How to stay in control of your classroom admin (A guide for teachers)

As all teachers know, your mind is constantly ticking over with checklists. Dr Tina Boogren contended that teachers make more minute-by-minute decisions than a brain surgeon. The problem with this? That makes for a lot of classroom admin to keep track of, married with a large dose of exhaustion. As an NQT (or ECT as it is now known), I constantly felt like I was drowning, occasionally coming up for air. The admin required to do my job adequately felt relentless, leaving me always on the backfoot. Teaching History at Secondary Level meant that I had several classes in the same year group, creating issues of consistency of content across these groups. The same questions would swirl around my head; did I collect in 8B1’s home learning, 9R3 did complete that task but I know 93C need a bit more time… you get the picture. 

Since my NQT year, I have discovered some non-negotiables which I began to implement into my teaching life and non-teaching life. These tactics changed the way I was working both in my teaching life, tutoring life, and now my work in alternative provisions. This is how I managed to stay afloat amid the sea of admin. 

Managing time

I have always found it incredibly difficult to begin tasks which feel overwhelming. In teaching, this is a lot of the tasks which fall under your job specification. I felt that sitting for hours on end was not enabling me to work efficiently, or to do the job to the best of my capabilities. Using the Pomodoro technique was transformative for my mindset and my workload. Pomodoro works around 25 minutes bursts of work. This is the perfect amount of time to complete work in sprints, as you can stay focused for 25 minutes without procrastinating. If like me, you need visual and auditory motivation, I highly recommend Pomofocus. This 25 minute timer allows you to input the task you want to complete, let’s call it 1/3 of Year 11 test papers. It also allows you to put in place 5- or 15-minute breaks. Give it a go! 

Managing lists 

This might sound silly, but I promise you – it is effective. When I began to write out lists of what admin I needed to tick off, it would make me feel incredibly demotivated. I decided that I would write the tasks that needed completing on sticky notes instead, placing them wherever worked for me. In my case, it was on my whiteboard behind my desk. My aim would be to clear the sticky notes by the end of the day. I often found myself clearing 2-3 at a time, for example, dropping books into a different classroom (one sticky note) on the way to the reprographics room to print off resources for the next morning (second sticky note). It helped me to visualise what I needed to do, and it became motivational to clear the board of the sticky notes. If physical sticky notes aren’t you thing, there are lots of fantastic virtual list making sites such as Lucid.  

Managing classes (at least what they’re learning!)

These last two hacks are perhaps the crown jewel. Personally, I found my physical teacher planner inefficient. Every class is different, and if you taught in the middle of COVID19, there was a need to be aware of who had missed learning. I found it near impossible to keep track of this in my 3 line per day diary. Enter Chalk. This virtual teacher planner changed everything for me. You can set up your timetable – even if it’s a two-week timetable – with all your classes. You can even create your own register, so you know exactly who was in each day. You can type quick notes as you teach, and they save automatically. You can click back on the calendar to check who did what on each day. Life changing stuff. Alongside this, Seneca has quickly become my best friend. With Seneca, you can set class homework and revision – even GCSE! It caters to KS3 and various exam boards. You receive a percentage of correct answers, allowing you to close learning gaps in your classroom. You’re welcome!