Oh, those Long Summer Holidays
People who don't work in teaching are often puzzled about the amount of time involved.”Surely,” they ask “if you finish work at four o'clock and you have ten weeks holiday, you can't be short of time and stressed?”. For many teachers, the answer is “Yes”. They simply cannot get the balance right – the balance between spending every waking minute at work (and getting stressed) and doing no work outside the classroom (and getting stressed). At no time is this more important than the long summer break. You must, must, must find time to relax completely. However, there should be a lot of work to do. As always, the key points are balance and planning: sketch out how you are going to use those golden six weeks. Here is one way of structuring your time:
Week 1: Unwind. Collect information about next term (about one hour per day)
Week 2: Work. Tidy up from last term, and sketch out objectives for next. (about three hours per day)
Week 3: Plan and prepare for Week 6 (about two hours per day)
Week 4 & 5: Total holiday, uncontactable with no thought of work whatsoever.
Week 6: Work . Plan next year and next term (about five hours per day).
Many teachers find this difficult. Some report that they have to force themselves to do the necessary preparation before term starts, but many more report that they need iron willpower to stop working completely at any time during their break. Both of these lead to stress: you must relax and you must plan.
To restate, here is TM4T perspective on what to do duing the year.
1. The Summer Vacation
TM4T takes a clear position regarding the summer vacation. Teachers should plan their break to ensure that they get time to relax and recover, but they should also plan to spend a considerable amount of time thinking about teaching – or rather: thinking about their chosen subject. If you use the magpieplanning method of lesson planning, this means 'Groundwork', looking for interesting and relevant subject material for your lessons. It is worth restating that this should not really be a chore - you are working on a subject that you have chosen to specialise in, doing valuable things that you just haven't got time to do during term-time.
2. The Rest of the Year
The principles of Time Management mean that you should do your work at the right time and in the right place. This will vary depending on you (when you work best, for the kind of work involved); depending on your timetable (what non-directed school time you have available); and depending on your commitments (how how much work you have to do for school and home). The TM4T method emphasizes that you have a choice. It may be entirely logical to do a considerable amount of your work in the comfort of your home - many teachers choose to do so. It's important that you keep this choice entirely distinct and separate in your mind from two other issues: having too much work, and being forced to do work at home - both of these are unacceptable.