Head...Ache

hey all,

Being a head teacher is turning out to be a lot of work. I've got three main goals that I'd like to see accomplished.

1. Create a re-usable, adjustable, progressive curriculum. This should cover simple topics using simple vocabulary and sentence structure, and move on to progressively more advanced topics with more advanced vocabulary and sentence structure.
2. Organize the teaching materials that we have. We have lots of material, but we never know where it is, which is basically the same thing as actually having no material at all.
3. Make available to the teachers in digital form all the texts and worksheets that we create. In the past, we've waited for the next packet of information to be given to us. This means that once we've finished teaching a unit, the packet goes back to the boss. If we have digital copies, we can update them and adapt them for particular skill/age levels. Plus, our changes will be saved for next time around. I'm currently looking at Google Docs as a solution to this, but its organization system is proving to be really wacky.

In addition to these rather lofty goals, I've got preparing for regular classes to deal with, making sure that my fellow teachers have the materials they need to teach with (which means tracking them down or writing them myself or assigning them to write them up), drawing up a school evacuation plan/policy, etc. As with many things at our school, it seems like some of this should have been established already and has simply been forgotten about or mislaid somewhere.

Don't get me wrong. I really think that we're doing some amazing things here, but as with any organization that's been around for a while, there is inertia, mis-communication, and entropy to deal with.


Cheers,