I have been a teacher for more than 30 years, and I still think it might be the best job in the world. But I utterly detest the mindless repetition of filling the same information into my planner every week, as well as the confusion it causes me if I write the class in at the wrong time of day.
A few years ago I decided to do something about it. I mail-merged lesson information from a spreadsheet onto a Word document and printed out my personal teacher planner on 120 sheets of paper. This took way longer than you would believe. Certainly a lot longer than it would have taken me to sit down and write a years worth of lessons into my planner in one go. But it was interesting in a way, and I liked the result.
Except I didn't like carrying around my planner in an A4 ring binder. Particularly when I accidentally left it unclipped and spilled pages around the classroom when I picked it up. So the following year I used an industrial-looking spiral binding machine I found in the reprographics room.
It's still a lot of work, and I would prefer a smaller A5 planner, which adds another level of complexity.
And then I moved to a new school, which is thoroughly wonderful, except for having no fancy spiral binder nor a reprographics room to put it in. Which led to a complete rethink…
Because it occurred to me that I could pay for somebody else to do the binding. And I could pay for somebody else to do the printing. I would be very happy to pay £25 to have my bespoke planner without the hassle of actually making it.
If I'm happy to pay for this service, I think other teachers might be too. I would like to think enlightened school leadership will recognise £25 is a very small price to pay for increased teacher well-being and efficiency. Which is where bespoke teacher comes in.
I'm not a businessman, I'm a teacher and a geek. I used to teach physics (I love physics) and now I teach computer science (I love computer science too!) I learned how to set this company up and set this company up because I believe in the product. And I use my own bespoke teacher planner every day.
Malcolm Dancy
founder, bespoke teacher