Normal Teaching Load at Secondary Level?

[MIS]

Thank you, benteacher. In the US, a lot is required of teachers outside of school hours due to limited prep time and constant meetings. If I had four preps in the States, I would spend hours outside of work on a daily basis lesson planning and grading papers. While I'm a professional who takes my job seriously, I also, like everyone else, value some semblance of work-life balance. Three-four preps here sounds like a taxing load which would require a ton of sacrifices outside of school.

[wntriscoming]

If preps are the classes that you teach (or the number of different classes that you teach), what do you call the periods when you prepare for them?

In our neck of the woods, prep is the time you have to prepare for your classes (ie: planning time/breaks in the schedule when you are not teaching students).

[MIS]

To me, preps are the number of classes you have to prepare for on a daily basis. So if I teach four different courses, those are four different preps. If two are the same and two are different, that would be three different preps, even though I would differentiate within the two courses that are the same.

The time(s) within a day where I have the opportunity to prep for those classes are what I call planning periods.

[nalfc]

Not all teachers have the luxury of having a fifth of their time at school with what we call PPA - in the UK it is 90% time teaching. However please do not see my statement as a criticism because this job is hard worldwide and it is in the UK our politicians go on about our worldwide education system as if people are envious of our terrible state system and not our lucky colleagues who work in the private sector. People are leaving in droves, stress levels are through the roof, still harder qualitative demands and targets are being imposed etc - all so come election time the politicians can boast about their achievements as if the public flogging and burning out of teachers is something to be proud of.

An awful system devoid of entrepreneurship, innovation or thinking outside the box with prescriptive expectations from inspectors - I am glad to be leaving.