Calling HLTAs (Higher Level Teaching Assistants, to those not in the know!) – we haven’t forgotten you! We create stationery for all kinds of people that work in and around schools, and we think our Undated Teacher Planner is ideal for HLTAs with teaching responsibilities. No two HLTA roles look the same – some may be based in one classroom and asked to provide cover, while others may float around the school with lots of different tasks. With a schedule that can be a little all over the place and may change last minute, a good planner is essential for keeping things straight, making notes, and keeping good records of what you’ve been up to. Let’s dive in to how our Undated Teacher Planner can help you as a Higher Level Teaching Assistant.
Weekly Pages
The weekly pages in our Undated Teacher Planner have the same layout as our dated Teacher Planner, with 6 large boxes plus a smaller box at the top and at the bottom. The difference is, there are no dates and not even days of the week listed. This means if you only have teaching responsibility on some days of the week, you can just use it for those days. Take a look at our example below – this HLTA has got 2 lessons to teach on a Monday and used a column for each, one for year 3 and one for year 4. This way you can write down some details on the lesson you’ll be teaching so you’ve got everything you need right there – like how our example HLTA used the top box to write out a list of things they need to prep for the lesson.
Since our Teacher Planners are designed with boxes rather than timeslots, you can use these flexibly as well. If you’ve got 2 lessons to teach in one day and want to just keep it all in one column, you can split the column in half and write lesson notes for your first lesson in the top 3 and for the second lesson in the bottom 3.
You can also colour code things for the day – highlight lesson notes in one colour, and use another colour for the more supportive tasks rather than teaching tasks. If you teach one on one sessions these can be another colour, and whole-school activities like assemblies could be another. If you spend your time all across the school with different groups, colour coding can be a great way to keep track of which hat you’ll need and when!
Monthly Planning
The Undated Teacher Planner has 12 double-page monthly spreads, so you have 12 months worth of planning. You don’t have to use it consecutively, you don’t even have to use it every month! If you have a particularly busy month, like December, you could use two; one for your teaching timetable, and one for school-wide activities and events you need to prep for and participate in.
This is another great place for color-coding. If your schedule looks different in different days, you can highlight accordingly so you can quickly see the kind of work you’re doing. You can also see things in advance so you know what to prep for. Being an HLTA can be a bit of a juggle sometimes, so filling up your monthly calendar means you can refer to it and see when you have things coming up that you need to prep for – whether that’s doing prep yourself, or asking others what they’re going to need from you so you can plan your time accordingly.
Year Planning
The Undated Teacher Planner has all of the curriculum and lesson planning that the dated Teacher Planner does, but without any date info. Feel free to use these in whatever way suits you best! You’ll have 6 copies of each type of planning page, like term planners, so there is enough for a school year with 6 terms, but you don’t have to use it that way.
You could use the long term overview’s rows to keep track of the focuses for each subject for each year group you’ll be working with, so you’re aware what’s going on and what else they’ve been learning when you enter the classroom. You could also use multiple timetables if you work with classes that have different schedules, like if the upper and lower school have different break times.
Teacher Focus
The teacher focus section of the planner is largely the same as the dated Teacher Planner except – you guessed it! – without the dates. This means that the undated planner is a central place not just to manage your work, but to focus on yourself and your role in the school. You can keep your staff meeting and briefing notes all in one place, which is helpful if you’re always dotted around the school, since you can just carry this with you wherever you're working. It’s B5, which is a more compact size than A4, so it can fit neatly into a handbag and you can always have the information you need.
There are also pages for you personally, like a place to track your professional development so you can keep a record of the various trainings and experience you’ve got over the year. There are also pages for your goals and your wellbeing, so you can take a moment each day to track a habit and check in with how you’re doing.
Click here to see our full breakdown of what's inside the Undated Teacher Planner
