5 Tips to Manage Your Workload as a Teacher

How do you manage your workload as a teacher? Whilst teaching is one of the most rewarding careers you can have, it also comes with a lot of responsibility. It’s easy to get caught up in everything and feel like you are drowning.

Here’s some simple tips from our team to help you to manage your workload this term.

Write a To Do List

Whilst this may sound like it’s just creating extra work, a To Do List can really work wonders. Write down a list of everything you have to do. Give each task a deadline and you’ll be able to clearly see your priorities. And if a long list seems really daunting, create two. Create a list of tasks that must be done today and a separate list for the rest. A list of ‘must be done today’ will help you stay focused on what needs to be achieved. But that’s not all – you’ll get a great sense of achievement by crossing everything off by the end of the day. Spending just 10 minutes a day on getting yourself organised and prioritising tasks could save you hours in a week!

TOP TIP: Writing a To Do List can also help you identify what tasks you may be able to pass to support staff.

Teacher workload

It’s OK to say no

As teachers, we are natural helpers. We are very good at increasing our workload by taking on lots of additional tasks. When someone asks if you can help, think about that To Do List and if you can realistically fit it in. Would something on your list suffer as a result? Remember that every teacher has deadlines that are looming, so they are likely to understand if you do say no.

Manage your workload so you can go home on time

Make a commitment to yourself and go home on time at least twice a week. Don’t fall into the trap of working late every night. And don’t think that going home at 3pm a couple of days a week will reflect badly on you. Quite the opposite in fact. By being organised and working with that To Do List, you will be able to finish your tasks and go home on time sometimes. Managing your workload as a teacher doesn’t mean working until 8pm every night!

Use available resources

There’s a wealth of online resources when it comes to teaching. You don’t have to create everything from scratch every time. Whilst you may want to create lesson plans yourself, it won’t take long to realise that this can also be time consuming. Build up resources to help make your planning process quicker. If you are an NQT, speak to the other teachers and ask what resources they recommend.

Keep a diary

Here’s a tip we’ve heard from one of our teachers recently and we are really happy to share it with you. It’s a different take on managing your workload, but highly effective. Keeping a diary will help you find trends. Your state of mind and how you work influence each other. So if you find that you are less prepared for your classes on a Friday due to being tired from Thursday’s classes, you’ll be able to better plan your week. Make the Thursday to do list a little easier where you can and move things around to other days in the week.

We are currently looking for Teachers, TA’s and more across North Wales and the North West. Take a look at our latest jobs today.