The car-crash social life

I knew a young teacher whose card was clearly marked when he got very drunk and showed an unpleasant and boorish side of himself at an otherwise quite genteel function attended by senior staff and governors. His expected promotion did not materialise. Social media now multiply that kind of risk. If you choose to present yourself as a wild party person who makes inappropriate comments about your colleagues, your progress up the ladder clearly won’t be helped.

What is the right thing to do?

You’re a teacher, for good or ill, and you must keep your out-of-school behaviour under control and your social media profile clean. But that doesn’t mean you should close down your real or virtual out-of-school persona, because evidence of responsible activity (sport, charity work, the arts) can be helpful for your career. Being a published writer (on education, that is) helped me just a little, whereas being a male stripper probably wouldn’t have done so.