Hey Teacher Tapp Community!
Wow – Week 20 already! 🎉 And what a week it’s been – our Teacher Tapp community is growing fast, with nearly 800 teachers sharing their insights on what’s happening in schools nationwide. Don’t forget – until the end of April, if you answer for 30 days in a row you’ll earn a Starbucks gift card as a thank-you for being part of Teacher Tapp!
This offer is limited to the first 1,000 teachers who sign up, so tell your teacher friends to be quick! Send them this blog and tell them to join the app today and help correct the narrative about education in the US.
To qualify, you must:
✔️ Be a K-12 teacher currently employed in a US school 🏫
✔️ List your school’s name in your Teacher Tapp profile ✏️
✔️ Be a legal resident of the United States 🇺🇸
🔗 Read the full terms and conditions here
Want to make the Teacher Tapp community even stronger? Invite your colleagues to join! The best link to share is onelink.to/teachertapp – it takes them straight to the app store! 📲✨
Now, what did teachers tell us this week? Let’s find out…
1. How is behavior going?
If your classes are regularly disrupted by poor behavior, you’re not alone. In fact, most teachers—across all grade levels—report some level of disruption.
Quick snapshot:
📌 Elementary: 94% report some disruption; nearly half (49%) lose 5+ minutes per lesson.
📌 Middle: 90% see disruption; 50% say 5+ minutes is lost.
📌 High School: 78% report disruption; 35% say it lasts 5+ minutes.
On the point of changing over time, for some teachers, things are significantly worse since they started teaching.
52% of elementary teachers say behaviour is worse today than it was compared to when they started teaching, and 61% of middle teachers feel the same. High school teachers were the least likely to say things were worse, with 42% noticing a worsening trend in behavior.
But is your school too strict?
So poor behaviour disrupts learning in most classrooms, and things seem to be worse now than they were in previous years BUT are the rules in place in schools strict enough to tackle this behavior?
Those who believe their school is too strict are in the minority – and this opinion doesn’t change whether the teacher works in an elementary, middle or high school. A tiny 5% of elementary and high school teachers and 4% of middle school teachers feel their school rules are too strict.
What questions do YOU want us to ask about behavior? Send your suggestions in! Contact us using your app settings > contact us.
2. Turn in your lesson plans, mam…
Planning for lessons can be a laborious task – but do you write lesson plans for yourself, or for evidence that the planning has been done?
Elementary and middle school teachers are more likely to be turning in their lesson plans compared to high school teachers with 38% of elementary teachers, 24% of middle teachers and just 12% of high school teachers submitting their plans for every lesson.
However, the good news is that more teachers have autonomy over what they teach than don’t.
Only 20% of elementary teachers have specific structures they must follow for their lessons; the same is true for even fewer middle school teachers (14%) and 5% of high school teachers.
Pen freedoms!
You might not know, but Teacher Tapp began in England, where teachers are used to being told to mark with a specific coloured pen (and in some schools having to swap colours depending on the nature of the feedback…). However, in the US this is just not the case!
This week we discovered that 100% of teachers could mark with whatever coloured pen you wanted!
3. Less pay for a happier life
Money makes the world go round… but for some teachers, job stress isn’t worth the paycheck. A full 35% of teachers have voluntarily taken a pay cut by changing roles, stepping down in responsibility, or reducing hours.
So, was it worth it? Did life get better after the switch? And if not… what’s next?
👀 Look out for more questions on this topic…and if it has made YOU think of questions to ask the Teacher Tapp community, get in touch via the app or find us on Bluesky @TeacherTappUS
Daily Reads
We know lots of teachers on Teacher Tapp LOVE the daily reads! If you have ideas of reads we could feature, get in touch by emailing usa@teachertapp.com and we will check it out!
This week our most-read blog was all about how to teach spelling!
