Diary of a Teacher

  Why did no one warn us of the turbulence that your 20s brings? This decade is so readily reminisced about by elders, gushing over the best years, sold to us as the only time in your life worth revisiting. It is described with doting and reassuring labels such as: - 'the best years of your life' - 'your body will never be better' -'friendships will be strong' -'you'll be partying non-stop' -'not a care in the world' ..... what? I feel miss sold. There must be a claim line coming soon because let me tell you, I am half way through and it has been a roller-coaster, rapidly approaching rock bottom with the occasional unexpected high.  Don't get me wrong, I am not here to bitch about how awful my life is, because it is not. Absolutely not. I am blessed, grateful and acutely aware of my successes and luck. Yet that does not mean that happiness is part and parcel of this. It does not mean that because I have secure employment and am a homeowne

I think I have lost a year in the timeline of my life... one minute I was sat on my bed planning English, then before I knew it I am sat on my sofa planning maths.. in 2019. Can anyone tell me what happened to 2018?! Seriously speaking, I know exactly what happened in 2018-2019. I didn't get hit by a football gone astray and suffer with amnesia - well, the football part actually happened but the only lasting effects was a bruise (both arm and ego). In the October of 2017, the start of my NQT year, my relationship fell apart. 3 years in, the stress of life seemed to break us, we were both so swept up in the huge changes in our own lives that we forgot to keep investing in our life together. But these things happen, and I had 31 little faces watching me every day so I had to be strong (between 9-3, that is). Before you feel sorry for me - there is a happy ending coming, I promise. The first half of my NQT year was a horrible cycle of feeling like I was falling through eac

NQT. Year 5. Week 1. Bloody hell. I thought (naively) that I was over prepared for this first week back. In theory, I was.  But what I learnt very quickly was that no amount of planning, preparation, organisation and panicking can truly prepare you for this week. So this is a little recount of my first week, including what no one told me and what I could never have anticipated. 1. Firstly, my biggest error was spending a majority of my long summer holidays from ending uni to starting work panicking about the job. I spent days, weeks, on my laptop writing reams of plans and frantically saving fun games and activities to my now maxed-out memory stick. I came into school at least once (three times) a week to familiarise myself with the system, schemes, and buildings. I tweaked every element of my classroom a thousand times to achieve perfection (I'll come to this later).  With my heart in the right place, excitement and motivation drove me to - in short - exhausting my

This was the goal.  From the day I made my decision to apply for teacher training, the ultimate goal was of course to get to my NQT year. It was to achieve the grades I needed at A-Level in order to get into my first choice uni and once there, to thrive and graduate.  Check. Tick. Done. So why do I really feel like teaching is the only profession where I don't feel 'celebrated' and welcomed by everyone? I am so proud of getting this far through education and to also have landed the job that I wanted in the first school I interviewed at, but is just doesn't seem like a shared excitement. This awareness first started close to home, where my cousin's husband was upset that his son was being taught by a "new, inexperienced, child"...... translation: a 21 yr old NQT.  I mean... he was having this moan about it to me. Knowing full well I was in my final year of the same profession and this "new, inexperienced, child" was soon to be me. Appare

Five years ago today I stood in my school hall to collect my GCSE results. Surrounded by my fellow all-girls-grammar school peers (not the most comforting environment - you can only imagine the pressure) and as I read my letter out I was so relieved. Nothing lower than a B and a few A*s sprinkled in too.. I was so happy. Until I spoke to my friends.  'OMG I only got A*s!!'   'Im so upset, I got two As with my A*s' 'Did you hear that blahblah got 3 Bs? HA! Should have worked harder.'  I was mortified. I worked so hard, tirelessly revising, trying to keep up with my best friends who were naturally uber intelligent and didn't have to try. Photographic memories and pushy parents surrounded me. I did not feel like I belonged in that school, in the environment that myself and my parents worked so hard to put me in 7 years ago. I had the world ahead of me and left primary school with my face in the local paper as one of the 'golden girls of grammar school

Apparently I'm the only person born in the 90's with a social media profile who doesn't currently have a blog... so this is my attempt at changing that. After three years of teacher training involving grueling placements, completing my degree, multiple breakdowns and a strong ratio of 50% blood to 50% tea running through my veins, here I am.  Two weeks away from standing in front of 31 children and 3 TAs (yes - I will need them all) and trying not to cry, swear or run out the door.  Everywhere I look on social media there are these perfect teachers who dedicate every second of their personal life to creating these wonderful crafts and designing their own schemes of work. Yet I struggled to find one which documents the 'true' side of being an NQT in London, fresh out of uni and absolutely terrified. So there sparked my 'great idea' to begin the 'Diary of a Teacher' instagram account documenting my honest journey through this first year and beyond,