WORKLOAD
What happened to my weekend?
With the huge workload teachers face it is easy to lose track of what weekends are for. Margaret Adams looks at ways to change this pattern
is the weekend? In consequence, when you arrive back in school on Monday, do you feel as if you have not had a break, and do you start to ask yourself what happened to your weekend? There is a simple answer to your question. You have
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lost track of what weekends are for. You have allowed your school life to take them over, so you really do not have weekends any more. If you find yourself in this situation, you will need a
plan to help you to reclaim your weekends for yourself. Here are four activities to help you make a start.
Decide how you want to spend the weekend
You already know that as the weekend approaches, and you begin to plan how you intend to spend your time, it is too easy to focus on the school work you have not completed during the week and on all the things you know you will need to do to be ready for the coming week. To help to avoid turning next weekend into just two
more working days, this week, when you are planning Saturday and Sunday, think how you would like to spend your weekend, if you lived in an ideal world. What recreational activities would you like to take
part in? How much time would you like to allocate to resting and to not doing very much? With whom would you like to spend your time this weekend? What would you actually enjoy doing? While you will probably have to accept that you
cannot spend your entire weekend doing exactly what you would like to do, if you are clear about what your ideal weekend looks like, you will know the kind of weekend you are trying to create. Once you have done that, think about where you
could make space in your weekend schedule for the things you like doing. Squeeze a little bit of time for these activities into each weekend from now on.
Do your school work at the right times.
Have you noticed that you work better at some times of the day than others? Do you make more progress with your marking if you attack it early in the day or late in the evening? When is the best time of day for you to plan your lessons? When are you at your creative best? If you do not know the answers to these questions
make a note, over the next few weeks, of when you do your best work. Notice the peaks and troughs in your
SecEd • October 21 2010
RE YOUfinding that every Friday you seem to be taking so much school work home with you that you are working pretty solidly through the weekend? In fact, are you working so hard that you barely notice that it
productivity and enthusiasm for your marking and preparation. Find out when you are most likely to get school tasks done quickly and to a high standard. Then start to cluster your work activities around those times. Discipline yourself also to keep away from your school work at times when you know you do not achieve as much as you would like. The benefits are obvious. If analyse your work
rhythms, you will know when you get most done and when you struggle to complete tasks. This knowledge will help you to allocate your time sensibly and to do other things at times when you know you do not work particularly productively. Those other things will include recreational activities and relaxation.
Tell people when you’re off duty.
Teachers have a habit of talking shop when they get together. People who are not teachers also love to talk to teachers about teaching and education. This means that even when you have decided to switch off from school, you will probably find that the world wants to keep you focused on your work. To make sure this does not happen to you, tell people when you consider yourself to be off duty and that you are not going to talk about teaching during those times. It is important to do this. If you really want to take
time off at the weekend, you will need to be firm about creating space in your life for other activities. When you meet them socially, tell your teacher friends that you do not want to talk about education. Start discussions on topics unrelated to education. Say that you would rather steer clear of educational issues. If your friends who are not teachers want to talk to
you about teaching, adopt the same approach. Change the subject. Do not get drawn into conversations about school. It is your weekend, and it is your choice how you use it.
Look after yourself.
Every week is busy during the school term. Every day is packed with activity. As a result, perhaps you skip meals during the working week. Perhaps you push yourself hard, and just never seem to slow down. Perhaps you spend so much time thinking about other people’s needs, that you neglect your own needs. If you give yourself space and time to think about it,
you know it is important to look after your health and general wellbeing, too. Whether it is making sure you limit your intake of junk food, keep the units of alcohol you consume down to the recommended levels, or walk those 10,000 paces every day, you know, in broad terms, what you need to do to keep yourself healthy. The weekend is the ideal time to review how well you are looking after yourself, and to make adjustments
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to your lifestyle as necessary. Allow yourself to reflect on these issues this weekend and every weekend.
Conclusion
Teaching is a demanding job and because of this you need to step away from it regularly. This means you need to learn how to resist the temptation to let your work
swallow up your weekends. Use your weekends well and wisely from now on, and you will be reinvigorated and ready to face the world each Monday morning.
SecEd
• Margaret Adams is a former teacher and the author of How To Take Charge Of Your Teaching Career (Continuum International Publishing, 2008).
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