Career as Teacher

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Do secondary school teachers have enough sleep/rest?
Other than lesson prep, there are other committee work and CCA.

What time you guys end work and rest?

1. Be resourceful. Balance your own workload. For example, work with others for lesson prep AND there are many resources out there to help you with lesson prep. Don’t start building it from scratch. Innovate. What can you do with little time but maximum output? Do you need to mark every single piece of work in order for your student to achieve good results?

2. Prioritise. What do you need to clear first? Which piece of work has the most impact? Can you delegate some pieces of work out? Not everything needs to be done by yourself. Eg. For CCA, can your students do the planning of weekly programmes and you monitor for safety/budget?

If you do not help yourself, there is very little that the system can help you. Many seasoned teachers do leave sch before 5pm (some days might be even earlier) and only have to chase marking deadlines during peak periods like exam period. Other than that, it is all about being resourceful and prioritising.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Would anyone mind sharing the joys and challenges of being an AYH / YH? Thank you in advance

YH is quite a silly post though. Maybe 5-6 years ago, not common at all, and it was at most an unofficial internal appointment and called "level coordinator".. Must be too many teachers hence need to create such jlb posts.

AYH looks at a particular level eg just Sec 1 level matters, while YH is a HOD post looking at a few levels eg lower sec collectively, or upper sec collectively.

It’s a lot about taking care of various student matters eg attendance, student well-being, peer relationship issues, working closely with counsellors on cases, engaging parents etc. Need to work with multiple KPs on student matters and programmes, eg with HOD CCE on events such as national day, academic KPs for the release of national exam results etc.

Scope very very big. Basically almost every student matter is part of YH role

Originally Posted by Unregistered

AYH looks at a particular level eg just Sec 1 level matters, while YH is a HOD post looking at a few levels eg lower sec collectively, or upper sec collectively.

It’s a lot about taking care of various student matters eg attendance, student well-being, peer relationship issues, working closely with counsellors on cases, engaging parents etc. Need to work with multiple KPs on student matters and programmes, eg with HOD CCE on events such as national day, academic KPs for the release of national exam results etc.

Scope very very big. Basically almost every student matter is part of YH role

the people aspect of teaching is one of the toughest part. many teachers fail to see this when they join thinking that if one puts in all effort on teaching the curriculum, they will succeed

by people aspect, i refer to pupils, parents, fellow colleagues and bosses

Thank you to those who shared your insights regarding the AYH / YH post. I’m currently preparing to take on such an appointment and your inputs are valuable.

Anybody has applied for PGS and successful in getting it (ie shortlisted for interview, managed to go through interview and secure scholarship)?

Is CEP a huge factor in terms of being shortlisted in the first place?

[CWP]

Hi all, can I ask if there is a lead time to 'throw letter'? need to give x number of months in advance notice?

Originally Posted by CWP

Hi all, can I ask if there is a lead time to 'throw letter'? need to give x number of months in advance notice?

no no such thing

Originally Posted by Unregistered

1. Be resourceful. Balance your own workload. For example, work with others for lesson prep AND there are many resources out there to help you with lesson prep. Don’t start building it from scratch. Innovate. What can you do with little time but maximum output? Do you need to mark every single piece of work in order for your student to achieve good results?

2. Prioritise. What do you need to clear first? Which piece of work has the most impact? Can you delegate some pieces of work out? Not everything needs to be done by yourself. Eg. For CCA, can your students do the planning of weekly programmes and you monitor for safety/budget?

If you do not help yourself, there is very little that the system can help you. Many seasoned teachers do leave sch before 5pm (some days might be even earlier) and only have to chase marking deadlines during peak periods like exam period. Other than that, it is all about being resourceful and prioritising.

T&L aside, there are many workshops, programmes and committee work arrowed downwards to the younger officers. FT duties as well. Or some misc random KPI some SLs or KPs are demanding for periodically. Even with proper planning, many teachers end up with "no life" like what a previous poster mentioned.

And since we're discussing about this...Is there an unspoken advantage old/elderly teachers or KPs have? They are always assigned the more well behaved or higher ability classes, while the lower ability and challenging classes are assigned to the GEO 2s and 3s. They are also more successful in rejecting and pushing the workload to the younger officers.

For e.g. "I cannot take 5 classes this year because I have a family to take care of" or "I'm not good at ICT, it's better for the young teachers to handle this". And the HOD conveniently shifts this workload to the younger teachers since "they are not married/do not have kids/are supposed to be more energetic/are better at ICT".

Originally Posted by Unregistered

YH is quite a silly post though. Maybe 5-6 years ago, not common at all, and it was at most an unofficial internal appointment and called "level coordinator".. Must be too many teachers hence need to create such jlb posts.

Wah how long have you been away from school to think YHs are jlb? The positions were carved out to offload VPs and SD/student management heads, and provide another layer with management authority to support Form Teachers with challenging matters dealing with students.

Jlb my ass.. they go home the latest among all of us in the HOD room.