A Teacher's Day: On Paper vs Reality

The timetable says the day starts at 8:55am. Here is what actually happens.

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**8:30am — on paper**: Preparation time.

**8:30am — in reality**: A child is waiting outside your classroom because they want to tell you about their dog. Another child arrives crying because of something that happened on the walk in. A teaching assistant wants to discuss a note from a parent that arrived late yesterday. You set up the morning activity with one hand while eating the breakfast you didn't have time to eat at home with the other.

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**8:55am — on paper**: Morning registration. Calm, settled start.

**8:55am — in reality**: Registration, yes. Calm: approximately half the class. Settled: most of them. Three children want to tell you something that is not urgently important but feels urgently important to them. One child has lost their PE kit. This is the seventh week they have lost their PE kit. This is being dealt with by a process that involves the office, the parents, and a note in the homework diary that nobody signs. The note is yours to write.

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**9:15am — on paper**: Literacy lesson, as per planning.

**9:15am — in reality**: Literacy lesson, as per a broadly similar plan to the one you wrote, adjusted for the fact that yesterday's lesson didn't land quite the way you expected and several children need the concept re-explained from a different angle. The first re-explanation doesn't land either. You try a third approach. This takes eleven minutes longer than the plan assumed. You will adjust somewhere else. You're not sure where yet.

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**10:30am — on paper**: Break time, 15 minutes. Staff prepare for next lesson.

**10:30am — in reality**: Break duty for two teachers, not including you. You go to the staffroom to use the photocopier. The photocopier has a paper jam. You resolve the paper jam. You make coffee. Someone asks you a question about the class trip email. You answer it. You did not prepare for the next lesson. You will do this in your head on the walk back.

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**11:00am — on paper**: Numeracy lesson.

**11:00am — in reality**: One child arrives back from break crying. Something happened with a friend. This takes four minutes to resolve sufficiently to start teaching. You start teaching. One child needs a sensory break. Another child has forgotten that they're supposed to be doing a reading test with the SENCO this period, and the SENCO is now at your classroom door. You redirect that child. You teach the rest. It goes reasonably. Not the best lesson you've taught. Better than some.

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**12:00pm — on paper**: Lunch, 45 minutes. Planning and preparation.

**12:00pm — in reality**: Lunch. You eat in twelve minutes. You spend the remaining time writing a note to a parent, responding to an email from the SENCO, updating one child's behavior log, and starting the planning you intended to do at 8:30. You do not finish the planning. You will finish it at 3:40.

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**1:00pm — on paper**: Science lesson.

**1:00pm — in reality**: Science lesson. This one goes well, actually. Children are making circuits and they're engaged and the noise is productive and you walk around the room and several children show you something they're proud of and you are reminded of why you do this job.

This happens more often than the rest of the list suggests. It's just harder to narrate.

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**2:00pm — on paper**: Foundation subjects and reading groups.

**2:00pm — in reality**: Reading group runs slightly over. Art project runs slightly over. Someone spills red paint. It is not a small spill. The cleanup takes eight minutes and produces a level of classroom disruption that is difficult to convey in writing. You continue. You are calm. You are extremely calm. You are calm in a way that requires significant resources you will later need for other things.

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**3:20pm — on paper**: End of school.

**3:20pm — in reality**: Children leave. Most of them say goodbye. Some of them are collected, some go to after-school club. Two children cannot find their coats. One coat is found; one coat is not found. A parent who said they needed a 'quick word' needs approximately twelve minutes. A different parent waves from the gate to signal they are happy and their child is happy and everything is fine, which takes thirty seconds and is the best part of the afternoon.

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**3:40pm — on paper**: Planning and preparation time.

**3:40pm — in reality**: Planning and preparation time. Also: three emails. Tidying the classroom. Finishing the parent note. Staring briefly out the window at the now-empty playground. Starting tomorrow's planning, finishing half of it, deciding that half is good enough.

**5:00pm**: Go home. On the bus, think about science. The circuit lesson. The child who showed you the working bulb with genuine delight. That's the one you'll remember.

The rest is just the job.