TM4T Setting Up Your System 2.1.5.2 - Resources Needed

You will see the word 'resources' bandied around and it is important to spend time at least once, early in your career, to make sure you are completely sure what it means to you. This will vary enormously from school to school and from subject to subject. You should develop a tick-list that you can use at the beginning of term, based on the following list:

a) Pedagogic resources . These will include material in paper and electronic form. You may also have physical items to use in show and tell. (Note: some of your resources will themselves be lists of other resources needed for individual lessons)

b) Paper. It is worth considering exactly how much paper you actually need in order to do your teaching. An IT teacher can reasonably aspire to a paper-free classroom, while an English teacher may cause small forests to shudder at her plans. I know of one environmentally careless (though very nice) chap who taught twenty different classes in his two-week timetable, and provided each of them with two exercise books (one for rough work and classwork, one for notes and homework). Those teaching maths will immediately see that this one teacher (with an average class-size of 25) required an astonishing one thousand exercise books.

i) When you have identified your needs, remove your bureaucrat's hat and transform yourself into a Transport and Warehouse Manager. How are you going to store this lot? Do they need to be moved around (from classroom to classroom or back-and-fro from home to mark)? Many schools provide large plastic crates (though some dear teachers are not strong enough to lift them). Try to sort out the logistics in advance and ensure you have the storage and equipment to make life easy.

ii) If you are in a similar position to the English teacher mentioned earlier, you need to ask yourself the obvious question: how are you going to find anything? Many schools have sensible systems, often involving colour-coded crates and exercise-books, with cupboards or crate-racks provided with sensible pre-labelled spaces. If you do not have a ready made system to conform to, this aspect needs sensible planning before the term starts. If you are newly qualified, I advise you not to spend your precious time before lessons labelling crates and sorting exercise books. I do not need to give this advice to more experienced teachers – they know that it's easier to get the kids to do it. I have also found it a useful detention/sanction to impose after school; you can have a useful conversation with troubled students while they label crates or sort folders...

iii) There is merit in being a little bit of a squirrel though of course you need to balance your own convenience against that of the school. I always have a small stash of reserve supplies hidden in a corner of my cupboard to ensure that – even if the stationers go on strike – my lessons will survive.

c) More Paper (and Plastic). Many departments (ICT, Art) rely more on folders than exercise books. Again, you need to consider labelling, colours, crates.

d) Subject-specific paraphernalia: this is where your own personal expertise comes in. If you are a PE teacher, spare socks may be vital to your classroom survival. If you teach Science, Food Technology or Art, you may have different items – spares and personal favourites – stashed in your briefcase.

e) Survival Kit. I once worked in a school which offered study leave to Year 11 before their GCSE examinations. In a demonstration of co-ordination and stealth which would have done credit to the SAS, before they left the students managed to remove every single whiteboard rubber and interactive-white-board marker from the school. Obviously, you cannot plan for every contingency but you should quickly identify which items are in short supply (I suspect many schools where teachers change classrooms regularly experience difficulties with board rubbers). My advice is this: if you are likely to be embarrassed or inconvenienced by the absence of some item of classroom equipment, carry a spare or spares around with you. Get a generous relative to buy you some for Christmas.

f) Large stationery items. This is a topic which will vary widely from school to school. Some, well-funded and well-run schools provide every conceivable item of office equipment (staplers, hole-punch, guillotine, shrink-wrap) and hold a generous stock of spares to allow for wastage and pilferage. Others, with tight budgets and pernickety management, may require written justification in triplicate before you obtain new equipment. In this scenario, you may find possessive and duplicitous tactics employed by departments to protect 'their own' stationery. My advice is simple: work out what you need; suss out the culture of the school; then do a little planning. These things rarely cost a lot of money, and it is sometimes easier to buy your own new stapler, or share one with a trusted colleague, than to wait two weeks for a new one to arrive.

g) Small stationery items. It may seem inconceivable that a school could run out of pencils (similar to an army running out of bullets) but these things do happen. If you are working in that kind of school (you will hear these rumours quickly if you are) then take appropriate precautions. The list will vary depending on subject, but elastic bands, staples, treasury tags, paper clips and drawing pins may all cause stress if you suddenly find that there aren't any in the stock cupboard.

Paper Sharks: Get One - No, Get Two.

An example of how to equip your workspace is here.