NQT FOCUS NQT FOCUS
you could do to make that lesson with year 8 a little
better or to find even better resources to use with your
year 11 group.
In the real world, however, you need to think about
yourself and your needs as well as thinking about the
needs of your job. There are times when you must
slow down. You need to take time off. You cannot be
working all the time. You need to relax.
However, relaxing is not so easy for many teachers.
To relax properly you must allow yourself to switch off
and to forget about the deadlines and crises. You need
to learn to give yourself permission to relax without
feeling guilty about what you think you should be
doing. Until you can do this, you will be criticising
yourself all the time you are not working and berating
yourself about what you think you should be doing.
That is no way to run your life.
Create a new list of priorities
Teachers are good at making lists of things to do. The
lists are long and often daunting. Even when they are
prioritised these lists can still be overwhelming.
This means it is time for a new approach. You
need longer lists. Yes, that’s right. You need longer
lists.
Most teachers’ lists are too short. They are filled
with tasks related to teaching, but they do not include
anything else. Make sure your lists record not only your
school-related tasks, but also the tasks you need to do
in your home life and the things you want to do with
your leisure.
Longer lists will help to remind you that there is
so much you want to fit into your life that even if you
allocated 24-hours-a-day to working on your list, you
would not be able to complete everything.
Longer lists will help you to accept that you need to
prioritise activities rather than believe that you can just
work longer and harder and get everything done.
Lists that include more than just school work will
help you to make time for other activities in your
busy schedule. Putting these other tasks on your list
will also remind you that there is more to your life
Who will you be
than your work as a teacher. So start making longer
lists now.
Remember life is a balancing act
You will need to be flexible as you manage the
relationship between your working life and your
life outside work. Sometimes your school work will
at Christmas?
take priority. Sometimes your responsibilities in your
personal and family life will be uppermost in your
thoughts. Sometimes you will take a holiday, and
simply enjoy life.
You are almost there. Term one is almost over.
Think about ways of deflecting conversations
away from teaching so that you can avoid talking
What is important is to think about the balance you
want to achieve between your working life and your Margaret Adams looks at how you should be
about education when you would really rather not.
Do this if you want to have a real holiday, rather than
life outside work, and then to take steps to achieve a busman’s holiday.
that. In your NQT year, you are likely to prioritise your
approaching the Christmas break
school life for quite a lot of the time because you are
Will you allow yourself to relax?
new to teaching and you are just finding your way in Teaching is a demanding career. You already know
the profession. HrISTMAS IS on the horizon. Give priority to your life outside work as far that. You also know by now that in teaching there
This does not mean that, even now, you need to let as possible during the Christmas break. You need is always more you could do – you could do more
school take over your life completely. Think about the relaxation, and you need to do something different. The preparation, you could spend more time on your
different components of your life and decide how you spring term is a long term. Easter is not until April. marking, you could spend more time learning about
are going to accommodate all the elements that are your subject.
important to you. How much time will you spend talking When you make your choice about how much
Finding ways to make time for your life outside C
You are probably already thinking
about how you plan to spend
your holiday, about the presents
you intend to buy, and about the
friends and family you will be
catching up with.
teaching will also help you to be a more successful There are other things to think about, too.
about teaching?
time you intend to give to teaching-related tasks, will
you allow yourself to relax at other times? Do you
teacher. If you take a break from work every now and When the holiday arrives, do you intend to leave As far as your friends and family are concerned you accept that there will come a time when you have
then, you will be surprised how much more energy and your role as teacher behind you for a couple of have changed a lot recently. met your obligations and when you have completed
enthusiasm you have. SecEd weeks, or will you be taking your teaching identity You may have just started your first full-time job. your work to an appropriate standard?
on holiday with you? You were a student, now you are in employment, so During your holiday will you be reminding
• Margaret Adams is the author of How To Take Now is the time to think about this, because you there is novelty in your change of status, at least for yourself of how much more school work you could
Charge Of Your Teaching Career (Continuum may not find it that easy to stand back from your role some of the people you know. You have also just started be doing, even when you are eating your Christmas
International Publishing, 2008) and Work-Life as a teacher once the holiday arrives. If you do not in your life as a teacher. lunch?
Balance: A Practical Guide for Teachers (David have a strategy in place for helping you to switch off
Fulton Publishers, 2006). for a couple of weeks, you could find that you do not
get the chance to take a proper break.
Therefore, to ensure that you experience the
Children get angry all the time and somehow sort of Christmas holiday you will enjoy, think now
it feels easier to find out what they want and stop about how much, or how little, of a teacher you
them from having a tantrum, but with adults it feels intend to be at Christmas.
different.
‘
Will you be feeling guilty about taking time
off when, as far as other people are concerned,
Maybe because they are adults we have the
What are your plans for Christmas?
you are relaxing and enjoying yourself? This is a
impression that they should know better, but the You are about to have two weeks, or maybe a little
reality is that if you have not learned to manage your bit longer, away from school. Plan how you intend
challenge that all teachers face, and it is one that
emotions at a young age you will have problems into to use your time if you want to keep control of your
your adult life. holiday.
will stay with you throughout your career
With children we insist that they communicate in Decide now how much school work you will
a different way and sometimes when they are upset really need to complete over the holiday. What
they just need time to calm down – maybe this is a assignments and teaching topics must you have
good strategy for adults too. ready for the first week back after the holidays? There will be plenty of your acquaintances, and Will you be feeling guilty about taking time off
If you have examination scripts to mark, decide maybe some members of your family, wanting to talk when, as far as other people are concerne
’
d, you are
Playing the role of referee
on which days you will do your marking. If you to you about your new life as a teacher. If you have relaxing and enjoying yourself? This is a challenge
Being assertive is like being a referee where you have something to prepare that you know you will not discovered it already, you are just about to learn that all teachers face, and it is one that will stay with
are able to make a decision and justify it, and even not have time to work on before the end of term, that quite a few people like to think of themselves as you throughout your career. Therefore, the sooner you
though it will not please everyone it feels okay. then note in your diary when you will be doing the experts on education, on teaching, on qualifications, think about how you will deal with the guilt you are
When you are being assertive you are putting work. and on behaviour issues. Many of them relish the idea tempted to feel when you take time off, the better.
yourself into a neutral ground and putting your Before you plan to do any other tasks linked to of talking to a real teacher about these subjects
own agenda to one side. This space allows you to your role as a teacher, think about what else you What is your strategy going to be when people
Who will you be at Christmas?
understand the needs of others and what perspective want to fit into your holiday. Which of your friends you meet socially want to tell you how things were So who exactly will you be this Christmas?
they are coming from. do you want to meet up with this Christmas? How when they were at school, or talk to you about what is Will you be a teacher who is enjoying a well-
As an NQT, you have several groups to satisfy, much time do you intend to allocate to your family wrong with the education system today, or about what earned break? Will you be a teacher who is still
when you play the role of the referee you can listen to and to visiting relatives? What sort of recreational teachers really should be doing instead of – well, you on duty, wherever you are? Will you be a teacher
the views of others and also find a way of weaving in activities do you want to take part in? Are you going can probably finish the sentence. forcing yourself to take a break but knowing you
your own thoughts to reach a satisfactory conclusion. somewhere special for Christmas or for New Year? It is worth deciding now if you intend to engage in really “should” be working?
Put the activities you can only complete at conversations about the shortcomings of the education It is your choice, but do not delay too long in
• Dot Struthers coaches and trains teachers on Christmas into your schedule. Log them into your world and the future of teaching, or if you would prefer making it. The Christmas holiday is short enough.
assertiveness. If you would like a free CPD newsletter, diary. If there is any time left, decide if you want to to talk to people about something else when you are You do not want to waste it trying to decide who you
then register at www.merechats.co.uk allocate any of it to school-related tasks. on holiday. are when you are not hard at work in school.
SecEd • November 26 2009 19
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