Buckland Weekly #33: Paperwork

When I worked as a teacher in college, in England, I had to spend far more time doing paperwork than I ever spent teaching. If you have worked in a school or college in a western country you will be familiar with the problem. In addition to lesson plans I had to do group profiles, individual learning plans (updated monthly), schemes of work, assessment schedules, Every Child Matters documentation, risk assessments,  exam results tables (for real and practice exams) and, it seemed, other endless forms that had to be filled in, checked, authorized and filed.

It was one of the reasons I eventually just decided to throw it all in and come teach in China. It’s the number one reason that teachers who leave the profession cite as being behind their decision to quit.

Things are certainly different for foreign teachers here in China.

The ONLY piece of paperwork that you HAVE to complete is your weekly lesson plan for each class. It’s possible that some schools will ask for other things but it isn’t common and even if they ask for everything that I have come across in six years here it still won’t amount to more than a tiny fraction of that asked for routinely back home.

With that said there are some pieces of paperwork that I find it useful to have. The school I am at, at the moment, hasn’t asked me for these but I do them anyway because they help me so I’d like to give you an idea of what I do. If you find these ideas useful then use them. If not, and if your school doesn’t want them, then feel free not to.

A Scheme of Work/Record of Work

At the start of the year I prepare, for each level that I am teaching, a scheme of work for the whole semester. Usually it’s almost the same as the one from last year but with dates and class numbers changed. It has one row for each week – there are usually fewer than twenty teaching weeks in a semester - and columns headed

Week Number, Week Start Date, Week End Date, Topic, Notes, and one column for each class at the level.

The first three of those are obvious. In the column headed topic I put the topic that I intend to teach that week. (For example: Animals, House and Home, Describing People.) In the Notes column I put anything I need to remember about what the lesson(for example: “vocabulary of rooms and contents in the house”, “lesson focus on possessives – this is my/your etc”) and other things, perhaps not directly about the lesson content, that I also need to know (for example “wider vocabulary range for class 1” or “check that quiz answers are up to date”.)

The other columns – the ones for each class – I leave blank for the moment. As the term progresses I fill them in with the following codes. Y – lesson was taught to this class, C – lesson was cancelled by the school, S – lesson was cancelled because I was sick, L – lesson was cancelled because I needed to take leave, X – lesson was cancelled for some other reason.

If I subsequently teach a lesson to a class that I missed in the week it was due I go back and change the code to R – lesson was repeated at a later date.

I find this document useful for all sorts of reasons.

                It gives me an overall plan for the semester

                It lets me see at a glance if any classes missed a particular lesson

                (And that lets me see if there is a lesson I can redo for a class if I am suddenly asked to teach an extra lesson to them.)

                It can, if needed be presented to the school both as a record of completed work and an indication of planned future work.

                The notes make sure that I don’t forget important things in the lesson.

Class Notes

I keep a short paragraph about each of the classes indicating anything that I need to know about that specific class. Are they notably stronger or weaker than other classes at their level? Do they have any discipline problems? Are there any physical problems with their classroom such as a computer that doesn’t work? Are there any particular types of activity that generally go well or go badly with that class?

I update this document as often as I need to. It isn’t something that needs to be presented to the school but it’s useful for you and will also help if the school asks you for a class by class report at the end of the semester.

Disciplinary Notes

Chinese students are mostly well behaved compared to their western counterparts but you will sometimes have problems because they are, after all, teenagers with all the attitudes and problems that can bring.

I keep a long of any major disciplinary issues that I have had to deal with.  It contains the date, class number, student name (if it’s relevant and I know it), whether or not I had to report it to their class teacher (home room teacher) and what, if anything, the school did about it.

This can, if you have to, be shown to the school, and will be evidence that you are not complaining about a non-existent problem.

Exam Documentation

You are very unlikely to be asked to do exams with your students. Unfortunately, my current school does want exams (though this year I am experimenting with a more continuous assessment style of grading). I have a couple of forms I use for this but if your school requires something of the sort it would be unlikely to match exactly with the way I have to do it.

Schools often fail to realize the logistical difficulties of doing an oral exam for a class of eighty students. Their thinking is that every other subject can be examined for a whole class in forty minutes so why can’t yours?  It can be quite hard to convince them that you need at least a few minutes for EACH student to do an oral exam – and even that is woefully inadequate when it comes to providing any genuinely useful information.

If your school wants you to do exams talk to me about it and I will help you devise something suitable.

And that’s it. That’s all that I do, apart from lesson plans, and for most schools none of that is required. It is however useful and I’d recommend that you do it (apart from the exam documentation which you probably won’t need to do, anyway.)