How many hours do you work a week?

Kirby42 wrote: »

I'm a new teacher... trying to figure out how much work I should be taking on. I've gone through a few different careers in my time and I've always been looking for that elusive work/life balance. How many hours would you say you spend working a week between teaching/marking/planning?

It depends on the week. For example around exams such as Christmas summer and mocks I'd have extra corrections but less planning to do as some students are doing exams. I'm heavily involved in two extra curricular activities one of which involves staging a show once year, so natually that's a busy time too. On average I work 8.15 to 6 Monday to Thursday. Fridays I work 8 to 3. At the weekend then I usually do between 4-6 hours but once a month or so I don't do any work at the weekend. I try not to bring work home during the week but the odd time I'd do a couple of hours one evening a week too.

That's based on teaching English and History and having 2 exam classes ( one in third year, one in sixth year) i think thesubjects you teach and groups you have influences the workload.

Sorry forgot to say: Get a 15 minute small break every day, 40 mins lunch 3 days (do lunch time duty the other day and don't take lunch Friday) also I dohve free classes but am mostly disciplined and spend that text correcting or planning but I take a break and chat to my colleagues sometimes too.

agree with RealJohn
early yrs are tough you are still planning & evaluating every class and making your own resources a lot of the time.
try to stay in school and get as much done as you can
Don't go to the staffroom for free classes - spend it in an empty room or the library planning/correcting.
It does totally depend on subjects though -- history & english will have a lot of correcting for example; I know the practical subjects in our school are constantly tidying equipment cleaning up.after a practical etc. or setting up experiments.

i hate to say it but if you went into teaching thinking you'd have an easier work/life balance and your day ended at 3.30 you poorly misjudged

168
Or at least that’s what it feels like since the new JC science course came in
All these hours being put in and I know in my heart of hearts they are hours wasted because it will 100% change back within the next few years

And here we have the beginning of it
https://www.thejournal.ie/history-junior-cert-4344972-Nov2018/
schools have completely changed their timetables around based on change in number of core /optional subjects
Geography will inevitably follow suit
And we are right back where we began

Teaching - 22 hours
Prep - 1-2 hours seniors cycle
5 hours per week junior Cycle Science new course - making Earth and Space PowerPoints and resources and finding articles and making up questions for them is taking ages.
Marking - 3-5 hours
Co-curricular - 3 hours
Pastoral stuff - 1-2 hours per week

Min hours - 35
Max hours - 39

km79 wrote: »

168
Or at least that’s what it feels like since the new JC science course came in

Me too. I'm killing myself cos due to various circumstances I basically have to prepare the whole course (1st, 2nd & 3rd year) for the first time this year. I don't even remember having to put in this much effort when I started teaching 13 years ago! But then again I had a hell of a lot more free time and less personal committments as a new teacher. I'm a firm believer in not making a half baked effort so I'm hoping it'll pay off and will make the next few years a bit easier. Throw in not being around for CBA1 last year and now having to face CBA2 and it for the first time this year and my head is just above water most of the time though. So tough!

Mr_Muffin wrote: »

Whatever my contract at the time states. No more, no less.

When do you do corrections so ?
What subjects do you teach ?

I haven't ever tried counting it but answering email after email, is taking up a lot more of my time lately.

I would do at least 15 hours on top of the 21.40 and let's not forget the CP hour and other bits and bobs [emails, photocopying,phone calls], so I would estimate a 38-40 hour week Sept - February and a 50 hour week March-May.

I do feel that the workload depends largely on the subject and mine being mainly English and always honours classes,is hugely time consuming. I was posting on another thread that I generally do about 6 hours on a Sunday. If I've something on the occasional Sunday, that work gets done over Friday and Monday evening. That 6 hours is generally just prep. I do the marking on week nights but from Sept-March I try to keep one or two evenings free. I always keep Saturday free but effectively I work a 6 day week. From March- May it's all marking and revision notes and while I still keep Saturdays free, there's no free evening.

My workload has increased quite significantly with the new JC. I don't do extra curricular, I did in my younger years and in less pressured times, but nowadays I think that teachers giving free labour on top of their heavy workloads, is downright crazy.