Use Of A Personal Diary In Secondary Teaching

Personally, I found that an A4 size diary is more useful than the commercial ‘Teachers Diary’. A week to a double page is sufficient for your needs. I have found the commercially produced teacher’s diary to be too bulky and ‘one size fits all’ does not suit my requirements.

A school student’s diary can serve in this role as well. It has the advantage of already having a school calendar included as well as school times and rules for easy perusal.

In my diary I had these items:

• The roll of each class I taught.
• The roll of sporting and other extra-curricular activities
• The calendar of all school events pasted in. I also write the personal ones in the diary by date.
• Assessment/formal examinations dates
• Deadlines for reporting
• My weekly timetable, period times, rooms
• List of exams I need to set and my marking schedule.
• Daily lesson topics only – no planning
• Record of student problems, punishments, my action to improve their behaviour, its success or otherwise and any referrals to other professionals and the results of that referral. Use pages in the rear of your diary to make fuller records after your initial record is noted on the day of the incident.
• Absenteeism and truancy issues
• Assessment issues of students, e. g. lateness, cheating/collusion and so on
• Often sick students, learning, assessment and reporting issues
• Parent/teacher meetings with agenda plus decisions taken and follow up plans.
• My absences – sickness, professional development, special meetings, school camps
• Staff and department meeting’s agenda
• Sporting fixtures with venues, times, results
• A record of meetings with the Principal, especially when parents are complaining about your performance or treatment of their child. Record what transpires and what decisions are made.
• Record any health, behavioural and learning data on classes here with any instructions especially regarding emergency health related treatment.

In these diaries, there are always plenty of spare pages to use for other things. Here are some examples:

• A record of all assessment results including practice assessment. You would need to paste in a photocopy of the reporting page for each class.
• Roll of sporting teams
• Records of department meetings and what action is required.
• My personal and professional goals for the term, semester and year and my action plan to go with these goals.
• A summary of the work program for each class you teach.

This became my most important working document. It went with me every day and everywhere I went. I always made sure that it was easy to see so that I would not forget to take it with me. I used bright stickers from my favourite sporting team to make it always visible.

It is important to keep your diaries at home for future use. It is amazing how often the information in a past diary comes in handy to solve a future problem.

At the end of each year, I would peruse my diary to see what I had actually achieved. I often thought that my year had been uneventful. However, the diary showed me I had achieved much more than I realised.