Recently TES published a poster on the 100 things you should have done at school before the age of 11 – by primary school pupils. I ripped it out and stuck it on the staffroom cupboard door, and we read … Continue reading 100 things you’ve probably done at school when you’re a teacher – by an ex-teacher…
Ctrl+C. Ctrl+V. Find and Replace. Necessary. Not entirely acceptable. In an ideal world we would never use these buttons. No child is the same. It’s likely no child has learnt precisely the same things. But finding 120 spare hours to … Continue reading From Teacher to City-Worker: Writing Reports
When I left teaching, my Year 6 class were also off to pastures new. Their new secondary schools were welcoming them in September when I set off on my own new adventure. I was delighted to meet one of their … Continue reading From Teacher to City Worker: The Children
Now obviously on teaching practice I learnt a lot. I learnt how to plan and teach and mark and manage behaviour and marshall 32 youngsters into straight, quiet lines. It was a few years after I began teaching that I … Continue reading Four things teaching practice taught me
I’ve heard the horror stories of all the resources going mouldy after ten years in a garage, and the colleague who threw away everything, only to return to teaching a few years later. It was now or never…space or stuff. Continue reading From Teacher to City-Worker: the decision to declutter
I’m a little late to the Christmas party this year – my tree went up weeks into December and even a colleague who’s only known me a few months was astounded…I’ve not got a six-foot tree, it’s actually shorter than me this year. So over the next few days I’m going to share a few Christmas film reflections, now I’ve finally got time to watch them – I hope you enjoy! This year, classroomless, I subjected my colleagues to my Christmas vision. It involved Photoshopping, a lot of tinsel and lights, and resulted in two Christmas trees. I was ill … Continue reading Nativity: What I miss about the classroom at Christmas
Being ill is never fun…being ill when you’re teaching is as much a mental battle as a physical one. Continue reading From Teacher to City-Worker: The Sick Day
I was braced for the week ahead with a familiar feeling of dread creeping over me… Continue reading From Teacher to City-Worker: The Sunday Blues
One crucial question remained as I approached a year of working in the city – would I miss the summer off? Continue reading From Teacher to City Worker: The Back-To-Work-End-Of-Summer Blues
There are actually elements of classroom teaching I miss. No, I never thought I’d say that either. It has been an entire year since I packed up my belongings and left my classroom. This was a small snippet of the … Continue reading Six things I miss about class teaching – yes really!
One of my particular concerns on leaving the classroom and entering the non-school world was the holidays…65 days a year versus 36 days – which is better? Continue reading From Teacher to City Worker: The Holidays
Last year I took the enormous decision to leave my job as a classroom teacher. But, in the famed words of Elizabeth Bennett – ‘I should not consider myself to be quitting that sphere’. ‘Quit’ is one of the weightiest verbs bandied about when discussing teachers leaving the profession. While the dictionary definition is ‘to leave’, I find it used more and more as a word with negative connotations. Quitting implies you couldn’t handle it, or denotes leaving others to carry a mantle which is heavier the less people that bear it. The mantle of teaching is heavy, yet hugely … Continue reading Quitting the Classroom
I feel like I’m living an entirely different life to the one I was a year ago. This isn’t entirely true. I have the same friends, but new ones too. I live in the same place, but with a new housemate. I drive the same car, though I mostly travel by train now. Almost a year ago I visited London with my now-housemate for her birthday. As we chilled in a cafe on the South Bank, I joked about how we were surveying my future workplace now that I’d applied for my job. At the time I didn’t even have an … Continue reading From Teacher to City Worker: Six Months In
Have you ever filled in those ‘what job should you do?’, ‘what’s your future career?’ or ‘what type of person are you?’ quizzes? I enjoy most quizzes, so I have merrily filled them in over the years, but secretly I was hoping for a particular answer. I wouldn’t say I’m overburdened with aspiration, just as long as it could be anything, absolutely anything, other than teaching. Anything at all – air hostess (never going to happen), or refuse collector. Anything except teaching. I did a questionnaire at church – top marks for teacher, the Myers-Brigg personality test – my make … Continue reading Fighting the inevitable
I was asked a few months ago if I would have applied for this job if my marriage had not broken up. In short – no. The travel and long days would have put me off, too much time away from home. Ironically I now work less and have more free time. I’ve learnt the value of potential time to pursue individual dreams and goals in marriage since then. But, since I had no one to please but myself when I saw the advert, I applied. I remember the shock (terror) of finally finishing my summer reports (a shock in … Continue reading A Life Of Privilege
There are life events that split your life into ‘before’ and ‘after’. We all have events where we place feelings, experiences and other events according to our personal timeline. It is now just over 3 months since I wrote about my first few days as a city worker, and therefore just over 3 months since I began working in the city. Before, my life was filled with questions; the job, the travel, and the lack of holidays. My excitement was over weekends, evenings, and not feeling so permanently stressed. Scrolling through my old facebook photos, I came across this one … Continue reading From Teacher to City-Worker: The First Few Months
My shift from teacher to city worker is a mix of pros, cons, and situations with both flip sides of the coin. Part of my reason for leaving school was to change my lifestyle, which it has already. After 8 glorious weeks off, with no planning or classroom preparation to think of, 6am has been a little bit of a shock. I’ve had to get up earlier than I’ve ever got up to teach. In order to lessen the pain, I changed the alarm tone to One Direction’s ‘that’s what makes you beautiful’ – a positive yet unlikely statement to … Continue reading From Teacher to City-Worker: The First Few Days
This week I was inspired by a very dear friend of mine to write about a particular subject. We hadn’t caught up over the summer, and I called her because she had changed jobs and had recently started a new school. She is one of those friends with whom you just pick up wherever you left off and fill each other in along the way. In the course of conversation she asked this question, “Do you ever get the feeling that this is a game-changer?” It really struck me, and excited me as a concept. Have you ever encountered that … Continue reading Game-changer
One thing I really hate is roller-coasters. I hate the feeling of being out of control, unable to stop the machine, and hurtling towards great and unforeseen drops at an alarming rate. In fact it’s making my feet tingle just thinking about it. I’ve been in a kiddie roller-coaster and that was enough – never again! In the last two years I’ve been on the age-old metaphor of the roller-coaster of emotion and in the last 6 months I haven’t written because of it. Since studying GCSE Russian history with one of my closest friends, she offhandedly mentioned my own … Continue reading Out of Control
the entirety of life 