‘Tis the season, folks: pantos, plays and progress checks.
Across the land, teachers everywhere are stumbling, bleary-eyed, towards the end of term, held together only by the promise of mulled wine-infused pow-wows and significantly less school work than they’re used to.
It’s been a long term.
Quick read: Why teachers should all work a four-day week
Quick listen: Why attachment-aware teaching matters for every child
Want to know more? Office politics: how to end the blame game in your school
There’s a definite temptation to whizz through this last week at break-neck speed, doing all that you possibly can in a desperate effort to reduce workload over the break.
Ask yourself, though, does that ever really work?
Having made this mistake again and again, I can safely say that it doesn’t for me. Somehow, I always find more work to do, and frequently lose holiday fun times to teacher’s flu, which is utterly miserable.
Avoid repeating my mistakes by following the tips below:
Teacher wellbeing: living in the moment
As teachers, we have a tendency not to live in the moment, either reflecting on the past or planning out the future.
Even when we’re teaching, which requires presence, we inhabit a kind of strange, hyper-speed, multi-tasking version of the present, jumping in between speaking, listening, thinking, doing and not doing.
Counter this by setting an intention to slow down and to be present - in the lunchtime conversations with colleagues and friends; in the personal conversations with kids that have nothing to do with school and everything to do with them; in the school orchestra’s wobbly rendition of My Heart Will Go On. Bless ‘em.
Listen to your body
By the last week of term, most of us are nearing exhaustion and some of us are dangerously close to burnout. Your body may well have been alerting you to this fact for some time, although you were probably determined to keep going or too disconnected to hear it.
Take a few moments this week to scan up and down your body, noticing how it feels, looking out for any changes.
Everyone is different, but if you’re noticing feelings like headaches, sleepiness, heaviness, brain-fog and general irritability, it’s probably a big old warning that you need to slow down - not when the school calendar dictates you should, but right now.
Practise self-care
Where you are present to the warning signs that your body is giving you, act on them and give your body what it longs for - rest.
Take note, this rest doesn’t have to be taken horizontally. It just needs to be something that keeps your attention and has naff all to do with school.
Connect
We rely on our colleagues. We need each other, and for much more than shared planning. Having a strong support network is key to coping with stress and maintaining perspective.
Yet real conversation, care and connection are often lost in the hectic pace of modern teaching.
Get a piece of this back this week by making a genuine effort to speak to colleagues and friends. Ask them how they are and really listen to the answer. Bypass the urge to look at your phone or to jump in and talk about yourself.
This kind of real conversation is free, but priceless. Plus, you’ll likely both benefit from the moment of real listening and connection.
Jo Steer is a teacher and experienced leader of SEND interventions
