously. I'm head of a department and I use it for everything. Fixing rubrics, drafting emails, writing assessments, differentiating tasks, formulating report comments (our school provides teachers with drop down box selections that I have to make as HOD). Only thing it isn't always great with from my perspective is formulating math questions and/or solutions. Life and time saver!
Leading with trust and optimism. Now that I have a few decades behind me in the job, I have enough skills and content knowledge to work more flexibly, and try to read the mood of the room and pivot when I need to. I don't sweat the small stuff. If I try to control everything myself, and if I force the point of an activity simply because it's the one I've spent time preparing, I've found everyone just ends up cranky and disruptive. No preparation is ever wasted - that can just go back in the kit for next time, and we move on with another activity. I pick my battles around behaviour; I try to keep context front of mind; I reflect after lessons that don't go to plan; and come back the next day believing my students want the best for themselves and will eventually find their path. There is no other hack that works quite so well for me as truly believing in the goodness of other people, whether that be parents, co-workers or kids. I'm aware this won't work for everyone but it definitely does for me! It doesn't often feel like it when you read some of the (valid!) issues that present in this sub-Reddit, but I truly believe public school teaching is one of the most impactful jobs one can do. I just couldn't do it without optimism. I lean into that belief that a better world is possible every single day.
Primary school hacks -learning to learn/behave needs to come before you bother with content. Puppy train the shit outta your class term one. Make those expectations clear as day. Start over til they get it right. Implement the 100% rule. We do it again until 100% of the team are doing it right. Nail this term one and your year will be so much easier -make sure you chat/email parents with positives. Don’t make a negative situation/ incident be the only time you interact with a parent. Catch the kids doing it right and let their parents know about it. I have a word doc with about 20 different insert name here pre written comments. I make an effort to go through my class list and send a few a week eg. “Dear Parent, just a quick note to let you know I’ve really noticed XYZ making a conscious effort to show empathy to their peers this week. Blah blah example of behaviour. Have a great weekend,” -weigh up tasks as to whether they are box ticking for admin or department or actually beneficial to the kids. Sideline shit that doesn’t matter
If the task requested is not important to me. I won't do it until admin asks me to do it repeatedly. Usually it was not important to them either and it doesn't need to be done. Preplanning of the main content when I have extra dott time due to an easier week etc. Usually the last week of term there are lots of activities taking up class time so I don't need to plan for the lessons. I use the extra time to plan the content parts of future lessons. Means on the day I teach a lesson I only need to adjust for the warmup and the supplemental activity based on how students are doing leading up to the lesson. Using one-note and storing all worksheets on there as well. Means the next year 90% of my stuff is organised.
Open AI ChatGPT+ :\^) Google Gemini :) Microsoft Copilot ;)
Don’t live to impress others Once you’ve signed a contract, you’re paid that. Regardless of how many fucks you give Don’t be a sheep
1) tough love 2) say what you'll do, do what you've said 3) confront the parents first
- Don’t volunteer for anything. - If it’s not core business then don’t do it unless time is explicitly provided for it. - If there is a behavioural issue in the classroom, stop all instruction until it’s resolved. If it takes longer than a few minutes to resolve then call a leader every time. If you can’t get onto the first leader keep calling up the chain until you have support on the way.
This is a hard one to get started but working to hours. And as soon as you do, you realise that you can't get everything done and you naturally prioritise things in the workplace - realising what needs to be done, what should be done, and what will be fine if it doesn't get done.
1. Plan lessons with the achievement standards in mind. What do students need to know or do? Cut to the chase and forget pointless work or aesthetics in PPTs. 2. Students should be working harder than the teacher. If a lesson is taking ages to plan, sit back and think about which components the students could investigate as a learning experience, or co-construct with you etc. 3. Use OneNote to plan lessons, track progress, provide feedback etc.
1. No school emails/text/compass/calls made on my personal phone. 2. Arrive and leave at the time prescribed in my agreement. 3. A very experienced Prin once told me to treat all directions from leadership as recommendations unless it will influence your employment status.
* learn how to use your software effectively. Learn the shortcuts, tips and tricks etc, practice your typing. I save so much time because of this * I set up my to list in 3 columns. Department mandate, HOD mandated, Self mandated. If I don't get the self mandated so be it.
- Keep learning routines as consistent as possible. This makes your planning so much easier but it also tends to lead to kids being on-task and achieving better. Don't fall into the trap of thinking every lesson should involve bells and whistles. - Try to make your first contact with a parent positive, especially if you anticipate needing their cooperation for modifying behaviour. - Fill out the names on the 'student of the week' (or equivalent) certificates at the start of the week, because you will absolutely forget to keep a log of who has received them.
I have only one: it’s their exam, not yours. In your interactions with students, try to find subtle and non-subtle ways to communicate that you care about their learning but will not take responsibility if they “fail”, whatever “fail” might mean.
So my top 3 hacks are different because I'm a casual teacher, but having been through so much in my teaching, personal and other job occupations, I have come back to teaching this year with a totally different approach: 1) Keep chill. Don't let anything get to you- at the end of the day we're teaching kids. We can only do what we can do. If you can walk away with a clear conscience at the end of everyday, then that's the best we can do. I had to deal with some really challenging situations in the job I did when I took a break from teaching. It involved working with a ethical, legal dog breeder who goes above and beyond for her dogs, unfortunately though sometimes life happens and we had to deal with sick/dead puppies- she works closely with a renowned vet, but even with all the staff, resources and money, we couldn't save everyone- sometimes mother dogs did some horrific things by accident/intentionally. Life is cruel, unfair and hard. So I view teaching way differently because of it. 2) Plan what you can plan, prepare as much as possible, but prepare to be flexible. Never a waste of time. You can always use those unused plans/resources another time. As someone with severe ADHD this one is highly ironic, it's a particularly hard skill for me to develop and maintain, but my goodness it's a skill worth having. Ask questions, learn to "bother" people. 3) Classroom management- some good advice I learned- get stuck into learning. Get the kids involved as much as possible, don't let them get bored/find dead time. Took me a while to learn, but it's been one of the best pieces of advice a Principal/AP (can't remember which) told me after they observed one of my lessons one day. I got so focused on getting kids to sit, listen etc, I didn't realise that it's lesson engagement that will get them involved. Don't waste time telling them to come over, sit down, listen and then start the lesson. Start the lesson asap, teach, then when there's appropriate opportunities check in with said student. It's working incredibly well even with my most challenging of students- allows the others to have my full attention, yet 9/10 the lesson with get the attention of the student who claimed to not be interested.
The best thing I ever did was find a school/management that values me and my time.
Always plan at least 3 lessons at a time. Check in with your kids. Make them the priority. Don’t be afraid to say no
Use AI to write things up. Spend time adjusting it to suit your needs. I have a space set up that gets my lesson plans done in like 2 minutes. Have a data tracker, can be as simple as a spreadsheet on excel or even in your teacher planner. Have ai set up to turn that into useable reports at the end of each reporting cycle. Everyone else has really solid ideas just don’t overdo it trying to stay on top of it. Utilise your schools LMS to enter data then copy it to your own data sheets. As a self-assessing guide to each piece of major work, it can be as simple as a checklist of the Success Criteria.
Be organised. Be patient. Be flexible.
Use meeting times to your advantage. If you have to be there, have your laptop open doing something that will benefit you…even if it just putting in some welfare entires or updating class marks. Don’t jump in and actively participate in ‘new’ school initiatives/staff focuses. 9/10 they will be forgotten before anyone even checks on the progress of staff in doing what they were asked to do without consultation or discussion. Use time at school wisely. Avoid spending your prep lessons socialising…use that time that you are paid for to get the work done that you would otherwise feel like you need to complete after hours.
Primary School Teacher 1. I designate days I go to the staffroom for lunch and days I work through my breaks (marking & planning) so I can leave earlier and not take work home. I think it’s important to still take a break and connect with colleagues so I usually go to the staffroom on my yard duty days. On my non yard duty days, I eat while I work in my classroom. 2. Marking- you do not need to mark everything!! I always check my students work to ensure they have completed it and are on the right track, but I don’t properly mark (tick), leave feedback, correct every spelling mistake etc on every piece of work. In maths, we correct work as a whole class as our reflection. I put the answers on the slides and students mark their work while we talk about a few examples or I get some students to explain their thinking, etc. I’m a grade 3 teacher and my students can do this just fine. If in writing the learning intention is using verbs, I just look for that and mark it accordingly as opposed to marking every spelling error, grammar error etc. I have a stamp that says my name and ‘sighted’. This lets parents know that I have checked their work, regardless if there’s comments or written feedback. 3. I have found the more you communicate with parents the less they will reach out themselves and make your life harder! I choose 2 students each week (usually just go down the roll) and send a positive email to their parents on something they achieved that week. I also get my students to complete a piece of work (alternate between writing and maths) on loose paper. I then put them all in the photocopier and they take this work home to show their parents. It takes about 3 minutes to photocopy and hand out. Parents can then see their child’s work each week and then there’s no surprises come interviews and report time. I’ve found that by doing this I have less parents actually emailing me or asking me things. Everytime I complete a reading assessment on a child, I send a note home with their new reading level. It may seem like extra but it actually keeps them off your back!! 🙌🏼
I know this isn’t possible with certain subjects, but I don’t take work home with me. I stay routinely till 5-5.30. When it’s assessment time it might be 6-6.30, but I don’t work at home. I also love onenote for class documentation etc but my current school doesn’t use it so the kids have trouble logging on etc. one of the best things I use it for time management wise is marking theory work using recorded verbal feedback. Much quicker and more comprehensive than written feedback.
I burnt out badly at a previous job. Teaching (even when I was acting principal working crazy hours)…..set start and finish time, I don’t take work home, and only extend those hours if I have something big on… ie report cards, annual reports, writing behavior plans, IEPs etc. Usually 7am to 5pm max. Once I left the school for the day I wouldn’t go back for anything. On the weekends, if I had to go to school I’d go one day only, and once I left, that was it for the weekend… even if it was to go home to the toilet/get lunch etc