Oh NO - We've Planned Something !!

In the example we've just looked at, a deadline saying 'Year 11 Assessments Complete' is likely to be a school-wide deadline which will be used by the administration staff to produce reports for the school leadership. THIS IS NOT A TEACHER'S DEADLINE. The efficient teacher needs to ask what the department policy is for these assessments, and assuming the answer is 'We would like all teachers to give a written assessment to their Year 11 classes and translate the results into an approximate GCSE Grade', the efficient teacher needs to ADD THE REAL DEADLINES to the calendar.  The revised calendar shows an example, with the key dates tastefully highlighted in puce.

The efficient teacher plans to start this work FOUR WEEKS before the published date (11 October) and identifies how long she needs to design the assessment activity, allows a week for the students to take the test, and gives herself a week (and two weekends) to mark it.  This planning, I emphasize, should be done in September, ideally before the kids even arrive back at school.