Do you see the end of the summer term as a magical time? Sun streaming in through windows, the excited sound of sports day, lessons replaced by “educational” documentaries for the last month?

No? Me neither.

If the light streams through the window, it puts a glare on the board so the blinds are down. The sports day means my class is a random collection of pupils coming and going throughout the lesson. The pupils grow restless five minutes into Blue Planet and I’d rather be teaching.

I am a curmudgeon and I suspect I am not alone. Luckily, we curmudgeons have developed survival skills to get us through the last few weeks of term, which I will share with you now.

1. Avoid illness

Do you want to spend the first week of the summer holidays unwell? Do you want to eat that slice of homemade cake sitting in the clammy hands of the child who seconds ago had a finger up his nose? Maybe “save it for later”. Your main job at the end of term is to avoid picking up any bugs. Luckily, the curmudgeon has a tried and tested way of keeping well. Avoid all human contact. No shaking hands with visitors, no shared bowls of sweets in the staffroom and the less said about staff parties the better. Your colleagues are plague factories and they want to take you down with them.

2. Fun isn’t that much fun

Like the John Lewis advert starting Christmas, the call of “can we have a fun lesson today?” is the official start of the end of term. And like the Christmas adverts, it gets earlier every year. The problem is, what pupils think of as "fun" isn’t. They say they want to watch a documentary or play a game or work outside – but they don’t. Try it and they will be bored to tears in minutes. Teachers are terrible at knowing what teenagers would find fun and frankly, if we knew it, we would be fired for providing it.

There is an easy solution to the problem that will make everyone happy. Just teach. Time flies by in a well-planned lesson and many kids will welcome the familiar structures and sense of calm.

3. The missing, in mind and body

Of course, the curmudgeon has an enemy in their campaign to just teach: everyone else. Not just those clinging desperately to their DVD player but all those who insist on planning activities in those last few weeks, which means that pupils will be missing for the first half of the lesson but will randomly reappear halfway through. These activities never seem to take the whole of your class, so you can enjoy a free period, but just enough to make it seem pointless to try and cover what you had planned.

The answer here is simple: exam practice. This is the perfect opportunity to practise applying what has been learned to some testing questions. And don’t worry about the marking – with a tiny class you can mark them live with the pupil and give immediate feedback. Everyone wins!

4. When you thought you were free...

Before you know it, the last day of term is upon you. While the rest of the staff run around feeling the first onset of a stomach bug picked up at the staff barbecue, trying to find a film their classes haven’t yet watched and wondering how they are going to cover everything they need to get through next term, the curmudgeon looks on in amused detachment, enjoying the lack of a queue at the photocopier as they run off the final day’s exam questions.

There is just one thing that stands in the way of the curmudgeon and freedom: the end-of-term speeches. Some schools have this down to a fine art and goodbyes are said at the end-of-term party, leaving people free to slip away before the final echoes fade from the corridors. Others are not so lucky.

A few pointers from an old hand at this. Firstly, don’t bother to arrive on time. People will be settling down and chatting for ages. Use the time to set up your room for September, throw out all those thank-you cards you got from kids who were grateful that you didn’t waste their time on silly games and taught them up to the bitter end and load up your car. In fact, move your car. Get it in prime position at the gates so you aren’t blocked in by that member of the English department who just can’t tear himself away.

Finally, find a seat by the exit and take deep breaths. Freedom beckons.

Enjoy the summer. You earned it.

Mark Enser is head of geography at Heathfield Community College in East Sussex. His first book, Making Every Geography Lesson Count, is out soon. He tweets @EnserMark