One week to go…

Yeah, it is, really. No, no come back….

One week of the longest term in the school year left. The Autumn term is usually fifteen weeks long, which is unfeasibly¹ huge. For year 11 and 13, they are halfway through the year. Unbelievable. The summer term can also be as long, but let’s face it, the sun is shining (sometimes²) and exam classes have left, so it never feels quite as battering as this one.

For the last half term, you’ve been getting up in the dark and coming home in the dark. Vitamin D seems like a long forgotten life goal, as mythical as the Greek Gods. Your family have possibly forgotten what you look like as there have been parents’ evenings, late meetings, carol concert practices and so on. You come home too exhausted to do anything other than watch something shit on telly.

This can’t be good for anyone right? How is it providing a worthwhile education for our students if everyone is exhausted? Stress comes hard at this time too – imagine all the stress of your normal job (multiplied by a significant number – more on this in a minute) and then throw Christmas into the mix. You still have to plan, prepare, deliver and assess students, plus somehow get Christmas presents and be full of ‘festive spirit’.

And then the email hits: no Christmas fun or activities until the last day of term. You must keep the students working and we must present a united front, so no films, no songs, no decorations and so on. Everyone is on their knees – students included – and somehow we have to inspire and educate students who are likely to only have had their body weight in chocolate for breakfast that morning. Or no breakfast at all.

Of course, you also have end of term assessments, usually with pages of really vital paper work³, which take a sizeable amount of your free time – and I don’t mean your PPA⁴ time. There is so much marking to do you can’t help take it home in the evening, or stay late to do it. So of course your family don’t recognise you⁵. You are also battling the fact Sandra is on her third cold of the half term, so is off for ‘at least a week’, Billy needs cover to see his kid’s nativity, the PE department need half⁶ your class for house matches, the drama and music department need to practice for the carol concert, SLT need students for a rewards event⁷, and so on and so on.

This is what I mean by stress levels going through the roof, because somehow in the middle of all this, you have to deliver assessments and quality lessons. Good luck with that!

So, how to survive the last week? Here’s a few tips:

• Never, ever leave your classroom without a piece of paper in your hand⁸. If anyone tries to stop you, wave the paper vaguely and rush on.
• Hide in your PPA time. Don’t go to your classroom and definitely not to what is laughingly called a ‘workspace’. Find an empty classroom for a different subject and work there. I used to do this with Science labs – no-one would ever find me.
• Bribery with sweets is fine, but don’t give one to everyone unless you want them all in a sugar-coma by period 5. Actually, that might not be a bad idea…
• Get the students to mark as much as possible. Go see your maths department, they are the absolute masters of this.
• Give the students Christmas activities. It’s meant to be a fun time of year, for fuck’s sake. You can tell SLT I said it was okay. Their response will be comical.⁹
• Put A Christmas Carol on. Preferably the Muppets one.

So, one week to go. You’ve done at least fourteen. If you have any of your own tips for surviving this late in the term, stick them in the comments!

You’ve got this.

Until next time.

Footnotes

1. I had to check the spelling of this three times. ↩︎
2. Rarely. ↩︎
3. Bullshit. It’s to make SLT feel important. It goes in a drawer and no-one ever sees it again. When SLT members die, they could run the crematorium off of bollocks paperwork they accrued over their career. ↩︎
4. For the non-teachers reading this, that’s your planning, preparation and assessment time. It’s meant to be a minimum of 10% of your timetable, which is nowhere near enough. Even double would still not be enough. ↩︎
5. My wife came home at 5 the other day. I was so shocked I nearly called the police as I thought she was a burglar. ↩︎
6. The good half. ↩︎
7. Every student’s secret dream is to have a cold mince pie and glass of squash with a member of SLT. ↩︎
8. This tip is for the whole year, not just for Christmas. ↩︎
9. The correct response should be ‘who?’, but some will say they’ve read my theories, and, whilst interesting, they don’t currently align with the Trust’s policies. At which point, you can laugh at them when they leave. ↩︎
10. Apart from Die Hard. And Elf. And It’s A Wonderful Life. ↩︎