I know what you are thinking- really, no marking at home? no planning at home? how is this possible?!?! Read on for my ultimate efficient secrets to becoming an efficient high school teacher.

Efficient High School Teacher

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I make it my mission to get all of my work done at school.  This includes all planning, marking, and entering of my course data! I’d rather leave my work at work, and come home to spend time with my husband & kids instead of doing stuff I could have done at school!  I NEED to be an efficient high school teacher!  Yes, I’m a bit of a Type A Personality 🙂

This is the perfect blog post for my husband to read actually.  He is also a business high school teacher.  And he is someone who would benefit from this post. Why?  Because he somehow always has marking or planning to do at night!

I don’t know about you, but we have 4 periods a day in our high school setting and one of the periods is dedicated to prep work. This means that for 75 minutes a day, I get to plan, mark, enter grades, photocopy, file, set-up classroom, check school email, phone parents, and a whole bunch of other teacher duties that just can’t be done while teaching a course! Factor in any supervisions or on-calls for teachers that need to be added and it seems like an impossible task right?

So how can I get all of that done in my 75 minutes?

EXCELLENT TIME MANAGEMENT!!!

Teacher Time Management

Here are some of my daily insider tips:

  1. Before School–Set up my computer for the day, check & respond to any school emails, and make a TO DO LIST for the day!  I swear by my To Do Lists!
  2. After School–Set up my classroom and courses for the next day.  I run a digital classroom and need to ensure that before I leave for the day, all my instructions and files are online and ready to go for the next day!  Another thing that I set aside for after school is making any necessary phone calls.  This is a big variable and doesn’t happen daily as it is often dictated by student behavior or marks.
  3. During Prep Time–It’s simple really.  Close the door, turn on some music, and ZONE IN!  Go back to that TO DO LIST and start crossing off some of the items on the list!

MY AVERAGE WEEK:

I set aside MONDAY as my organizing day. On this prep, I plan out my entire week, write in my lesson planner book, check all of my worksheets, lessons, Power Points to make sure I know exactly what I am teaching. This is also the day that I do ALL of my photocopying for the week too.

TUESDAY and WEDNESDAY are future planning days. This is when I look ahead at my units and develop any worksheets or lessons for the courses I am teaching. I’m lucky this year that there are no new courses on my schedule.  So if anything, I’m just making additional resources, or fixing up existing ones.

THURSDAY and FRIDAY are my marking days. I pile anything up that I need to mark and “have-ater”. I tend to set up file folders for all of my classes and keep any marking inside the file folder. When ready, I open the file folder and ATTACK! (hahaha) But seriously, it feels amazing when the file folder is empty at the end of the week and you have caught up!!!! Once ALL the marking is done, enter the grades in. It’s much more efficient and faster to enter multiple assessments at one time.  There is less switching back and forth from marking to entering marks, and so forth.

Also, I always make sure that my MONDAY is all ready to go before I leave on FRIDAY!!!  Then I’m not scrambling around Monday morning.  I can instead walk into school confidently and know that I’m ready to engage my students in the lessons!

Less Teacher Work

What about my lunch?

You are right, I could also use my 40 minute lunch to complete some teacher duties, and don’t get me wrong, sometimes I do. But I also just need some quiet “me” time- I’m an introvert after all! I need the moments to unwind, hear silence, take deep breaths, and regroup before the next class.  Oh…and eat my lunch 🙂

Is this a foolproof method?

I promise that this will keep any teacher more organized and focused on a weekly basis.  I’m not guaranteeing no marking at home.  Geez…even I have marking to do once in a while at home.  There are just some projects that take a long period of time to mark and provide feedback on.  Plus, as a teacher, I’m constantly thinking of new ideas and assessments to bring into my courses- so I can’t manually turn off my “teacher brain” either.  However, since starting this weekly routine, I’ve found that my time management has improved and I’m rarely bringing my work home with me!  I’m more prepared for my classes and DEFINITELY LESS STRESSED!!!

I hope that this can help you re-organize your week a bit better.  It will help to be more efficient in both your planning and marking time management!

No Marking at Home

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