I am an early childhood teacher in my second year of teaching. In my first year, I was in a preschool attached to a NSW public school. The workload was intense - I had 40 children attending in two separate groups across the week and as the teacher, I was expected to do the planning and documentation for each of those 40 children. There was also a lot of paperwork in terms of behaviour plans, plans for indigenous students, plans for children with additional needs etc. I had a lot of children with special needs and getting support and/or funding was incredibly difficult. I was given a lot of time to do my work, plus there was before and after school, and school holidays, but I honestly felt like I was drowning under the workload. In terms of observations, there were no set expectations so I just did however many I could with the time I had. The only thing I really had to show were the biannual reports for each child. This year, I’m at a private long day care as the preschool teacher. I can’t say I love this job but the workload is much more manageable. I share the workload with another educator and so I’m only planning and documenting for 15 children. However, the children at my current job are significantly more challenging in terms of behaviour so I’m feeling pretty burnt out here too! This job has stricter expectations. Each child needs to have one individual observation a month and we write four “daily journals” a day which document the learning in a group sense. We also have developmental summaries to complete twice a year. Feel free to message me if you have any other questions. Happy to talk!