DOTT

DOTT? Duties Other Than Teaching.
Interested?

Well, in Australia or I suppose at least WA, teachers are given time during their salary paid, school day to complete duties other than teaching. Novel idea hey?
Think about how you could reach a work-life balance if every teacher was provided with DOTT for lesson planning, providing students with extra one-on-one support with their work, going to staff meeting, attending PD days, marking student's work, assisting with school activities, and preparing resources.

In WA the breakdown of DOTT is as follows:
secondary teachers are allocated 5 hours and 20 minutes a week, primary teachers 3 hours and 40 minutes, pre-primary teachers 5 hours and 20 minutes. Please note that this may vary from school to school.

Now you may wonder, if a teacher is observing DOTT time who is running the classroom? Well there are relief teachers just for that coming in every week at the same time (so you don't have to fret about how inconsistency would affect the learners)

Well you might be saying sounds great in theory but what does this look like in practice?
In my classroom my mentor teacher observes DOTT every Wednesday or which we playfully call "Wacky Wednesday (to reflect the change in schedule)". She still comes to school to open, welcomes, and manages the classroom however the same relief teacher also comes in to manage the main act. Wednesdays are when the learners are introduced to a new letter and explore many literary concepts. Every classroom will look different of course.

So there we have it, and excuse me Department of Education on the Stateside, I hope you took notes.

Cheers, from a mostly relaxed Pre-Service teacher (for after all it was Wacky Wednesday today)