A day in the life of a Primary school Teacher
People I have spoken to over the years (who are not in the teaching profession or education sector) often make assumptions about teachers and teaching. Comments like, ‘you only work 9 till 3’ or ‘you’re on holiday most of the time aren’t you’ have often cropped up.
There are a lot of positives to teaching, and I both acknowledge and advocate the necessity for them. The holidays, as an example, are a substantial amount of time and I agree that on face value very appealing. The holidays have also been invaluable in terms of family time. With two young daughters, the amount of time I have been able to spend with them has been absolutely priceless. I have, however, spent a great many days and weeks of holidays in school, working on prepping my classroom, planning and resourcing or simply just trying to recover from the intensity of term time to save from burn-out.
The ‘9 till 3’ comment has always been a frustrating one. I have always been in work early (the latest being 8.15 ish when I am on drop off duty) and it has been rare that I have left school much before 5pm. Furthermore the number of hours that teachers put in during their evenings is often overlooked entirely. Days where I have left early have often meant even more working hours that evening.
In this piece, what I want to achieve is to set out an average day in the life of a Primary school teacher. It’s about acknowledging and understanding the real job that teachers do on a day-to-day basis, and realising that the job is both brilliant and unforgiving at times, mixed with feelings of achievement and guilt simultaneously for various different reasons. Every teacher will have had different experiences, and I don’t presume to know exactly how every teacher feels. But this is a reflection or summary of my fourteen years of experience in the classroom.
So here goes. A day in the life of a Primary school teacher:
The Wake Up Call
It’s Monday morning. Your alarm goes off to get ready for work. A teacher’s mind is already buzzing with thoughts and ideas. Have I planned all my lessons? Did I make the right resources? Are my interventions ready for the day? Is my teaching assistant being used for a school trip? Did I print x, y and z out on Friday after school? There are all sorts of thoughts that go through teacher’s minds at the start of the day, and whilst I’m not comparing this to other jobs and professions, this all starts at 6am!
Then the madness begins. I have two children (completely my choice), but the thoughts are paused for getting them dressed, feeding them, brushing their hair and teeth – followed by a melt down because they have a ponytail and not an ‘Elsa plait’. Then there is the discussion of who’s turn it is to drop the children off at morning club/pick up after school (both parents being teachers of course). Eventually, between children and parents, you are finally ready and set off. The kids are dropped off at 7.45am and finally some peace in the car. You eat your cold piece of toast that you managed to hastily butter before walking out the door and perhaps take a few swigs of a cup of tea in your travel mug, and then thoughts automatically switch back to school. Traffic gets in the way of your anticipated arrival, and you don’t arrive at your planned 8.15am. You enter the car park seeing several other staff cars there and wonder how long they have been in the building before you.
The ‘calm’ before the storm
I believe there was a time when you could get into school in the morning and have a nice cup of tea before things got officially started. In the fourteen years I have been teaching, this has rarely/never been the case. The ‘calm’ I refer to is more of a manic rush to get to the photocopier before Mr Smith gets there and prints off a whole week’s worth of resources when you only need one copy of something, or Miss Jones gets there first to the maths resource that you really need for your first lesson of the day. Then ensues the negotiating phase of when you can borrow Y4’s ipads whilst offering to return the favour after break time with Y5’s. That first half an hour of the day when teachers are getting organised can be the making of your day (in terms of preparation) so that you aren’t then rushing around during break and dinner times. Finally everything is organised, your TA has taken your trimming off of your hands and you sit down at your laptop to set up the morning activity for the children to do as they come in.
The school doors open
One of my favourite parts of the school day. The bell goes at 8.40am and the children are all lined up outside. You say morning to each and every one of them, their smiling faces beaming back at you. You listen to their stories as they come into the classroom. What they got up to at the weekend, where they went for dinner for their birthday on Saturday night. ‘You went to Nandos! What did you have? I normally go for a pitta, with extra peri sauce. You mean you didn’t have peri peri salt on your chips! Unbelievable’. Its an opportune time to continue building relationships with them from the minute they arrive, and they love it.
This can also be a tricky time though too. Often you have no idea whether the children have had a nice weekend or a difficult one. Children can have that Monday morning dread, an argument can happen just before the bell goes over who is picking up the football to take it inside. This is also a time where teachers take on a multitude of roles, caring for children who may have come in nervous, worried or upset, having ‘meet and greet’ sessions set up with teaching assistants for children who need a confidence boost at the start of the day, holding children to account for their parts in those frustrating arguments that have happened just before they walk in, and doing all of this so that the children are ready to start their day. All of this before the register at 8.50am!
The good stuff
A lot happens during the school day. You take the register and then you kick things off. The morning usually consists of English, Maths, reading and spelling activities. You engage the children with hooks and introduce them to new ideas through different texts, stimulating the children’s curious minds and encouraging them to communicate their ideas with each other, ask further questions and dig deeper into why they think what they think. In Maths, fluency of skills is built upon and then reasoning and problem solving is developed. The children you teach feel challenged by their learning in a positive way and grapple with it. Some show amazing resilience, some feel less confident. Children are supported in different groups by you and possibly a teaching assistant if available. You get to the end of each lesson and feel like the children have really grasped the concepts that you’re trying to teach them. Then in your plenary you reassess and realise that they haven’t, but its okay because you will continue to work on and develop the skills that they have found challenging.
In between all of this is break time. This might be an opportunity for a quick breather, or it might be another dash to the photocopier and trimmer for the resources you forgot to print at the start of the day. A child in your class appears in your classroom and wants to talk about something they are worried about or something that has upset them. There are so many hats that a teacher has to wear at various times in a day.
Similar to the start of the school day, the re-entering of the classroom is a really important time. Unresolved issues need resolving and leaving at the door. You are the first line of defence in terms of ensuring the children are entering the classroom prepared and ready to learn. More pastoral work may be necessary at this time in order to avoid arguments and further issues arising when you eventually start the next lesson. All part of the day’s work. You make it to dinner time and can finally take a breath.
Dinner (or lunch) time and beyond
At the start of dinner time, a child comes again to speak to you about an issue that they have. You do your best to resolve it and ensure they feel happy and can go and enjoy their dinner time. You take time to have your lunch in the staff room. Everyone chats and laughs about things that happened over the weekend and the events of the day so far. You head back to class and mark a few books to save a bit of time after school. Someone comes to ask you about an email you sent about the Geography staff meeting that you are leading this week. Then there are more resources to get ready for the afternoon’s design lesson. You’re making structures using triangles to ensure that they are strong enough for the task. The 45 minute lunch break has quickly been taken up by lots of different tasks but you’re ready to start the afternoon and have a great time with the children.
Again, the re-entry after dinner. Most dinner times there is some issue around friendships where one child has said something another child didn’t like or a child has looked at another in the wrong way and they didn’t like it. Today though, everything is hunky-dory and the children come in, put their coats away and sit down swiftly. You notice that one of the children doesn’t look too happy though whilst taking the register. You make a mental note to speak to them once the afternoon’s lesson has begun to make sure they are okay.
You begin the afternoon’s lesson. The children are really engaged and love the practical nature of the session. They are working in teams and you are encouraging them to take on different roles. You step back for a moment to assess where each group is up to and take in the marvel that is children working together and supporting one another to be successful. You remember the child who didn’t look happy during registration. You check in with them briefly but they are more than happy doing what they are doing. You make another mental note just to keep an eye on them over the coming days and have a conversation with them at an appropriate time. At the end of it all, each group’s learning is perfectly imperfect. All of the structures are different. All are unique. And all are reflective of the different levels of understanding within the class. As a whole group, you look at the structures and consider what has gone well and evaluate how things could be developed and improved next time. The day ends with a story. You’re reading a book that the children are enthralled with and always want to know more about. After reading you organise the children with all of their things. You send children to after school club, netball club and homework club. You return the children to their parents waiting at the classroom door at 3.20pm. Any issues are passed on to parents so that they are aware of them. The time is now 3.30pm and you have two children who haven’t been picked up. You take them down to the office and make phone calls to parents. One is stuck in traffic and the other appears imminently having been running late.
After the children go home
Most people think that a teacher’s day ends here, but there are further aspects to the job that continue after half past three. You check through some of your plans for the next day, print and gather resources that are needed, mark books that you weren’t able to mark in the lessons. There are pieces of learning that you really want to get backed and put up onto a display. As History subject leader, you have a network meeting at 4pm until 5pm via zoom, discussing how you can build enquiry into history learning across your school. During the meeting, you try and mark a few more books. Another teacher comes in while you are on the meeting. You mute yourself so that you can speak to them about the resource they need or the SEND child they just want a bit of advice about because you taught them last year. You resume your meeting and try and catch up. The meeting overruns until 5.15pm and you forgot that you are on the pick up for your own children. You dash out of the door, grabbing your laptop and any books that still need marking and hope not to hit too much traffic on your way home.
The evening beckons
You arrive home and sort out the dinner. If you have children like me, there is snack time, dinner time, afters time and ‘I’m still hungry’ time. This is followed by trying to complete house jobs whilst being asked to play games etc. Then its bedtime. This can take between 15 minutes and 2 hours. Assuming it runs smoothly and you get downstairs in one piece, there are other general house tasks to do and then… the mind turns back to work. What resources do I still need to create for tomorrow? What am I teaching in Science next week? Which books do I still need to mark? The laptop comes out and between 1 and 3 hours of work commences. Whilst planning a lesson the programme crashes. When it restarts only half of it has saved. Sometimes your laptop tells you that the battery is about to run out. Moments later it switches off before you’ve even been able to finish typing the sentence you were in the middle of. Your daughter comes downstairs saying that they can’t sleep and you go and lie with them, falling asleep for half an hour in the process. You come back down, still with at least an hour of work to do. Finally at 11ish, you turn off the laptop and head up to bed. Ready to go again tomorrow.
Teaching is a wonderful job. A job where every day is different and you get to develop so many of your own skills whilst developing young minds. It doesn’t always run smoothly, and there are a lot of parts to it that I think a lot of people don’t fully realise. If you add up the number of hours a teacher works per week, its probably around 55 hours. And that is before even taking into consideration further subject leadership tasks and senior leader roles where the person is still predominantly classroom based.
It’s intense, and I wanted to write about this intensity so that those of you out there in our classrooms know that you are not alone. You are amazing at what you do, and the importance of what you do is recognised. All teachers are heroes and the level of commitment that you show on a daily basis is incredible.