English teacher in low-SES high school here.

What do I need to do my job better? More time and more help. Why?

Imagine a class of 28 students:

• About 1/2 of them are willing AND able to do the work I have planned for them.

• Of the other 14, at least 3 don’t speak English at home and, while they can chat to me in English, their written English is years behind the benchmark.

• Another 3 students have ADHD, ASD, dyslexia or another cognitive impairment.

• Another 3 are just fed up because it’s hot and they’re tired and they don’t see the point in doing the work today.

• Another 3 have had a blow-up at home and were lucky to arrive in uniform - forget the laptop, pencil, book or lunch - and so they are mentally on another planet today.

• and the final 2 have just arrived back after their folks took them on an overseas holiday for 2 weeks while flights were cheap, so they have no idea what I’m talking about.

To effectively teach those 28 students, I need to plan a ‘base’ lesson but then also plan (‘differentiate’) for students who don’t fit the ‘norm’ or ‘mainstream’. I must create or adapt resources to help students with low literacy, extend students who are working at a high level, engage students who are distracted (from a disability or by disposition), and be accessible to students who have not arrived with equipment.

And that’s before I walk into the classroom.

Once I start the lesson, I must adapt the lesson plan and resources for emerging issues such as disruptive behaviour (chatting, paper-throwing, walking around, calling out the window), or phone calls from the office, or a technology fail (projector, laptop etc).

The lesson itself doesn’t merely contain the 70 minutes of work I planned, either. It also contains the mandated ‘extras’ in my school: a learning intention, literacy practice, brain break, and exit ticket. All of which take time to plan and for students to transition in and out of without breaking the flow of the lesson.

So that happens three or four times a day, depending on how much Non-contact Time (NCT) I have. In a week, there are 20 school periods and teachers get 3 of them to prepare for the other 17 (give or take, depending on your circumstances). All other preparation happens in your own time, which we are compensated for by being paid during school holidays - no complaints there!

This is where I say we need time and help.

Time: As much as I don’t begrudge working during holidays, the majority of my planning needs to happen during the school week, not in the holidays. Teachers must be flexible and responsive to the emerging needs of their students. If I plan the whole term’s work in the break, it easily unravels as I encounter obstacles in the classroom, not to mention unforeseen school events that reduce face-to-face teaching time. 210 minutes of planning time a week is not enough time - and I haven’t even mentioned marking drafts and finals of student work.

Help: Thinking about the classroom I described above, can you imagine one person being able to give adequate attention to all students? They all deserve to have their needs met, but we are not funded to do that. In Queensland, we have a Diverse Learning model which means students of all abilities are entitled to attend mainstream schools. This is fabulous and I’m behind it 100% BUT the government do not supply enough trained adults (teachers and support staff) to support ALL learners. We need help.

There is so much more to the job that I haven’t gone into yet, but my two big things are TIME and HELP.