Teaching/ Professional File
Discuss the rationale, content and development of a teaching file by a Secondary/ Primary
School Student teacher.
Why is a teaching file important
A teaching file is of paramount importance for a school or teaching department.
Therefore it should be readily available and easily accessed.
The teaching file has the following importance:
I. A teaching file is a record keeping tool of teaching and learning activities in a
school.
II. A teaching file is administration tool which gives administrative supervisors
and potential referees a comprehensive picture of the teachers participate and
work as a teacher.
III. The teaching file is useful in keeping assessment and planning records for the
purpose of control, monitoring and supervision by senior management staff.
IV. The teaching file is useful in assisting the teacher in reflection regarding one’s
ability.
V. The teaching file is useful in planning lessons, following up on learners
performance as they are recorded and filed in teaching file.
VI. The teaching file is useful in keeping track of the teaching plan and identifying
text books.
VII. The teaching file is uses teachers to follow the correct teaching plan.
VIII. The teaching file is helpful in reviewing teaching methods and approaches.
IX. The teaching file also assist the teacher in becoming organised and helps in
self management.
File’s Front Cover Information
The file front cover will have:
I. The teacher’s name and other particulars like Ts No.
II. The name of the school
III. The grade
IV. The year
V. The learning area/subject
VI. The district
VII. The province.
File Contents/ Filling
Filling is important aspect of the teaching profession, thus the teachers must know or be
aware of the documents to be filled. Therefore the following are the most important
documents that must not miss in the teaching file.
The documents inside the file include:
I. Table of content
II. Time tables
III. Class list/ register
IV. Syllabus
V. Schemes of work
VI. Weekly forecast (for secondary school teacher)
VII. Lesson plans
VIII. Records of work (for secondary school teacher)
IX. Individual work plan
X. Assessment records sheets
XI. Assessment tools/ items
These file records, which must be kept in a format that is easy to interpret, must be
accessible to all relevant stakeholders such as school management, ministry of
education officials, parents and any other interested person who wants to find out
what is going on in classroom.
Challenges Related To Maintaining The File.
Putting the file together is a time consuming task. This includes making sure that it is
well arranged and properly organised.
Scarcity of the documents that go into the file.
The file is not mostly used on a frequent basis, neither is it useful in terms of daily
teaching and learning activities. This explains why it is usually challenging to submit
it on time when needed by the supervisors since they tend to use or work on it only
when it is due to monitoring by management.
Filing documents every day as well as the need to redo the file every year for every
Grade is itself a challenge.
Most teachers usually attend to the file on the eve of submission.