What’s the best thing about teaching?
You get to make a significant impact on the lives of real people, every day. It’s certainly hard work, and at times it feels unrelenting, but the work you’re doing has purpose: it makes a real difference to your students and their life chances.
Why did you decide to enter teaching?
When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a writer; however, during the long summer holidays at university I volunteered at my old primary school, which ignited the spark that led towards a career in teaching instead.
I’m so grateful to the staff there for giving me opportunities to support in lots of different year groups, to lead activities, and even to teach my first lesson; it showed me that I had the skills needed to teach, at a basic level at least, and it opened my eyes to some of the challenges these children faced.
For instance, after having only known me for a few days, one of the Year 1 students (whose father was not present in her life, for whatever reason) drew a picture for me and wrote on it “you’re my school-Dad”. This was super cute, but at the same time it illustrated the lack of role models that some of these children had, especially male role models (all the teachers were female in this school, and lots of the children’s fathers were absent at home).
It was around this time that I decided I wanted to be that role model for children and young people in the future.
What's been your proudest moment in teaching?
Possibly my proudest moment as a primary school teacher was during my NQT year when I created an end of term assembly based on our topic, the Stone Age.
I took a lead on implementing this for both classes in the year group, and through the assembly I built in opportunities for the children to showcase their learning from the term, as well as adapting some current songs from the charts to make their lyrics relevant to Stone Age houses, clothes and people.
I loved teaching music, and in particular singing, which often felt squeezed out of the curriculum, and being able to have this opportunity for it to take centre stage was special.
The best bit of it all, though, was seeing the joy on the children’s faces when they were practicing and performing! An added bonus was seeing something that I had led come together so well; as an NQT I had spent much of that year knowing I had lots to learn and feeling less good at teaching than most of my colleagues, so it was a real confidence boost to find something I could excel at.
One of the proudest moments of my teaching career to date, has to be during our Ofsted inspection earlier this academic year. After an intense two-and-a-half-days running on adrenaline, caffeine and prayer, in the final feedback the inspector shared some of the lovely comments from our students about how brilliant the staff were, and how good it felt to be a student at TLG, including some things that they wouldn't say to our faces in a million years!
It’s not just that this made us look good for the inspector (although of course that was welcomed!): this moment showed me that the care, nurture, time, attention and respect that we relentlessly communicate day-to-day to our students had sunk in and made an impact, despite the sometimes undesirable behaviour that often masks their true feelings.
Combining that with the overwhelmingly positive comments on the Parent View survey, made me so proud of what we had achieved as a team in building the culture of our school towards what we wanted it to be over a period of years and through a number of challenges.
What have been the biggest challenges you’ve faced in your teaching career?
I think the biggest challenge for me has been the workload. Even a tough day feels manageable when it ends at the end of your working hours, giving you time to rest, regroup, socialise and do something fun. But when you’re spending evenings and weekends marking books and planning lessons, work invades other areas of your life, draining your energy, inhibiting your sleep, leaving relationships under-invested in and eroding your sense of self.
It’s amazing that more schools are now addressing this, implementing strategies like those outlined in my second book for senior leaders Leading Work at Work, like setting a realistic expectation for quantity of written marking and lesson planning.
It’s also great that things like DfE’s school workload reduction toolkit exist. It still doesn’t feel like enough, though: workload is the main reason I almost left teaching after my NQT year, and one reason I can’t see myself returning to mainstream teaching anytime soon. I believe more needs to be done to make this wonderful job compatible with family life and with a well-balanced life in general.
What celebrity best represents you as a teacher in the classroom and why?
Gareth Southgate: we learn from our mistakes (that penalty miss!); we prefer simplicity and predictability over flashy and exciting, even if it risks being a little dull; we know that we can only achieve our goals through a team approach; we’re empathetic and relational; we’re aiming to develop the potential of the next generation, and we both have beards.
What do you use Tes for?
The biggest thing I’ve used Tes for is the vast array of resources, especially in my first teaching job. They saved me lots of time compared to creating everything from scratch, while allowing me to draw on the knowledge of other, more experienced professionals to make my lessons better for my students than I could have done by myself – so they positively impacted me as a teacher and the learning of my pupils.
Although my current organisation has a great bank of shared resources for its staff, I still occasionally dip into Tes’ resources, and I do recommend them to less experienced colleagues, including the trainee teachers I’m leading through the ITT programme.
If you were telling a friend about Tes, what would you say?
I’d say always check out their bank of resources before you create your own – you’ll probably save time and energy, even if you just use their resources as a starting point before adapting them for your class. I’d also point them towards these excellent blog posts for advice and ideas.
What’s the biggest thing you’d like Tes to help teachers with more?
Sharing more ideas to reduce teacher workload without compromising on the excellence of student outcomes, and sharing strategies for good wellbeing more generally, for example, avoiding burnout and building resilience in the face of challenging behaviour.
You/your school gets a million pounds. What do you spend it on?
1. A new building with extensive outdoor space, a music studio and a science laboratory.
2. At least one extra staff member for our small but wonderful team.
3. A laptop or iPad for each student.
4. A state-of-the-art coffee machine for the staff kitchen!
One piece of advice or top tip you’d give someone just entering teaching today?
Be realistic with your expectations of what you can achieve in your first couple of years in the job; you’ll grow loads as a teacher over time, but don’t rush the process or expect yourself to excel straight away, and don’t be comparing yourself to others: both those pitfalls will only lead to feeling discouraged.
Instead, learn from those around you, try things out, and learn from the mistakes that will inevitably come as you take those risks. Also, try to build effective habits to manage workload as early as you can, so you can stick at this wonderful job for a long time to come: it’s better to be a flame burning steadily for many years than one that burns brightly for a short time.
