Australia's Science Forum

Hello everyone,
Just wanted to ask how many prac's on average do you have per day?
Yesterday I had 17. Today I have 13 booked?
I get no help, and was so frustrated yesterday that everyone noticed I was not my usual happy self.
Looking back through my diary I do an average of 8 a day.
I usually get only 1 day notice, though very often I get last minute orders.
What's your schedule like?

Cheers, Trish.
Ps. No matter how many pracs we labbys do, I think we all do an amazing job. And there are a lot of people who don't realise exactly how hard we all work....

So far this term I have 58 pracs and 4 prac exams
Last month I did 168
I also get no help.
It is just not the setting up but putting away as well.

I have 14 booked for today and having to make up 30 agar plates as well.. I told teachers yesterday after 2pm, not to book anymore for today, so it is 14 . But that is unusual, normally I would have about 7-8 a day.
Still, I would not change my job with anybody.
Have a great weekend.
L

Glad to hear that my school is standard with others.
Somedays when I hear of the home ec ladies having just 5 in 1 day, I laugh...to her thats a busy day.
keep up the good work:)
Trish

This has been asked before, but for the life of me I can not find it to merge it.
I do about 15 per day, with no extra help, any more.

I've just done my stats - i did 168 for february and i have done 70 already for March.
I have 2 prac exams next thursday at the same time which will take out all of my labs for the whole day, cause I refuse to be rushed to pack them up.
I am also covering the print room on Fridays (only spent an hour there today) and i do Staff Keys and first aid.
To say that I have no time to do anything else....

It's our school's 50th celebration today. We have an open day. 4 labs with 5 different practs in each lab plus I do first aid. It's been hectic.

How many labs do you have Narelle

Just 3 noona, all in a row, right off my prep room.

We have 6 labs, 4 Jnr ones and two Snr. The only time a lab is free is when a year group is out for a day. We have two in the prep-room and this keeps us above water as we also look after Middle School maths equipment and get that ready too. So we have anything from 10-20 pracs a day when it's really busy and maths on top that that. But I'm lucky to have one extra person in here with me. We have about 1200 students here.

Hi trish,

we have 5 labs 10 teacher s and the MOST i can put together in one day is 8-10 practs depending on whether they are involved or not.
I let the staff know that the request has to be in by recess of the previous working day either by email or up on my board, otherwise i say NO i am unable to complete the request but they are more than welcome to help themselves to what ever equipment they need, which usually ends up them not doing it....

This got me thinking so I have gone back over my prac book for 2013.

The teachers write on an order form which I then copy into my prac book which has a space for each lesson where I put the teachers name, room and the basics of what is ordered. This sometime lists everything and others just something like "enzyme Prac" as there is just too much to write. This helps me keep track of where equipment is as it is almost a kilometre round trip to my other labs and I don't want to have to walk unecessarily just to locate gear!

Not all pracs are writen up especially those that are grabbed at late notice.

I have 3 labs in one area with the main prep room, then 2 450 metres away in one direction with a prep room between them and the another 2 400 metres in another direction that each have a prep area (demountables)

The Distant labs are very well stocked with equipment such class sets of all electrical gear, class sets of microscopes, ticker timers, hudson light boxes whilst the labs have class sets of all frequently needed equipment. They also have class sets of the moct common used acids and bases as well as winchester stock bottles. I have found this is the only way I could work with the number of labs and classes.

It does mean that on many occasions the teachers do not need to actually order the equipment as they already have it, just extra chemicals etc.

This all being said I was astounded at the lack of pracs that I have to prepare. There were only 570 for the year, averaging about 2.8 per day!
One teacher last year, despite having over 700 science lesson during the year, had only 31 writen orders . I knew he was slack but I hadn't realised how bad!! Even the most prolific orderer had only 109 orders for the year.

First term is always the busiest but even now I am only doing about 5 pracs a day.

With dropping numbers we have to loose .4 SASS that is one person loosing 2 days a week, this will cause a redistribution of duties and due to the slack nature of my staff I will probably have to go to the Library at least one afternoon a week as that is where the staff is being taken from.

I have to agree with you fireweb! I used to be so busy I could work a 70 hour week easily, but this year everything is so slow! I am lucky if I get 3 pracs a day to prepare.. and that is for 7 labs.
I wonder if it is teachers getting used to the new curriculum? But isn't that supposed to be more activity based than theory based?? I just do not understand!

I think part of the problem here is an aging staff.
My teacher range from 41-59 with an average age of 52.
Most are "old school" and have trouble with the discipline and maintaining control of the students of today and just "can't face " the hassles of flames, chemicals, trying to get the students to actually participate and then clean up after themselves.
They are somewhat burntout.

Not that I mind being older then any of them myself.
I couldn't cope if they all did severasl pracs a day!!!!!!!!!!!!

Trish,
Using Risk Assess has made the ordering system so much easier. If I don't receive the order within the first half-hour I am here, when I check emails, it doesn't get done that day and I insist on 24 hours notice. If they send the order through after 3pm (when I have left) then there is no way it gets done the following day.
Having said that, most people order a few days in advance - only one teacher refuses to use R/Assess, but he generally helps himself or tries to bribe me!!

Last day of term 1 and I have 5 pracs to prepare and an assessment task for senior biology. Are others as lucky as me?

Sad! You poor thing!
We are saying farewell to our Head of school today and have a school singing comp so no classes after period 3.
YAY!!

Quite a lot of our students are at the Royal Easter Show and some of the rest thought it was a good idea to stay home today, so not too many here. I get a chance to leave the prep room (relatively) tidy so I can come back next term and mess it up again!!

Only 4 orders for today, but nothing after Lunch, so I can lock all the cupboards etc, lockup day.

Hi All,

Just out of curiosity - how many pracs/experiments are you doing each day? I'm in a year 7-10 college and today for example is have 18, is this the norm? low? or high? we are a school of approx. 1100 students and we have 10 science teachers.