7am - Alarm went off at 7am. It took me a second to remember that I did actually have to get out of bed. One of my colleagues later told me how much they loved the break because it meant they could stay in bed until 11am every day! I prebooked a taxi last night, as I’d left my bike in school on the last day and had a lot of folders to bring back in, and was out the door by 7:30am - nice luxury on the first day back!
8am - Walked into my classroom, delighted/relieved at how tidy I’d left it before the break. For this term I’m trying out using a programme called ‘Chalk’ to plan out my lesson in. So I opened that up, read through my plan for the day and printed out any worksheets etc.
8:40am - Just about remembered I was on gate duty for the morning, nice and mild morning for it though. I didn’t plan any particular ‘bells and whistles’ for today regarding it being the first day back or New Years. Behaviour is a big focus in my class and I find we need normality as much as possible.
This is what we got up to today:
Reading time
Started new Maths topic (Data)
Revised Gaeilge from before the break
Set school goals for this term
Started new History topic (Titanic)
PE
Started colouring some New Years agamographs
I worked through one of my lunch breaks, my new years resolution is to be more strict with myself in relation to staying on after school or doing school work at home. I’ve decided that I’m willing to sacrifice lunch if it helps stick to my goal! Not always though, lunch is definitely important for chatting with colleagues and decompressing a bit.
2:30pm - To help me leave on time, I’ve started making a list of the important things that need to be done after school - would could be there for hours otherwise finding more and more things to do! Today’s finish goal was 3:30pm. On the list was to go over tomorrow’s plan, prepare any materials needed and clear my emails.
3:39pm - Every so slightly later than planned, I headed off home on my bike. Spent the cycle planning out my next holiday - are you really a teacher if you don’t know exactly how many days it is until midterm?
5:30pm - I didn’t have time in school to plan out the Kahoot I want to do with my class tomorrow, so a bit of work to be done at home. I also wanted to do up my weekly plan for next week tonight as I didn’t want to do any work over the weekend. As a NQT I have to upload a weekly plan every week as part of Droichead - I will be very glad when I no longer need to do this! Spent much longer than I should have faffing around getting the planning done and finished around 9:30pm. Planning and Netflix do not mix…note to self to just knuckle down and then fully enjoy the couch instead of half doing both!