Teaching is more than just a job. I know. I know what it is to mark and lesson plan into the small hours. I know what it is to live in a hollow of exhaustion. I have felt the isolation and dread of a pile of unmarked books that must be marked, felt it deep… Read More
Last night, I slept soundly. I was not up late into the night, marking essays, setting three different types of targets. I did not toss and turn, fretting about the parent I should have phoned, the spreadsheets I should have filled in. I had no meetings to go over, no deadlines coming up. There are… Read More
I feel like I am standing on a precipice. This is one of those watershed moments, one of those times when the whole texture of your life changes; the world is not the same today as it was yesterday, as it was few days ago. Something has fundamentally altered. The air tastes strange. The sun… Read More
I was a teacher for over twelve years before my son was diagnosed with autism. Before he was born, I had taught countless pupils on the autistic spectrum, but it was not until my son’s diagnosis that I was able to fully appreciate the gaps in my knowledge. I hope the tips I am going… Read More
Dear Teaching, We’ve been together such a long time; I hardly know where I end and you begin. My body beats to the rhythm of terms and bells – the long, cold slog to the end of the winter and the inevitable Christmas cold, the summer term that should be easier, but somehow never is,… Read More
You think you’re grown-up. The hastily wiped-off lip gloss and false eyelashes that I confiscated before assembly beg the world to see it – but you’re not quite there. I can see the pudgy toddler cheeks hiding beneath the look of slight disdain. In place of perfectly arranged ‘scruffy’ buns, I can see where, once,… Read More
An academy is a state-funded school which is independent from local authority. They are run by academy trusts and have several ‘freedoms’ that non-academy schools do not. They have the ability to buy in services privately that were previously provided, and overseen, by the local authority. They are responsible for their own term times and,… Read More
I recently returned to my profession of twelve years after my second period of maternity leave: English teaching. I am the mother of two tiny people, a girl, aged one and a boy, aged three. Parenthood is a job that requires us to give up almost all of our time and energy for the well-being… Read More
Half-term Revel in the sudden silence of peach-pink skies. Swim, hazy-eyed, through the vibrant globes of water-coloured evenings. Curl around the fluent curve of shoulder-blades, And drift in the warm, buzzing hollow of lavish sleep. Wine-soaked nights brim with the clinking of expectant glasses. The glowing piano spills out its sound in pools of… Read More
I am sorry. I am a good human being – a good teacher, I think. I listen, I learn, I strive to be better. I know it is a great responsibility to shape young minds, young opinions. I thought I knew what it means to teach a pupil with autism. But experience has given me something… Read More
I am someone’s wife. I am someone’s teacher. I am someone’s mum. I wasn’t always any of these things and yet they have come to define me. Each role brings huge responsibility and infinite pride – hard work and reward in equal measure. They are all relationships that require me to give a lot of… Read More