It has been suggested that the concentration span of an average student is about 10-15 minutes... yet our lessons last on average 40-60 minutes! It's no wonder one of our biggest struggles in the classroom is to maintain our students' attention and behaviour. Fortunately, there are some tips and tricks we can use to maintain concentration all lesson long, and one of the best tools I've found to do this, is to use countdown timers!

There are a variety of countdown timers available to you, check out this post on awesome countdown timers for the classroom to see some of the options. In this post however, you're going to learn some fun ways you can use countdown timers to get the most out of your students' concentration all lesson long:


1) Rotation Station
Rotation Stations are excellent ways of getting all your students up and moving and involved in their learning. It can also encourage excellent collaboration too as students are working together to discuss the work you set in each rotation.

However, they can go belly up if you don't have some kind of time management tool in place. With the use of countdown timers, you can manage the rotation station activity in a couple of ways: for younger students who might need a more controlled environment, you can give students a certain amount of time in each station. ​The use of a countdown with some kind of noise or signal at the end can be great for alerting students that the time is up - it helps them learn time management and also means that there's much less input from you required too, which is great! 

For your older students, they might benefit from less control from you which will help them learn time management skills independently. As I teach teens, I like to issue 20 minutes for my rotation station activities and then tell them they need to work at their own pace to self manage their time to ensure they get round to each station. This works really well in my classroom as my students will take ownership to check the timer on the board and work out when they need to be moving on to the next station!

Below are some resources that will help you set up your own Rotation Stations for any subject and age group. You can use these editable and printable resources to put into the Tolsby IKEA frames (as seen pictured below) or any photo frames really, and have them by each station to help students navigate the room. You can read more about how to set up your own rotation stations here.

The other resource is a set of countdown timers that are downloadable for you to embed into your own PowerPoint if you choose, or they can be used alone. These have the added benefit of not requiring internet access and there are no pesky ads to worry about either:

2) Tidying Up
Another great use for countdown timers is when it comes to tidying up! Parkinson's Law has a well known adage that states that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". In other words, if you start tidying up 10 minutes before the bell but don't set and enforce a time limit, your students will take right up until the end of lesson bell to tidy up, which is not ideal if you want to fit in a reflection activity.

But, if you tell them they only have 2 minutes, you best believe they will do it in 2 minutes and seeing a visual like the countdown timer for PowerPoint resource listed above, will mean that students can see the bar decreasing and will be able to manage time more effectively to get your classroom spick and span quickly!


3) Public Speaking
Here you can use Parkinson's Law in an opposite way than the previous example! Sometimes when you get students up to speak in front of the class and practice their public speaking skills, you probably notice that some manage to get up and back in their seat before you've even had a chance to get your pen poised!

Well, if we know the work expands to fill the time available, then surely if we have a 2 minute timer in the background and tell them they need to fill that time then they'll have something further to add, right?! Right. It's a great tool for encouraging all students to be really thorough and explain their thoughts in more detail, especially because public speaking can mean fear kicks in and students might not get a chance to say everything they're thinking.


I hope these have given you some fun ways to use countdown timers in your classroom. Timers not only help your students, but they will help you too especially if time management is something you're always trying to work on! I know from being a mentor to new teachers, time management is often an area of focus and these timers will really help you keep on track and maintain pace in your lessons too.

Finally, remember Parkinson's Law: the work expands to fill the time available. If you want your students to remain focused and make outstanding progress in your lesson, then start using countdown timers and watch the magic happen! Remember, you can download these ready made countdown timers for use in your own PowerPoints right here!
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Do you ever feel like you’re trying to do so many things that you always feel like you’re chasing your tail trying to keep up? There is just always so much to do as a teacher, so in this episode you'll learn some practical things you can do to get ahead and save yourself some time in the long run.

If you want to hear the more conversational audio version of this post, you can listen to this podcast episode below: ​

It's important to get as much of a head start as we can in teaching, as once the school year starts we spend so much time trying to catch up, we end up feeling exhausted which can be damaging to our self-esteem.

If you're determined to get a head start this school year, here are a list of some things that you can do now to get yourself ahead:

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1) Label all the things 
Labelling is not just about being anal and obsessive: in a classroom setting it is absolutely vital, especially if you're a secondary teacher as you can have over 100 different students come through your classroom every day so they’re not likely to remember where everything is in the room! Therefore having things labelled saves so much stress as being constantly asked where things are is enough to drive anyone batty…!

2) Buy cards in bulk
I like to give birthday cards to my students, but 30 birthdays is a lot to prepare for and if you purchase cards individually you can be £3 each which gets pricey! So save time and money and bulk buy cards - I recommend Amazon as they have great deals and of course, it's delivered to your doorstep! Here are some affiliate links of a few of my favourites and BEST deals:

Having these cards to pull out on demand is so handy, especially if one birthday slips through the net and you forget and need a card last minute..! ? You can also do the same with thank you cards as well to acknowledge your colleagues and build positive relationships. Basically you want to make it really easy for yourself to give to others without it needing to become this big chore that you have to prepare for!


3) Write birthday cards in advance
Instead of writing students’ birthday cards the day before (or morning of in some cases ?) why not spend 20 minutes knocking them all out at once and having them ready to go so you can just pull them out in the morning of their birthday? How much time is that going to save! Simple but effective but getting ahead with this will save you so much time and stress in the long run.

4) Create a bulletin board that is timeless and where you can change pictures and content easily
This is one of my favourite tips. When I was first teacher training, the school I was working in had a rule where displays had to be changed every 6 weeks..! ? But they were right as after a few months, students stop noticing the displays and so they run their course.  We know it’s important to keep the boards fresh but in all honesty, it's the kind of thing that just falls to the bottom of the list. Hence timeless, dynamic boards! So spend time decorating the background and making it timeless and then have designated spaces for student work that can be easy swapped by use of paper clips or clothes pegs. This makes it easy to change up work; in fact, it’s so easy your students could be responsible for doing it for you - even better.


5) Write email templates to save time
Sometimes you’ll have occasions where you tend to be writing the same thing in response to colleagues or parents. In this case, have a bank of templates and keep them in your drafts or on a word document and just copy and paste. Oh the time you’ll save..!

6) Create sub tub or bank of resources for cover lessons or early finishers
This one is a life saver! You can keep a bank of resources on Google Drive so that when you're ill or going to be absent from school, you can just link to your resources in your Google Classroom or equivalent. That way, you can technically set work from your phone while in bed!
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But if you've not gone digital yet, the concept works with the paper option too - just have a cabinet of resources that your colleague can find and pull out worksheets to get going with. This also works for early finishers too. Just make sure it’s replenished when supply is low so you don’t get caught out with needing to photocopy at the last minute! This can be managed by putting a sheet of paper every 30 sheets or so that reminds you to restock. To make it even more organised for yourself, place this reminder in a plastic sleeve with the original at the back so you can simply pick up that reminder and place it on your desk / photocopy tray along with the original to remind you to do it. Or, if you're fortunate enough to have a TA or reprographics department who can help you out with photocopying, you can just give it to them! If you like this idea and want to use it, I have created a freebie of this photocopy reminder resource for you!

7) Use a bank of ready made report card statements
For some reason the mind goes blank when it comes to sitting down and writing reports... Hence hello templates! Here's afree PDF of report card comments that has some great starting points for you! You won’t be copying and pasting these statements exactly of course, but sometimes just seeing some examples or sentence starters will be a trigger to give you some inspiration and make the job so much quicker for you! 
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I hope these tips help you get ahead in your teaching and save you time in the long run; do something today that your future self with thank you for!

Starting a new school year with a fresh new group of students can be exciting but daunting too. Last year I was given a new group of 15 year olds to take under my wing, and I wanted to get to know them better so I could build relationships and support them the best way possible. I asked their previous teacher for some inside intel; while she knew them academically, I didn't learn something personal about each of them. So I had to come up with my own way of getting to know them without giving me too much extra work or awkward conversations, or a having a million papers to file! I decided to go down the Google route and it worked a treat. Keep reading to learn how you can do this too!

Firstly, let's address why it's so important to start a new school year with get to know you activities:

1. It's a gentle way to start the school year instead of plunging straight into the curriculum after a long break. No one is quiet ready for the heavy stuff as soon as we get back!

2. It helps you and your class bond and develop a positive classroom community. This will hopefully mean less conflicts and more support between peers.

3. It will make a positive impact on your behaviour management as the year progresses. Students respond better to teachers they know, like and trust!

I hope you enjoy getting to know your students this school year, whether you go digital or stick to the traditional paper route. It will make a world of difference in building relationships and having a great start to the year!