The week I stopped trying to go viral.

Introduction.

I’m about 10 days into my blogging journey now. I went a bit crazy at the beginning, thinking my first post was going to set the world on fire. I’m amazing. Look at me, doing the Pinterest Pins, doing the SEO analysis. My experience has so far shown that if you are doing blogs for likes, fame, attention, money, it’s going to kind of take over your life and most possibly lead to nothing. I started thinking I want to get rich quick, I’m special, I’m talented. I want to be someone.

Then I realized that it’s probably not going to happen because everyone is aspiring to be on the same trajectory. I just feel a bit lighter when I’ve done some reflective writing and feel brave enough to put it out there if I remain completely anonymous. I just want to create and have something to look back on more than anything.

The clickbait generation

When I have a flick through YouTube and see the level of ridiculousness getting views, I am truly baffled. Youngsters literally scream over whether they have opened a golden squishy dumpling toy and cry as if grieving if the toy is blue. Is this talent? Is this useful? Why is this trending? Please, if you happen to stumble upon this blog post, please comment and make me understand this trend.

Make up bloggers are equally wild. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some genuine talent in this niche. It’s the layers of make-up application they keep doing, endless amounts of product that I know I simply can’t afford, not to mention the impact on my eczema. Again, I just don’t get it.

When it comes to me, my intention is to create a website that is filled with all things teaching. I don’t know what that looks like yet. I would like to reach an audience. I’m not sure teaching is a talent, but it can become a passion, that’s what I’m trying to capture. My audience will hopefully be new teachers, nervous stepping into the classroom, just like me when I started 12 years ago. I just want to say, it will get easier, but it will take time.

I remember my nerves during my first lesson, a year 8 class pretty much talking over me the whole time. I battled very low confidence anyway and teaching was not my first choice. It was a stepping stone career, something local after completing my degree until the right time came to do something better. The right time never came. Like most people, I ended up staying in the profession. I didn’t always love it. It’s taken me a long time to really get to grips with it. It’s become so routine that I now can’t see myself doing anything else.

I plan lessons quick, I deliver with confidence, and I can deflect chaotic behavior with humor which I’ve got to admit, has taken me a long time. In other words, I got better. By sharing my experience, and not using AI to churn it out, maybe you’ll be able to relate to some of the things I blurt out.

They say inspiration can strike at anytime. I feel it happened this afternoon. I was just sitting with my baby, listening to my husband’s woes about his dry cough (pretend listening to be totally honest). Out of nowhere, the desire to start a reflective diary on my blog site entered my brain. I don’t know how, I don’t know where. It made sense. So here I am.

Alongside my polished blog tips and free resources that everyone else seems to be producing, I want to write about the real stuff. The ups and the downs. A lot of it will be related to the classroom as I spend so much time there, but it’s also good to know what other teachers cope with on top of a full-on job that requires so much energy.

If I can be brave enough, I will try to share some of the realities of being a full-time teaching mother and homemaker. It’s a funny time to start a reflective journal post. Next week is the final week of school. We break up for the summer here in Qatar. However, schools are full of life up until the very end day. So here is a small round up of my penultimate week.

The Win: Promotion

I bagged a promotion! I applied for Head of Year 8. My pastoral experience on paper is rather limited to a standard form tutor role. I’ve had roles in teaching and learning and thought I’d try my hand at a pastoral role. This is my first year at my new school. I’ve had countless student issues and a steady flow of parent emails and meetings to contend with.

It was a slightly bittersweet job offer. I applied for Head of Year 8 and didn’t get it. However, I was offered Head of Year 12 instead. Really, I wanted Year 12 but didn’t apply due to a low confidence moment and thinking I wasn’t the right person for job. Turns out several of the big shots think otherwise and suggested I consider Year 12.

I’m excited to be entering the new year with a promotion. I’m currently 12 years into the teaching game and several things have gotten in the way when I was at the crossroads in my career and had to decide between a promotion or life change.

I wasn’t even going to apply but pushed myself not to let the opportunity pass me by. This is your reminder, find your confidence and be in it to win it. How will you know or even have a chance of progressing if you don’t put yourself out there?

The Challenge: End of term teacher burnout.

So, the challenge this week. This time of the year often proves to be a very difficult time for me and many of my teacher colleagues. It just seems like such a waste of time, and usually, it’s the most important time of the year. It’s a time for reflection, improvement, and planning for the next year. If you use this time correctly, you can end up really easing your workload next year.

So, I’m trying, albeit, finding it very hard to stay motivated. Our directive from senior management has been that we need to continue teaching lessons right up until the end of term. It’s hard because all their assessments are done, we’ve marked them, we’ve graded them and report cards are going out this week. So, teaching them content that we know they’re going to forget over the summer holiday seems like a complete waste of time. I am sticking to the directive.

Some teachers have gone down the ‘end of term films’ route. My conscious just won’t allow it and I think the time passes quicker when normal lessons are planned. I was a bit lazy on the last Thursday of this week to be honest. I did only 15-minute intros for my lessons then told the students they could use the remaining time to consolidate their notes. I could see they were genuinely disappointed so I will avoid that next week.

The Change: Breaking the cycle and actively planning for next year.

So, this is the year where, even before my promotion was announced, I wanted to use the time at the end of the year to get ahead. So, I’m doing that. I’m clearing my classroom out already rather than leaving it till the last day.

I’ve ended up with so much paperwork from worksheets over this year. I’ve managed to file a lot of the worksheets; they form a great extension folder resource when students claim to have completed all the work. I’ve got stacks of past papers ready to go for my year 11 groups, and I’ve even built up several biology resources that I won’t need as I’ll just be teaching chemistry next year, so that will hopefully help a biology teacher colleague.

I’m also planning to the point where I have printed off resources for my first units of work for each year group next year. It’s useful. I’ve got folders ready to go, and I’m just slotting in resources for the first couple of weeks so that gives me a head start. It will also ease pressure on the department, I’m hoping, as new members of staff will get a chance to use the printers.

I learnt this as a new teacher in my current school. Being a new member of staff in a high-performing school, the start of the year was stressful because everyone already knew the procedures, what was expected on the first week back, and I was running around looking for printers around the school. I couldn’t find them and was finding it difficult to do my basic lesson prep as I haven’t worked in a high-performing school of this standard ever.

I’ve worked in good schools in the UK, but in Qatar, no. At my previous Qatar school you could pretty much just rock up, prepare a 15-minute lesson even avoiding printouts if you wanted and just deal with extensive behavior issues. Hence why I left.

Looking Ahead

It’s going well now. I’ve got one more week left. I have a plan; I’ve made a note of all the stuff I’m going to be doing next week. Some of my time is going to be taken up helping the transition from year 6 into year 7. I didn’t really sign up for it, but I’m going to offer my support to the team. Got to be a team player, right?

Another big job is jigging my Key Stage 4 Chemistry lessons around. Classes are going to be re-set next year. This means we will end up teaching students from other teachers, and I like to make sure all gaps in learning are covered at the start of the year, so my back is covered. Learnt that from experience, a tale for another blog.

I’m also drafting up a scheme of learning as our chemistry department is all over the place this year, so I’m trying to unite us a little bit. I love the guys, but we have different egos pulling in different directions. It’s been a bit of a struggle in that regard. One of them is leaving now but even the remaining one is very set in his ways and at times difficult to work with, so again, I would like to cover my back and make sure I’ve got the evidence that I wanted us to be united and singing from the same hymn sheet. Covering your own back is half the job in teaching in case you hadn’t already realized.

Just writing about my week reflectively has helped me feel more productive and motivated. Maybe this is what journalling is about?

What about you? How do you tend to use your end of year time? Is it productive, or is it a waste? Got any tips you can share?