College Board gives these suggested pacing guides in the CED. My district had these pacing guides too - a generic breakdown of the days you should spend on any one unit.
For AP Physics 1, I did the math real quick:
Following the MINIMUM, you use 90 45-minute periods. (45 blocks)
Following the MAXIMUM, you use 112 45-minute periods. (56 blocks)
Now let’s look at my old district’s calendar to figure out my working days. What's a working day? A working day is a calendar day that you COULD use for teaching new instruction.
My class has a Unit Zero, a non-standards unit designed to introduce the class and lay foundations. It's like the onboarding class for my class. I've kept it for a few reasons:
It’s a soft introduction to the expectations of AP.
It gives me time to assess and begin remediating algebra skills
SCHEDULE CHANGES?!?!?!? I would still get them well into September.
My admin had this whole “no content in the first five days” BS, so I said they were “team building” and “personal growth” exercises, since it’s not tied to a standard.
Because of this, I don’t start new material until usually the last week of August. I always END content on the first day of April. We do mock exams the week before spring break.
So, a quick count: that’s 136 days for classes. Let’s dock, say, 10… for “stfu”. And n, I didn’t misspell "stuff." I have to remind myself of what the “stuff” is that gets my educational time squandered… things like useless pep rallies and assemblies about DARE which has been proven to actually cause more harm than good. [Yes, each one of those is a separate resource.] Giantantic wastes of precious minutes!
ANYWHOZERS!
That leaves 126 days for physics. So, 14 more than CB said. OH GOODY!
So, who is the lucky winner of those days? That’s up to the kids.
Here’s my suggestion: Go get an 8x10 picture frame and insert a white sheet of paper with the name “Flex Days” and the Numbers 1-24 on it, with spaces:
“Flex Days” (Blocks if you have blocks: this is by 12)
___________
___________
___________
*You get the idea.
Any time your students want an extra day, make them decide AS A CLASS if this should eat a flex day. If they use a day, one of them has to pull the frame down, take out the paper, and fill in the line with why the day was used and that person has to sign it. When they run out, they’re cutting into review time (ie: the whole month of April).
But, why 24? I thought the school was gonna eat 10. YEP. THEY ARE. When the school eats a day, you’re gonna write this in RED SHARPIE. If you’re super passive aggressive, you could have the kids ask one of the admin to sign it since they choose to eat the day. Do the same with field trips you never learned about or big “events” that steal your kids from class. (*Note* Probably only good if you have tenure like I did.) When parents come to visit and they’re like “why is the class so RUSHED?!” you can point to your framed reminder of where your days are going.
This does a few things:
You’re no longer the bad guy. The school is stealing your educational minutes and you have PROOF. It’s also a great heads up for next year. Bet if you save it you’ll even see patterns from year to year.
Your students are learning to manage their most valuable resource: time. A day is a LONG time, and they need to learn to budget it for big projects. This is one of those things. Make them aware of where their time is going.
Got extra days? Shoot, that’s more time for torque. (Really, that’s where I would dump all of mine.)
My goal: be done with energy by Winter Holiday. Squander away days and pour my HEART AND SOUL into torque.
How do you schedule your classes?