As I move into my 11th year of teaching, I find myself thinking about well being seriously for the first time. If I think back to when I was in my NQT year to how it is now, thankfully, there is little comparison. I remember my NQT year being very "get on with it, you trained in a city so you should be able to cope". Luckily things have moved on a little now and in most cases, I hope, that there is support put in place. As a NQT you will at times feel a little overwhelmed by expectations and workload, so it is important to remember to think about your own well being as when you get run down you won't perform as well. This will in turn have a knock on effect to your students progress. As this is the start of the year here are 3 main things that I think you need to think about to help maintain your own well being during this first year.
Marking: DON'T TRY AND MARK EVERYTHING! One of the major pitfalls that almost all new teachers fall into is, the assumption that everything needs to be marked. In a year you will teach around 840 lessons. If you spend just 5 minutes marking the work students have done after every lesson, that works out as an extra 70 hours worth of extra marking to fit in. That in itself doesn't sound like that much over the course of a year, however, when you start adding in all the other work you need to mark (start of year base line tests, tests throughout the year, end of year exams, homework ect....) you run the risk of burning out. Remember, not everything is worth marking, but when you do give students feedback on how they have done, but more importantly give them a meaningful target of how they can improve the piece of work you have marked, so that they can improve it, and therefore make progress. One last tip on marking that has made my life easier over the last few years is "if you plan on getting students to do a piece of work that you know you will be marking get them to do it on paper and stick it in after". On the face of this it sounds ridiculous however, 30 sheets of paper is a lot easier to carry around than 30 books. This means that you will be more likely to take it home to mark or more importantly, carry it around with you so you can get it marked when you have a spare second.
Classroom management: As you move into your first year of teaching, it only natural that you will worry about student's behavior and what you can put in place to ensure they make progress. A simple rule that I try to live by is "if students are enjoying the lesson they will be engaged in the content. If students are engaged then their behavior is likely to be good. Students who show good behavior for learning make good progress". Good lesson planning brings it's own rewards and is something that you will continue to develop throughout your carrier. The other main thing to think about is being consistent. Students like to know where they stand, what to expect and how you will react during lessons. The last bit of advice that I think is important about classroom management is be organised. If you are organised then you won't need to rush around at the last minute which will reduce the stress you are feeling thereby increasing your well being. Don't forget to build in some down time in lessons when students are working through activities by themselves, so that you have time to pack resources away or put more out.
Observations: Many NQTs worry about lesson observations. During initial teacher training you will have been observed to death so it's understandable that there is often a misconception that this will continue into your NQT year. Ofsted however, will not be judging any teacher based on one 30 minute lesson observation as it would be ridiculous to make a sweeping statement about yor ability to teach based on 0.06% of the lessons you teach in a year. Most schools will to the same view as Ofsted so will be looking at progress over time. This means that your marking and mark books should also be taken into consideration. Observations should be developmental so before being observed think about what you want to improve and discuss it with your mentor, they can then specifically look for what you are trying to achieve then give feedback and advice on how you can take your practice forward. If for whatever reason you have a bad observation, don't worry about it, remember that you are on a journey and observations are only one small step towards the destination.
Throughout the year you will face many challengers and you'll find that not all of your ideas will work (I have a full back catalog of them). The last and most important piece of advice I can give you to help maintain your own well being is this. "If you have a problem ask for help, we're all in it together to help all students make the progress they deserve."
I hope some of this helps and throughout the year I'll be adding tips to help maintain your sanity as the year progresses.
Thanks for reading
Chalky
No comments:
Post a Comment