My probation year was hard work, but I survived, and loved it. Here are nine tips which I think would have helped me at the start of it.
Safeguard your time off
At the start of my year last August, I worked well into the evenings and was much more likely to work on a Sunday, preparing lessons. However, as the year went on, I realised this made me miserable.
Two things helped: first, I realised that some things just can’t be done. If I have a long to-do list and there are things that don’t need to be done for the next day then they just get scrapped.
Second, I realised that I would rather work slightly later on a Friday afternoon if it meant that I could get all my prep done for Monday. I would often be one of the last to leave the school on Friday, but I would rather work three hours after school on a Friday afternoon than three hours during my Sunday.
Ask for help
At the start of the year I was fairly quiet and determined to “get on” with things myself. As the year went on, I realised that asking for help does not make you look weak. My mentor was the most fantastic source of advice on teaching and learning; she gave me countless ideas on things to teach, behaviour strategies to use, and how to improve my lessons.
My PT (principal teacher) was a great source of advice and inspiration on “bigger” issues – pupils I was having real difficulty with, questions to do with courses and their structure, and advice on jobs. My departmental colleagues gave me the best day-to-day advice about surviving the tough parts of the job. But if you don’t ask, you don’t get. I think a lot of teachers don’t want to “bombard” probationers with words of advice or warning, but they are worth seeking out.
The General Teaching Council
The on-going, weekly, sometimes daily, updates to the General Teaching Council for Scotland profile are a massive part of the probation year. From the start of the year, I updated mine regularly with mentor meetings, observed lessons and CPD activity. I was glad of this, as when I spoke to other probationers later in the year, many of them had fallen behind and found it a huge deal of work to get their profile “ready” for submission.
Attempt long-term planning
With the help of my mentor and PT, I drew up long-term plans for most of my classes. I did this a couple of months after starting – once I was settled in.
Don’t be overwhelmed by this idea; I know that I found it daunting at first to come up with a long-term plan for a class when I had rarely planned two lessons ahead of schedule in the day-to-day scheme of things.
But it helped me to make sure I would end the year having covered all the “Significant Aspects of Learning” for my subject. In English, these are Reading, Writing, Talking and Listening, so drawing up a long-term plan involved coming up with ideas of which texts I could use to teach each of these skills. It didn’t go into much more detail than that, but it gave me a rough timeline so I had something to pin my sights on and keep me moving through the year with some momentum.
Don’t worry about short-term planning
At the start of the year, you might find that you have a vision of having a week’s worth of lessons planned fully in advance – then you realise that is easier said than done. I realised that I was happy enough if I had lessons planned exactly for the next day, and a rough idea of where they were going over the next week.
Anyway, things change day-to-day: you can have a week’s worth of lessons planned and then find that the first one doesn’t go as timed, leaving the rest knocked off kilter too. So relax, and accept that if you have tomorrow planned, the rest will fall into place piece by piece. That was hard for me to believe at first, but by the end of the year I was quite happy to leave work as long as I knew what I was teaching the next day!
Speak to your pupils
I mean, really speak to them. Keep conversation with your classes constant and informal, to allow them to give you “feedback”, which helps you to plan work you are doing with them. At the end of lessons where you have been teaching something new, ask them: “How did that go?”, “Do we need more time on that?”
When I was doing revision with senior classes, I would leave a lot of the planning up to them. While studying close reading techniques in the run up to the National 5 exam, I gave the class a reminder of all the techniques we had studied, and asked them to jot down on a piece of paper which three they felt least confident with: the most popular ones formed the basis of the rest of our revision lessons. I think this helps the class feel that you are working with them, rather than just powering through some pre-planned agenda.
Say yes – but not to everything
At the start of the year I found this hard; I felt I had to say yes to every opportunity/extra-curricular activity/request for help that was sent my way. I loved going on school trips, organising my weekly running club, and taking part in whole-school activities, but at times it was just too busy and I became stressed.
I got better at taking a moment to think when I was asked to take part in something – if I felt it would be to the detriment of my own teaching, my stress levels, or my enjoyment of time off, I became more comfortable saying “Thank you, but not this time”. Then, the things that I did manage to do seemed all the more enjoyable and I was able to put more energy into them.
Use seating plans wisely
For some classes, you will want to use seating plans which encourage conversation and create a lively classroom. For others, you’ll be trying desperately to place pupils next to other pupils you know they won’t want to speak to, in hope of creating calm from chaos.
Think about what you want to achieve with each class, as a group and individuals, and make your seating plan accordingly. If it doesn’t work, change it. You’d be amazed at how the atmosphere of a class can transform just because you change the seats around.
Take time to enjoy yourself
Allow those conversations that go wildly off topic; get to know what your pupils like/dislike and have some banter with them; enjoy those end-of-term days where you have only a handful of pupils and the opportunity to have fun. We can’t do these things all the time, but you really will have some brilliant times with your pupils and there will be some names and faces from your probation year that you will not forget. The job is not just about teaching, but about the moments when you see a glimpse of personality in your pupils that makes you laugh or smile. Good luck!
- Alison Wood is a teacher of English at a comprehensive school in Glasgow.