Hold on to your hats, here’s a revelation for you: teachers work extremely hard and look forward to their holidays.
The autumn term is usually the longest and can feel interminable as the days shorten and the temperature drops. But is counting down the days until we can don a ridiculous jumper and eat our body weight in Quality Street a positive thing to do?
For starters, the social media countdowns can be extremely irritating: “Only two weeks, five hours, 23 minutes and nine seconds until I’m sunning myself #Blessed”. Be quiet.
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But could counting down be doing more harm than good?
And is it sending out the wrong message to our students? To truly be #LivingYourBestLife should you dispense with it altogether?
If you are high-fiving your colleagues in the corridor shouting “Only a week to go!”, what is this telling your students?
That you can’t wait to be shot of them? For some, school is their refuge, a safe space, when the rest of their world is in chaos.
What’s more, countdowns are tantamount to wishing your life away. At the risk of sounding trite, we should try to be present and enjoy each day, rather than dismissing the present for a fantasy future.
Being at work shouldn’t feel like a prison sentence, and if it does, then maybe a career rethink is needed.
There is also the risk that as you near the end of your countdown, the days seem less valuable and you resign yourself to just filling time, rather than being as productive as possible.
Subconsciously, we can start to slow down and lower our expectations, which can impact on behaviour, as students detect our more relaxed approach.
Sense of urgency
That said, countdowns can actually be helpful if we use them to stay on top of things. The excitement of the end of term can be dampened by an ever-increasing to-do list, but a sense of urgency can also assist us in being more focused and motivated.
Planning can also be helpful for students. Autistic young people can find the end of term stressful, not only because they like the structure that school offers but also because things can go a bit off-piste in the run-up to the holidays.
It is useful to pre-empt any worries and put contingency plans in place.
So, perhaps countdowns have a place as long as they are used in a positive fashion, rather than making teachers feel like they are serving time.
As Muhammad Ali said: “Do not count the days; make the days count.”
Gemma Corby is a former special educational needs and disability coordinator (Sendco) and freelance writer. She tweets @gemma_e_corby
