A teachers gotta plan...

                                                 Hi friends how is your weekend going? 

One thing I know all of us teachers have in common is planning but how we go 

about it…well that's a little more unique!

My school has a set planning format for both Literacy and Numeracy on 

offer if you wish to use it and up until Christmas this year, I did. 

A few years ago (political comment coming up) the current government made some 

changes to work and pay conditions. 

Needless to say the Teacher Unions were not impressed and, along with a string of strikes, called for teachers to work to rule. Obviously each teacher's stance on this was very personal however as a school we had to make some common decisions- if one person said no to doing something then it 

meant no for all of us and in our school this ushered in the end to planning scrutinies. 

Make of this what you will but whilst I still continued to plan away to my usual standard, others relaxed somewhat and so long as they were covering the non-negotiables this wasn't a problem. 

Why then was I still typing page after page? Well… if I am being totally honest, I was afraid! Afraid that if I didn't then I would a) be told off and b) forget something! 

Neither of these things has happened but why the sudden change to the way I plan?! 

A number of years ago a fell over and broke my left wrist (Yes! I had had a couple of glasses of wine…how ever did you guess?!) and it has never felt quite the same since. 

This hasn't been much of a problem though up until the past 8 months when my right wrist has suddenly begun to ache and go stiff and the fingers sometimes get a bit numb…

all when I have been typing a lot!! 

I thought about it and the 2 occasions I spend typing the most are (surprise, surprise) when I am blogging and when I am lesson planning! 

Well…a blogger gotta blog and there is no way around using the computer for that but, whilst a teacher gotta plan there is another way…write it out! 

I noticed on Instagram that a lot of my US friends hand wrote in pretty planners rather than typing-

 I love a diary and couldn't live without my multitude of sharpies or washi-tape collection so this totally 

seemed the way forward for me! 

I did some research and fell in love with the Erin Condren planners but, oh the price! 

I needed to know if this way would work for me before I shelled out on a beautiful, but costly notebook. So I decided to buy a basic Puka Pad and section it off myself.

I included an overview of the units to be covered each week and then dedicated a page to Literacy and a page to Numeracy. I made sure I included the nonnegotiable elements at the top 

(WALT and Success Criteria)

I simply made notes for the rest of the lesson with post-its for extra detail or changes I need to make.

This has been the biggest change for me- I am a self-confessed over planner! 

Notes just felt wrong somehow but I reassured myself that, having taught the same year group, in the same school, the exact same units for the past 8 years and having kept all of those in digital, 

if not hard copy, then I would be fine! 

Should I need more detail- all I had to do was pop my pen drive in and pull up the relevant lesson plan. Of course, I have continued to formally plan on the school's planning sheets for observations but other than that I haven't looked back! 

So...

Yep I took the plunge! It was a hard choice between the Life and Teacher planner for me but having read Sailing into Second's post and watching Dairy of a Not So Wimpy Teacher's video about how they use their Teacher Planners I was sold! 

My Erin Condren Teacher Planner is on its way…I can't wait! 

If you decide this is for you or if you already have one but would like something else from her store then why not use my discount code?! 

https://www.erincondren.com/referral/invite/lauratodhunter0921

How do you choose to plan? Are you a Condren Convert? 

I'd love to know...