Ten Things I Won't Miss...

Miscellaneous Cr*p!

So, this is strange. Until now, I felt as if I was on summer break, and I hadn't really thought about September. Now it’s here. My former colleagues have endured two training days, and parents are preparing their children for the new term starting in the morning (also stocking up on gin and cake in order to celebrate, I suspect!) On Thursday, I actually felt quite unwell. Nothing specific, but a general malaise. By the end of the day, I’d become convinced that my brain was telling my body that, if I wasn't going to work, then I must be ill! 

Time to get a grip, and remind myself of some of the things I won’t miss about work in general, and teaching in particular. I promise I’ll stop when I get to ten!

#1: The Alarm: Oh how lovely not to have to set my alarm at ridiculous o’clock unless I want to!

#2: The Sunday Night Groan: There is usually an archetypal mindless serial that I secretly enjoy, but my enjoyment has been always been tempered by the knowledge that it means it’s Sunday, which is inexorably followed by Monday…groan

#3: Weekend Activity Avoidance: I was always reluctant to commit to doing things at the weekend, because I needed the time to recoup from the previous week, and prepare for the following one. Now, I can happily enjoy having my grandchildren, visiting my daughter, even doing the housework, safe in the knowledge that I can recover on Monday, or even Tuesday for that matter!

#4: Wishing my Time Away: In common with most teachers, I marked my time according to how many weeks I had to plan for, and then ticking the weeks off until the next break. Now I can live for the moment, and am already losing track of the days - although that could be dementia, not sure

#5: Assembly: Apart from my legendary Red Nose Day Assemblies, which took months to plan, I hated delivering assemblies. They came around so quickly, and were always so difficult to make relevant to the pupils at my school. The only good thing about them was that they were on Friday afternoons…back to wishing my time away!

#6: Safeguarding: Part of my role was to deliver the legally required Safeguarding Training to staff. There is no way to sugar this particular pill and looking at staff faces as they grimaced their way through yet another serious case review is something that I am very glad I will no longer have to endure

#7: Work Clothes: The first thing I did at the end of term was bag up all my work clothes and take them to the clothing bank. Now I just have clothes!

#8: Planning: I actually enjoyed planning, and always tried to make learning for my pupils as relevant as possible. What I won’t miss though is all the times when my meticulous planning went horribly wrong - either due to technology failure, forgetting a key resource, not trying out an activity first or just because some days in my room were not conducive to learning!

#9: Playground Duty: Despite the fact that I was a Senior Manager, I never managed to avoid playground duty, and I never managed to not hate it either. If it was hot, there was no shade and the kids got tetchy, if it was cold, it was just cold! Runny noses, blue fingers…and that was just me. I had a hideous playground coat, the pockets of which slowly filled with miscellaneous cr*p. I could provide you with bubbles, twiddles, counters for your reward card or a strange cow finger puppet. Strangely I never, ever had a clean tissue, only a snotty one! Definitely will not miss that!

#10: Constant Stress: Those of you that know me, or have read my previous blog posts, will not be surprised to hear that I am prone to stressing out about many, no, most things. At work I constantly put pressure on myself to sort things out, be a support to other staff, do the best for my pupils and not make myself look a total idiot in the process. I lay awake worrying most nights, and had post-shingles itching for an entire year. My husband says that I am already noticeably less unsettled, and much calmer. I’m really hoping that, as time goes on, I can learn to relax and enjoy not having to be in control

So there you have it, ten things I will not miss about going to work. I could easily have written a longer list of the things I will miss, but the past few weeks have shown me that I can enjoy and embrace this new phase of my life, and the important bits - friends and family - will still be with me!