Reflecting on the Past School Year: Lessons Learned

By Holly Murray

As I sat down to write this blog, I asked myself how honest I could really be, because let’s face it, working in education the last few years has been incredibly challenging. Larger class sizes, the lingering impacts of the pandemic and several other elements have been stretched beyond anything I could have ever imagined when I began my teaching career.

BUT…. All that aside, I still love my job. Every year I get a little wiser and have learned that minor changes to my planning and time management have had huge impacts for me. This blog post will be an honest reflection on what I have learned over the last year or two.

Back to the staffroom once again

During the pandemic, everyone was separated into various locations throughout the school for break and lunchtimes. People had gotten used to not eating in the staffroom together, and this has taken a year or two to return to normal. I found myself some days eating and working in a free room and not socialising with my colleagues and peers out of habit.

That all changed this year. I made a conscious decision to sit in the staffroom for every lunchtime, and it made a huge difference. I also made the decision to not ‘work’ during my lunch break, as this had become a habit for me. This is such an important social aspect of school life, one which I didn’t realise I missed so much until I began spending more time back there again. Sometimes we need to vent and just have a laugh at lunchtime.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) should be every teacher’s best friend

Every teacher needs AI in their life. I completed lots of CPD in this area last summer. As a senior cycle history teacher a higher-level essay is 8-10 paragraphs which is a considerable piece of work. Yes, I have built up numerous resources over the years, but with every group of students I need to be constantly updating my resources to allow for their needs. AI allows me to do this instantly, once given the correct prompts. I can now complete an essay, make differentiated copies, create translated copies and have it all uploaded in advance to Google classroom within twenty minutes or less.

Inspectors are always looking for differentiation within the classes, so this can instantly be done in the class with the correct prompt. Just AMAZING!! However, I still feel like some teachers are afraid of it. Yes, it is crucial to read the work that AI creates as there can be some errors, but it is still saving me so much time. It’s all about creating a work life balance and not sitting prepping work every single night of the week, and AI has certainly allowed that for me.

Time is Precious

Plan. Prioritise. Share. Repurpose.

As a Post-Primary Geography and History teacher, planning is crucial for me and correcting Higher Level essays can be very time consuming. I like to use my time wisely in school, so a free class period for me is all about planning or corrections. I try to get a large chunk of work done in the school building as much as possible.

I typically arrive in school with 40 minutes to spare, again to prep, print and read emails etc. Tricks like using the Voice Typing function in Google Docs for creating your Christmas or summer reports and for typing feedback for students have also saved me so much time, in the past. I also use Helperbird in Google Docs to read back my comments or feedback to me, to avoid any errors. Saving a batch of comments in a Google Doc and adjusting accordingly each year can also save you so much time.

Don’t be afraid to say NO. School life is 100mph most of the time, so never be afraid to say “No, sorry, I don’t have time to commit to this right now”. This is a new one even for me, but it’s important to remember you can’t do everything.

Also, I can’t emphasise the importance of working together and sharing resources within a department, enough. This, down the line saves so much prep time. I am very fortunate to work in two fantastic subject departments, and we all add to our shared subject drives. Then only small tweaks are needed to the resources depending on what class groups you have each year. This allows me to have a few evenings a week that I don’t have schoolwork to do, and my family time is not interrupted. I think the older I get, this is becoming more and more important to me.

Organisation is Key

I schedule all my work on Google Classroom before my classes, or 90% of the time, anyway. Every Sunday morning, I plan my week ahead. I only plan one week at a time as school life is so busy and classes may not always go as planned.

Google Classroom for me is my digital diary. I plan and schedule assignments and reminders for my classes. Topics keep all my work super organised. I love that I can go back into old archived Google Classrooms and check what resources I used in previous years with previous groups. I can check back where I was at in the syllabus the previous year which keeps me on track as every group is so different. This helps if I need to speed up the pace I am teaching a particular topic.

When I went on maternity leave my replacement couldn’t start immediately, so I was able to communicate with my Leaving Cert classes and post work for them, so they did not lose out on tuition time. This really took the stress away and eased the “teacher guilt” of not being there to support them in person. Teaching is probably the only job where you work when you’re off…. FACT!!

Highlight of my Year: School Show and the overwhelming kindness from my students

The highlight of my school year is always our school’s variety concert which is held in December every year in our local theatre. I am a member of the core team which consists of four other amazing teachers who give up every Friday evening from 4-6pm from September to December. We rehearse once a week until the end of October then usually three evenings a week right up until we are on stage. All in our own free time outside of school hours. It is a massive commitment, but our students love it and so do we. It’s an amazing opportunity to bond with the students and simply have a bit of fun.

I was on maternity leave this year when our show was in the Balor Theatre, but I still made it side stage every night to support the students and simply because I didn’t want to miss out on all the fun.

The kindness I was shown by my students this year when I went on maternity leave was something I will never forget. Cards, flowers, gifts etc. it just blew me away. Never underestimate the little things you do for your students because trust me they notice it all.

Finally, what three things could I not have survived this year without:

1. Google Translate
2. Google Classroom
3. SayHi App on my phone to communicate with my EAL students.