How Do You All Do It?

[Guest]

I read all the posts on planning and marvel at how great you all are. I am in a situation where I am head of a 39 place nursery but only work 2 days one week 3 the next but with half day PPA in that week so only 2 and half days in nsy. I have 2 wonderful NNEB's one of which comes in at 8am but generally has to leave by 3-30pm as she runs the schools very successful gymnastic team. The other who has children (12 and 9yrs) stays till her husband picks her up at 3-45pm by which time most of the clearing up is complete but no time for anything else. Their actual paid hours are only from 8-30am to 3-30pm.We are all on to sort a vague planning sheet out for the whole nursery let alone plan for the equivalent of 78 individual children. The young teacher who works at the end of the week is not foundation trained and although nice is by all accounts struggling. I only hear of all this second hand so that in itself makes it difficult to deal with, and I am not in to observe and help her. When she is not in nsy she is covering Key stage 1 PPA and is responsible for foreign modern languages so there is a conflict of interests. With Offstead expected at any time I am spending alot of my time when not working actually working because the chances are they will be in (at the end of the week)when I am not. I have the utmost admiration for you all who work full time and do all the wonderful things you do. How you manage it and have a life is beyond me. I am already trying to prepare for the week after next in order to get resources ready to be copied or laminated, 2 days is not enough time! Maybe I am just too old (I've taught 32 years). Having said all that by hopefully getting ahead I can enjoy a visit in 3 weeks to see my eldest daughter who is doing a ski season in France. Can't wait haven't seen her since November.

Anne (alias Zambonie)

[Susan]

Well my reaction would be, how do you do all that?

Lucky you being able to get any sort of job share let alone one with a responsibility position. However I am not sure that any job is really part time, you just get paid less!!!?

 

The work life balance is always tricky but I have learnt that I cant do everything so some things have to give. PPA time does seem to help alittle although I'd ideally like a reduction of the tasks that make that necessary rather than that time out of my classroom.

Planning demands seem to vary from school to school and if you do enough to get you through the week that ought to be enough rather than endless reams of paper with instructions as to what to say and do.

Its a shame that you dont have some change over time together to plan as I am sure that would help you both and you seem to be expressing that need.

 

Enjoy your time with your daughter.

[Guest]

The work/life balance is a big one and that's why I know deep down I don't want to work full time.I love cooking baking and party planning and to be honest if I could make any money from it I would give up teaching. That's not to say that I would miss it. I would miss the children and my collegues in foundation but I would not miss all the paper work which gets in the way of all the nice things like making resources. At least by having days off at the end of the week I can get most of the school work out of the way by Friday pm and then it's family and the odd glass of wine or two on Friday night. I have to say I would not normally be on here at this time but the youngest is out and has as usual not got a key.

Thank you Susan for your good wishes I can't wait, only problem is I have a phobia about ski lifts. Only once tried to get on one many years ago in Scotland and fell off so am convinced I can't do it, that and ski!! However having looked at pics from her what does appeal is the lunches up the mountains, they all seem to involve a glass of wine!

[Jackie A.]

You sound just like me. I've been job-sharing in Nursery for the past 5 years. Our set-up has been that I teach the morning class, and my partner teaches the afternoon class, so I am in every day. I also have 2 fantastic NNs and the same number of children as you. Our school is in a very touch catchment area - very high proportion of EAL and social problems. Many children with special needs, and NO support for Nursery! I have been in school at 7.30 am and don't leave until gone 1 0'clock. That's 5 and a half hours a day - equivalent to 11 hours full time! I would then go home and spend the afternoon preparing, planning, thinking and worrying about school.

 

I have 2 school-aged children myself, and so this arrangement has suited me well as I have been there to collect my own children from school in the afternoon (although I have to return to school twice a week for evening meetings). My job-share partner and I get on really well and work well together - she puts in as much time as I do. But because we don't have time together in school, we both seem to have to do our own planning and preparation. We're both flexible, so if one of us needs time off (eg if our own children are poorly or we have an appointment), we cover for each other.

I have had 1 hour's PPA a week, which is only a tiny fraction of the preparation time needed.

 

This term however, everything has changed. My fantastic job-share retired at Christmas, after teaching for nearly 40 years. I decided to take on the full-time position. So now I am responsible for 78 part-time children, with a turn-over every term (approximately 20 children to settle each term as my LA still has a 3 point entry into school).

 

YES, the paperwork has got on top of me, YES, I miss spending the after-school time with my own children, YES, the responsibility is overwhelmling, YES, I have to tell myself "if such-and-such a job isn't done, it's not the end of the world! BUT I actually have a much better work-life balance. I find that I can just get on with jobs now, I can get things done after school, I can liase with other staff, I am learning to delegate more, I'm learning to say "no" instead of "yes" I'll do that" all the time, I'm learning to leave work at school, rather than bringing it home.

 

There really is no such thing as part-time teaching. Your time out of the classroom is often spent planning, preparing and "thinking" about school. Now I don't have that time, I'm being much stricter with myself.

 

Enjoy your trip to France, and try to switch off - I know it's easier said than done!

 

Jackie

[Guest]

work/life balance? ~ hmmm i wonder what that is

 

Since becoming manager my work/life balance has completely gone out the window, its all work, work, work and i just can't ever seem to switch off. Which means half my life i feel incredibly stressed. I totally love my job but it takes over my life completely.

Blimey im 25 and have a fair few grey hairs , Im often told i work well under pressure, i guess im testing that theory to the max at the mo.

 

I think for me i struggle because i haven't got the greatest staff team, but equaly i am a person that needs to know what is going on all the time LOL, and that totally means i don't switch off. I delegate tasks, but often end up checking up to see that they have been carried out correctly, basically i amy as well do it myself.

 

so no work/life balance for me, but strangely i do seem to thrive on stress most of the time.

 

Dawn

[Guest]

Its an age old problem and even if there were 24 hours a day we could work - somehow I don't think that would ever be enough. I think that's perhaps what makes everyone the great teachers/practitioners they are - they are always reflecting and looking at how they can do things better. But as someone else said sometimes if things are working and we have just enough paperwork to support it then that's ok. I know that sometimes my paperwork is not always the best but I also try and reconcile the fact that copious amounts of paperwork doesn't make a session go better or children learn more. It's really useful at times to look at it to recognise that we perhaps have not been spending enough time or giving enough resources to a particular area but actually what happens on the ground is really important and I would like to think that outsiders would recognise and acknowledge this when they start making judgements. I occasionally just let the session go in any direction without having any predertmined outcome - no planning - no nothing and we use this just to make observations. The children can have anything they like out (within reason), they choose and we are all completely reactive to their needs and it works wonderfully well. Generally, get the best observations and have the best sessions but I realise that this would not work every day of the week and in all settings as it would also need careful retrospective planning to ensure that we guide their learning.

So there are no answers, its just as well that there are dedicated people out there who are not regimented in their approach, know they can do more and lets face it there is always more we can do but also understand that its very easy to burn out with the burden of it all and that's not what the system needs.

So reconcile that eveyrone does what they can within the time limits and make sure that there is ample time to actually enjoy the children without becoming too stressed as to whether we are acheiving all that we should. By the very fact we recognise this is good enough evidence to me that we are achieving all that we can but there again I am not the Head or Ofsted!!!!

 

Skiiing - sounds wonderful - enjoy the time with your daughter and battle with your fears over the ski-lifts - the views are spectacular. Very envious.

Nikki

ps Talking about Ofsted they have a number of vacancies for childcare inspectors in some areas - so any of you who might be interested should get on to their site.