Working weekends, heaps of paperwork… really needing a drink when you get home.  That’s not what you got into teaching for.  So have a read of our top tips from teachers who have got on top of their work load, and have found ways to beat the stress without compromising their careers.

1. Be organised

What stresses teachers out most is the feeling of not knowing where to start on a long list of overdue work.  Planning out what needs to be done well in advance will help you give time to the things that you are really judged on (e.g. coursework and assessments for your class).

“Try and stick to marking and planning routines and create a to-do list for the next day every evening. That way you can visualise each day and week as achievable parts rather than looking at it as an insurmountable term ahead of you.” (George Burrell, a former geography teacher in London)

“Get a wall planner and map out when you have assessments for your classes and department, and when the crunch points in the year are going to be.  Make sure you can free up time over those peak periods.” (Paul O’Dwyer, an english teacher in London)

2. Plan properly but efficiently

Planning well may eat into your evenings, but it will reduce your stress levels on the day.  Well prepared, fun, and interesting lessons are the best way to avoid poor behavior in class. Engaged students are much less likely to act out than bored ones.  The trick is to find efficient ways to prepare.

“After a year of teaching I had a bank of PowerPoint templates and resources for every lesson. These could be easily adjusted and improved on the following year and this saved loads of time. I think there are a lot of teachers who are perfectionists. Apply the 80 – 20 rule. Get most lessons 80% right. The last 20% is where you can waste most of the time.” (George)

Sometimes, preparation has got to give to allow for other school commitments.  You need to have some backup ideas for when you just have not had time to prepare for the class.

“I did became reasonably adept at the ‘50 yard lesson’ (aka preparing while walking the distance from office to classroom door), but I really think there is no excuse for having nothing prepared. Always have some general backup material, quizes or ‘research’ tasks that you can just hand out.” (David, a former science teacher)

3. Share resources with others
   

Stressed teachers are increasingly turning to curriculum resource sharing sites to get fresh ideas for their classes, and saving time on sourcing images and interactive material for the whiteboard.  Downloading a resource template can enable you to spend the time on actual teaching, rather than aligning PowerPoint slides.

“There is great classroom-proven material already being shared by savvy teachers on Teachable.net.  We think it makes perfect sense for these files to be download and adapted by other teachers, rather than being created from scratch every time.  Of course, it is possible to waste many hours searching on Google, so we pride ourselves on a  quick and reliable way to find what you need, when you need.”  (Edward Upton, Teachable.net)

“The challenge is finding the time to trawl through resource sites… although it usually pays off when you do develop the habit- greater variety is always a boon to my poor bored classes!  I have found sites such as Teachable.net a real life saver at times.” (Charlie, a science teacher in Oxfordshire)
 

4. Delegate where you can
   

When you start taking on extra duties outside of teaching, try to be realistic about what you do not need to do personally.  Most classroom assistants would happily take on more of the lesson preparation, providing you agree on a clear plan to follow.

“Being able to tell colourful stories using makeshift props lying about in the classroom is a great skill, but it is no substitute for real preparation. Good lesson plans and activities can be passed to an assistant in advance, and it is great to arrive in the room to find a pile of exciting bits-and-pieces on the desk, along well as good pre-printed worksheets.” (David, a former science teacher)

It is even possible to delegate a bit of task back to the students themselves, and actually up engagement into the bargain.

“Homework setting is a bane of the teachers life.  If you just can’t cope with more marking, try setting a ‘revision task’.  There is no way to measure if the students have completed it, and thus no need for the customary ten phone calls home chasing the work and then a further hour in their company at detention.  The clever bit:  use the joyous two words “peer assessment” to get the class to mark their own answers and see learning through the eyes of the teacher.” (Doug, a former business studies teacher)

5. Learn to say no!

Most teachers have plenty of work to do just with teaching and preparation, so the quality of their lessons can drop when they take on management responsibilities. Even if you are very ambitious, make sure you do not take on more responsibilities than you can manage.

Paul O’Dwyer, who has been teaching for 6 years, thinks the biggest problem for younger teachers is getting roped into too many extra duties; “You can’t say yes to everything.” 

“You need to work out from day one what responsibilities you can fit in alongside your teaching.  Make sure you volunteer up front, even in your first interview with the head, for the areas you would like to be involved in, and that this becomes reality in your first few weeks.  It is much harder to say no if you wait to be volunteered.”

6. Get a life / work balance

It is a myth that successful careers demand that you sacrifice all other aspects of your life.  Successful people are generally busy making sure they get their work done early so they can get on and enjoy other activities.  Make sure you carve out time for hobbies, exercise and family & friends.  There is only so much work you can do in a day;  get away from school on a regular basis, not just in holiday time, otherwise your work stresses will become all consuming.

“I rarely worked at home. I would prefer to stay late at school rather than take work home. Some people prefer to take marking home, but make sure that work doesn’t hang over you;  assign a specific time for working. If you don’t unwind properly you will find lack of sleep and little niggles quickly get you down!” (George)

For more time saving resource ideas, take a look around our site.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 at 1:26 pm and is filed under UK teaching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.