How do teachers spend their holidays?

If other teachers are anything like me then I am sure they have already spent a large part of their holiday marking and assessing work and planning for next term. Even when I am not consciously spending time on the more formal aspects of teaching, I know that I am still subconsciously thinking about my class. How can I make this lesson better? o0o isn't that an interesting craft item, that could be use for this lesson. How can I help child x with reading better? How can I support child y with their number work? These are just the thoughts I have running through my brain most of the time.

I hear a lot of criticisms of teachers, one of which is that we have an awful lot of holidays. This does vary country by country but I personally cannot deny that we do have a lot more holidays than other working folk. For example, my husband gets about 4 and a half weeks holiday a year. What I would say is that when he takes his holidays he really does take a break from his work. He doesn't open emails, he doesn't consider any of the things he might do when he gets back to work and he has no contact with colleagues or clients. Whereas for me this is pretty much the complete opposite. I take home books to work on, I continually have thoughts of how to make my teaching better going through my head and I also know that when I do return to school, the lessons need to be ready to go. Therefore planning cannot be avoided entirely in the same way as my husband can avoid doing any work at all in his holidays.

However, although I do think that good teachers do work during their holidays to make their teaching better, I also think that we need to remember to take the time out of working that we really need so that we avoid teacher burnout. In the UK, teacher turnover is at an all time high. I really believe this is because teachers feel (as shown in the photograph) that they should be planning and working during their holidays. I think that teachers even feel guilt when they are not doing work during the holidays. Partly this comes because teaching is a job that is never 'complete'. There is always something more that you could do to make a lesson better, there is always another resource you could make to help an individual child. But I really do feel that all of this is leading to teachers feeling stressed, overworked, and unable to do their jobs properly. This is not a good outcome.

Therefore, as in the picture above I believe teachers need to ensure that they take some of their holidays as 'real' holidays. This means NO marking, NO opening books, NO collecting of items to use in teaching, NO creating resources and putting teaching to the back of your mind. It DOES mean, playing games with your family, reading for pleasure, and family time such as meals, going for a walk, a night at the cinema. All the things that other people enjoy during their holidays.

If you cannot honestly say you have taken four weeks out of teaching this year in this way, then you have NOT had your holidays. You may have had more time out of the work place than other people, but you haven't actually had any time away from working.

So, while we still have a few days left before returning to school, think about whether you have had time away from work. If you haven't then make at least one of the next few days a 'YOU' day and do something that makes you happy.

Happy New Year!

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All photographs used in this blog post come from Pixabay and can be found using the following links:
https://pixabay.com/en/reprint-similar-to-analog-edition-908900/
https://pixabay.com/en/family-game-game-board-game-588908/
https://pixabay.com/en/family-eating-at-the-table-dining-619142/
https://pixabay.com/en/teacher-classroom-school-class-403004/

 

Retelling the story of Hanukkah with comical results

Here is a picture of the poor puppet playing the part of King Antiochus! Luckily he survived his ordeal.

In England and Wales all schools have to have Religious Education lessons weekly (usually shortened to RE). I have since found out that this is actually quite unusual and that in many other countries there is very little if any teaching about religions in schools. Here in England we usually have between half an hour and an hour lesson weekly for RE. I actually remember RE lessons as being my favourite at school. I loved learning about other religions and how they were different and similar to my own emerging Christianity. I also remember many lessons at secondary school in particular that turned into very interesting debates with very different opinions and viewpoints represented. I feel it made me a tolerant person willing to try and see things from other people's points of view. At primary school the focus was much more on stories from different religions and cultures and thinking about the morals or ethics that these stories were meant to portray.

So that brings me to thinking about the festival our Jewish friends and colleagues are currently celebratings: Hannukah!  I've retold the story in my classroom every year for the past 4 years. I usually use videos if I can find them online or visuals to retell the story. However, last year I managed to find the most amazing puppets at EWE Educational resources. They were actually Bible puppets but I decided to use some of the puppets to retell the story of Hanukkah to my class of 10 children. Many of the children in my class had autism or ADHD as well as behaviour difficulties and sensory processing disorders which made story telling difficult sometimes as it was difficult to keep the attention of all 10 children at the same time. Anyway, I was telling the story and using the puppets to help retell the story. As I was telling the story and explaining how King Antiochus has stopped the people from worshipping God and had cancelled  their religious events one of my children got up and attacked my poor King Antiochus puppet! He shouted at the puppet that it was 'evil' and 'horrible.'

I have to say - I found this particular outburst hilarious and exciting! Here was a child who hardly ever listened to more than 1 minute of a story so engaged with the story and 'in' the story that he felt the same anger towards King Antiochus as the people of the time who rebelled. The rest of the story telling went very well and all the children were listening and excited when we got to the part about the lamp staying lit with only one day's oil for eight nights. We followed up on the lesson by making potato latkes and looking at a real Menorah. The children really enjoyed lighting a candle on it each day!

Welcome to my blog

So! I decided to start a blog to talk about my teaching and tutoring. I thought it might be a nice idea to introduce myself in my first post so that you know a little about me.

I'm a UK based teacher who works part time in a special educational needs school and fills the rest of her time with supply teaching in primary schools both mainstream and sen. I've been teaching and working in schools for over 5 years now. I also tutor a boy with severe autism in the evenings. In addition to this, I create resources which I list on teacherspayteachers.com and TES.co.uk for sale.

On a more personal note - I am a 30 year old, newly married woman who enjoys going out to see films, reading books and playing board games!
That's all for now folks!