I work in a college one day a week teaching functional-skills English at entry levels. I teach back-to-back sessions all day with an hour in the staffroom at the end. I use this hour to attempt online registers, write up any concerns about students and address at least some of the admin required of me.

After work, I trudge to the train station, lumbering heavy bags full of books, knowing that on Sunday night I’ll be hunched over my desk with a biro. I’ve long since ditched the hope that planning and marking will fall within paid hours at college.

It’s planning classes that does me in: it’s hard bloody work. Trying to (at the very least) give a nod to a group’s vocational area means that great swathes of previously planned sessions for other learner cohorts aren’t relevant. It often feels like starting again. Again.

Sometimes I accidentally spend longer planning a session than the length of the session itself. I’ve no clue how any teacher could thoroughly plan a deck of interesting classes and create accompanying resources within their contracted hours. But some must do or where would the notion that it’s even possible to get it done on-the-clock come from? Organisations wouldn’t purposefully rely on the goodwill of teachers to work for free, would they? Heaven forfend!

I assume any teacher who teaches all day, stays on top of admin, is up-to-date with marking and plans sessions within college hours is one of three types. They are either: a) a creative genius who works at the speed of lightning; b) chucking the same stuff every year or c) working way under their contracted teaching hours (an unlikely scenario, I know).

Every few years, I try to come up with a way of planning sessions that would save me time. I have big sketchbooks full of intricate mind maps, exploring English classes based on specific vocationally related themes. It looks like something detectives would find in the grubby bedsit of a serial killer.

I tried creating spreadsheets in which I slotted in areas of the functional-skills curriculum to be covered, with spaces for specific kinds of activities and assessments. In theory, this should work well but I’ve already lost interest just by typing the word “spreadsheet”.

Then there were the Post-It years. I would detail every activity and task on a rainbow of sticky notes categorised by colour, linked to the curriculum and stuck up in my office. When planning, I would pluck neon squares from the wall to build a nicely flowing body of activity. However, as I slapped a square on my session plan, I had to remember to replace it on my planning wall. That’s where the wheels came off.

I hope one day to be organised and enough to throw together fabulous three-hour sessions in 10 minutes. My only consolation for my current plod is that even if the whole thing goes spectacularly wrong, it’s not through a lack of effort. Not on my part anyway.

Sarah Simons works in colleges and adult community education in the East Midlands, and is the director of UKFEchat. She tweets @MrsSarahSimons