Teachers often complain about how much time they spend at school and how much work they have to bring home to complete each night. Finding a way to balance their work load and take less work home will help prevent teacher burn-out. Here are some ideas to use preparation time wisely to minimize the amount of work you have left at the end of the school day.
Prep Time Before School
Every teacher is required to be at school at a certain time, which always happens to be before the students show up. Although some teachers do not have the luxury of spending that early morning time in preparation for their day, other teachers do not have to go to a duty station and should use this time to the fullest extent possible. You should already have your plans prepared for the day, so you need to not spend this time getting ready for the day. Instead, spend the time grading work, or writing notes home to parents.
Prep Time During the School Day
Teachers have two amounts of planning times during the day. One is a designated planning time and the other is lunch time. During the designated planning time, work on your lesson plans. Planning out with a curriculum map can help you spend less time figuring out what to teach, and saving your plans on the computer will help cut down on planning time in subsequent years as you will be able to reuse your lessons. Avoid other teachers as much as possible during this time, as this will bog you down in school gossip and take away from your precious planning time.
The other amount of time you have free during your day is lunch time. You can either spend this time relaxing and talking with other teachers while you eat, or you can work on more planning and grading during this time. Just be aware that if you do not work on your planning and grading, you will have to do this work at another time, which will most likely be after school or at home.
Prep Time After the School Day
Once the children leave, teachers are usually required to stay for a few more minutes. This is built in preparation time. Use this time to prepare your next day’s lessons. Gather any supplies you may need, and get everything ready for the next day so that you will not have to spend time the next morning doing so. You should not spend this time cleaning your classroom as you should have your students clean up and organize the classroom before leaving for the day.
The more carefully you plan out your time at school, the less time you will end up spending at school. Learning how to get everything done in a more efficient manner will also help you bring less work home with you, and will help you enjoy your job and your family more.
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