One of the most important jobs that you have as a relief teacher is to write your notes at the end of the day. The classroom teacher has entrusted you with their class, and it’s essential that you let them know how the day went so that they are prepared for when they are back in action.
It is very important that you do this well. As a relief teacher, the classroom teacher is often the person who will be booking you for additional work. Even if this isn’t the formal process, if the classroom teacher is unhappy with how you took their class, they will let people know.
One of the key ways to get more work as a relief teacher is to impress the classroom teachers that you are covering for, even though they never see you actually work. The main way that you can do this is by writing good, detailed notes.
So what should you include in your notes? How can you ensure that they are as useful as possible?
Things that you need to include:
- How closely you followed their plan.
- Tasks that were completed.
- Difficulties that the students faced.
- Wins for the day.
- How the students behaved – both good and bad.
- Relevant contact with parents and other teachers.
Key things to remember:
Things to include in your notes:
How closely you followed their plan.
If the classroom teacher has left you a plan for the day, you need to let them know how closely you followed it.
All teachers know that things rarely go entirely to plan, so even if the classroom teacher has left you detailed notes, they know that you may not have stuck to it 100%. If you didn’t, it’s important that you let the teacher know exactly what you got though.
If you’re teaching in a Primary class, you may not have been left any notes. If this is the case, then you certainly need to let the classroom teacher know what you did and how it went.
This is essential so that the teacher can carry on from what you did when they get back. It gives them a better idea of where their students are starting from with their next lesson, including if they need to go back and touch on a few things or if they can steam ahead with something new.
Tasks that were completed.
You may have stuck to the teacher’s given plan, but not gotten everything done. Even more likely, some students got the work done and others didn’t.
If some students did not complete a particular task, make sure that you mention them by name in your notes. It is likely that the teacher will be able to guess which students it is likely to be, but it doesn’t look great when you don’t know the names of the students who struggled in your class for the day.
Some students may have finished everything and gone on with something else. This is also important for the teacher to know so that they can be prepared for their next lesson. Again, mention names so that the teacher knows exactly what happened in class.
Difficulties that the students faced.
It’s not enough to just say that half the class didn’t finish the task; you need to also let the teacher know why. Was it that you simply ran out of time, or was the task that they gave you too difficult? Were they just having a bad day, or did they try their hardest and still weren’t able to get there?
These are all important things for the classroom teacher to know. Be aware that a lot of this will come down to your judgement as a teacher; you may not have concrete evidence for why a particular student struggled with a task, especially if you only had them for one lesson. Give the teacher your thoughts though, and value your own judgement!
Wins for the day.
Don’t make your notes all doom and gloom! Make sure you highlight all of the good things that happened during the day too. It is tempting to just let them know what went wrong, but it is also essential that the classroom teacher knows if their plan worked wonderfully, or if the students responded particularly well to the lesson.
This is also a good time for you to show off a little! Tell them how much fun you had in their class, and how well-behaved their students were. Make sure not to brag, but it can be really heartwarming for a teacher to hear that things went well while they were away.
How the students behaved – both good and bad.
Name names! The teacher will probably be aware of which students are likely to give you a hard time, and if you’re lucky they will have warned you in their notes for the day. Regardless, it’s useful to give an update on those who were particularly unsettled as well as those who worked really hard.
This is essential as there may be some surprises in there. Some students are absolute angels for their usual teacher, but really act out when there is a relief teacher. The classroom teacher needs to be aware of this so that they can try and make it easier for you next time, and so that they can follow up with the student and their parents.
Letting the teacher know which students were well-behaved will also give them a good idea of how good of a relationship you were able to form with the class, and may give them a better feel for whether they want you to cover their class next time.
Relevant contact with parents and other teachers.
Sometimes as a relief teacher, you will hear things that you need to report back to the classroom teacher. A student may have given you a note from their parents, or you may have caught one of them either before or after school.
It isn’t always necessary to tell the teacher the details of these conversations, but it may be relevant to them. These are often things that get missed in notes and can lead to some awkward conversations with parents later on if you don’t make them aware of it.
You may also have had some conversations with other teachers that are relevant to put in your notes. Things like a particular student fighting with one of their students in the yard, or that the meeting tomorrow has been cancelled so that the teachers can write reports. These kinds of things are nice to enter into your notes, and the teacher will certainly appreciate it.
Key things to remember:
Keep it detailed.
You want to make sure that if you are talking about a particular student or group of students, you mention their names. Let the teacher know what subject or lesson a particular even occurred, and a time may also be useful.
It’s also useful to make it clear what student said. If a student said that they didn’t understand, say exactly that instead of that they didn’t understand the task. The classroom teacher knows a little more context than you do, and this may be a common avoidance tactic by this student. Making this distinction gives the teacher a better idea of what happened.
Keep it relevant.
There will be a lot of things that happened during the day that you don’t need to include in your notes. You don’t need to include every little thing that happened, so you will need to use your best judgement to include the things that the teacher would want to know.
The classroom teacher is probably home sick, and they don’t need pages and pages of notes to sift through. Make sure that you’re writing a short paragraph (5ish sentences at most) about each lesson or class, as well as possibly a summary of other things that they should be aware of.
Be honest.
If you struggled with their class, don’t hide it in your notes. Yes, you want to make yourself look good so that you will get more work, but you won’t be able to hide it if you struggled.
If a relief teacher has a bad day, you can be sure that the students will tell their teacher all about it when they get back. There have been countless times where I’ve seen very brief notes that suggest that everything went to plan, but then I get into class and the students say that the relief teacher had no clue what they were doing.
If you’re struggling, that’s okay. It will look far worse if you try to hide it. If you did struggle, make sure that you list all of the things that you tried so that it is clear that you did try and didn’t just try the one thing to control the class.
Thank you for writing great notes!
As a classroom teacher, having great notes when you get back to class makes a huge difference. It’s easy to feel like you’re letting your class down when you need to take a day off, so detailed notes really help us feel like everything was under control (even if you don’t feel like it was!)
What types of things do you usually include in your notes? Have you ever had any feedback on notes that you’ve written? Leave a comment down below!
