Expect the unxpected
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 myself. I started this term tired and that is something I will never do again. No matter how many people told me to take it easy, rest and relax, I didn't. My biggest mistake.
A fresh head and peaceful mindset would have been invaluable during the whirlwind of week 1.
2. INSET days. Training. Meetings. Notes. More meetings. Information. Brain overload x1000! God they are exhausting. Two days filled to the brim of important training and skills to be used in the job. Your mind is already at full capacity, turning over every possibility you can think of for when the children arrive. Yet you are bombarded with all of this important information from professionals and you're trying so desperately to listen and take it all in.
Again, emphasis is placed on my first point. Energy is gold.
3. Please GOD keep spare sick buckets in your cupboard.
Or under your desk.
Or next to the sink,
anywhere.
Because having to tell the IT lead on your first day as a teacher that one of your little angels has chundered on a laptop is not something that I would recommend. Seriously.
3:10 on the second day of school. Everything had clearly gotten too much. Maybe my lesson was just too damn exciting, or maybe the withdrawal from Haribo and Dr Pepper peaked. Who knows.
What I do know is that sick will not make this first week any easier... It will however, summon some sort of inner strength to not gag in the face of the child throwing up into his keyboard when you suddenly realise that YOU are the sole responsible adult.
Yep.
If you take anything from this - please keep spare bowls in your cupboard.
I now have 10.
4. Classroom tweaking. HA. Reminiscing about all of the lovely things I hand made, or carefully selected from Ikea. The pintrest ideas. The meticulous little labelled boxes and drawers.
I had it all, perfectly placed.
Insta-worthy. (seriously, check out my feed and give yourself a laugh.)
Wednesday. 4pm. Day 1. I honestly thought that a hurricane had been through my room whilst I dismissed the children.
My beautiful labels were torn. Displays were ripped. Books were bent. The book corner was upside down. And most importantly, they had already managed to move every table to different location in the room.
Top tip: give up. They're children. Learning, engagement and their presence is enough - they don't give a flying monkeys about your glittery calligraphy labels. Sorry.
5. The children are never as you expect.
I know this one sounds obvious and somewhat vague, but hear me out.
The SEND/EAL/ASD etc that you have all those notes about will never show itself how you imagined. They will be quieter or louder than imagined. More secluded or popular than predicted. Challenging or responsive than you prepared for. Because honestly, after 6 weeks they have changed. They have had different boundaries at home. They are going to have a different response to you than their previous teacher. And lets be honest - they're children. They change.
Also, they are definitely not as big and scary as you remember. Those little year 4s you met in July didn't turn into huge, loud, Shrek Jrs over the summer. Funny that. When I stood at the front of the room, with 31 pairs of naive, trusting little eyes staring back at me, I realised that they were not as bad as the picture I had built up in my head.
6. This one is something that I was not expecting.
The evening of my first day my phone was buzzing with messages and phone calls from uni friends and colleagues, fellow NQTs and experienced teachers, all ready to de-brief on the day's events.
Everyone had a wonderful day, the children were beautifully behaved, they had glowing halos around their heads and the parents flooded the classroom with cries of joy at how #blessed they all are to be united together.
Urgh.
So why, when saying how happy I am for all of my friends to have such amazing classes and lives (and I am - of course.) do I not have anything much to say back.
My first week was terrifying. I had a lump in my throat all day, navy blue eye bags, sick down my leg (forever in my memory) and a feeling of looming dread for the next year.
What the hell have I done.
I chose this career. I did this. I signed a contract to say that I could teach these children everything they needed to know in 2017/18. I sold myself in interview as the best candidate for the role of year 5 class teacher. So why did I suddenly feel like I have made the biggest mistake?
I had planned somewhat relaxing activities for this week. Nothing to strenuous for the children and nothing too marking-heavy for me. A few maths word problems to whizz through so that I could gage their abilities and group them accordingly.
So when I realised that these 9 year olds could not recall any times tables, could not do any division, couldn't remember what a fraction even looked like and certainly did not follow any questions with more than one step.
WHAT am I going to do. I need to get these children to the expected end of year 5 level when they did not understand any of my Friday 'panic and teach year 4 stuff' lesson.
Well, the first thing I did was go home and cry. Cry because I didn't know how to find the time to teach these children the basic skills as well as what I am already squeezing into the timetable. Cry because they also have so many emotional needs that I do not know how to give them what I need.
Cry because I am suddenly very aware of how little I know and how much there is left to learn.
What I am trying to say - through the perils of my anxiety - is that it will not necessarily be the most exciting and enriching time of your life.
You will not have a shiny apple on your desk and 31 silent, smiley faces.
Sorry.
What you will have is a challenge. You will have a fabulous TA who you should utilise. A mentor who is there to help you and genuinely wants to, as ask questions. You will have a whole cohort of teachers who (funnily enough) have all been an NQT before and will all come and check you are OK and bring you copious amounts of tea.
But most importantly - and please never lose sight of this - you will have the very exhausting beginning of a fabulous career in arguably the most rewarding, hilarious and down right magical industries.
You are a teacher.
You have earned this.
You can do this.
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 myself. I started this term tired and that is something I will never do again. No matter how many people told me to take it easy, rest and relax, I didn't. My biggest mistake.
A fresh head and peaceful mindset would have been invaluable during the whirlwind of week 1.
2. INSET days. Training. Meetings. Notes. More meetings. Information. Brain overload x1000! God they are exhausting. Two days filled to the brim of important training and skills to be used in the job. Your mind is already at full capacity, turning over every possibility you can think of for when the children arrive. Yet you are bombarded with all of this important information from professionals and you're trying so desperately to listen and take it all in.
Again, emphasis is placed on my first point. Energy is gold.
3. Please GOD keep spare sick buckets in your cupboard.
Or under your desk.
Or next to the sink,
anywhere.
Because having to tell the IT lead on your first day as a teacher that one of your little angels has chundered on a laptop is not something that I would recommend. Seriously.
3:10 on the second day of school. Everything had clearly gotten too much. Maybe my lesson was just too damn exciting, or maybe the withdrawal from Haribo and Dr Pepper peaked. Who knows.
What I do know is that sick will not make this first week any easier... It will however, summon some sort of inner strength to not gag in the face of the child throwing up into his keyboard when you suddenly realise that YOU are the sole responsible adult.
Yep.
If you take anything from this - please keep spare bowls in your cupboard.
I now have 10.
4. Classroom tweaking. HA. Reminiscing about all of the lovely things I hand made, or carefully selected from Ikea. The pintrest ideas. The meticulous little labelled boxes and drawers.
I had it all, perfectly placed.
Insta-worthy. (seriously, check out my feed and give yourself a laugh.)
Wednesday. 4pm. Day 1. I honestly thought that a hurricane had been through my room whilst I dismissed the children.
My beautiful labels were torn. Displays were ripped. Books were bent. The book corner was upside down. And most importantly, they had already managed to move every table to different location in the room.
Top tip: give up. They're children. Learning, engagement and their presence is enough - they don't give a flying monkeys about your glittery calligraphy labels. Sorry.
5. The children are never as you expect.
I know this one sounds obvious and somewhat vague, but hear me out.
The SEND/EAL/ASD etc that you have all those notes about will never show itself how you imagined. They will be quieter or louder than imagined. More secluded or popular than predicted. Challenging or responsive than you prepared for. Because honestly, after 6 weeks they have changed. They have had different boundaries at home. They are going to have a different response to you than their previous teacher. And lets be honest - they're children. They change.
Also, they are definitely not as big and scary as you remember. Those little year 4s you met in July didn't turn into huge, loud, Shrek Jrs over the summer. Funny that. When I stood at the front of the room, with 31 pairs of naive, trusting little eyes staring back at me, I realised that they were not as bad as the picture I had built up in my head.
6. This one is something that I was not expecting.
The evening of my first day my phone was buzzing with messages and phone calls from uni friends and colleagues, fellow NQTs and experienced teachers, all ready to de-brief on the day's events.
Everyone had a wonderful day, the children were beautifully behaved, they had glowing halos around their heads and the parents flooded the classroom with cries of joy at how #blessed they all are to be united together.
Urgh.
So why, when saying how happy I am for all of my friends to have such amazing classes and lives (and I am - of course.) do I not have anything much to say back.
My first week was terrifying. I had a lump in my throat all day, navy blue eye bags, sick down my leg (forever in my memory) and a feeling of looming dread for the next year.
What the hell have I done.
I chose this career. I did this. I signed a contract to say that I could teach these children everything they needed to know in 2017/18. I sold myself in interview as the best candidate for the role of year 5 class teacher. So why did I suddenly feel like I have made the biggest mistake?
I had planned somewhat relaxing activities for this week. Nothing to strenuous for the children and nothing too marking-heavy for me. A few maths word problems to whizz through so that I could gage their abilities and group them accordingly.
So when I realised that these 9 year olds could not recall any times tables, could not do any division, couldn't remember what a fraction even looked like and certainly did not follow any questions with more than one step.
WHAT am I going to do. I need to get these children to the expected end of year 5 level when they did not understand any of my Friday 'panic and teach year 4 stuff' lesson.
Well, the first thing I did was go home and cry. Cry because I didn't know how to find the time to teach these children the basic skills as well as what I am already squeezing into the timetable. Cry because they also have so many emotional needs that I do not know how to give them what I need.
Cry because I am suddenly very aware of how little I know and how much there is left to learn.
What I am trying to say - through the perils of my anxiety - is that it will not necessarily be the most exciting and enriching time of your life.
You will not have a shiny apple on your desk and 31 silent, smiley faces.
Sorry.
What you will have is a challenge. You will have a fabulous TA who you should utilise. A mentor who is there to help you and genuinely wants to, as ask questions. You will have a whole cohort of teachers who (funnily enough) have all been an NQT before and will all come and check you are OK and bring you copious amounts of tea.
But most importantly - and please never lose sight of this - you will have the very exhausting beginning of a fabulous career in arguably the most rewarding, hilarious and down right magical industries.
You are a teacher.
You have earned this.
You can do this.
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