The Summer holiday seems million years ago. I always forget from year to year just how challenging, exhausting, rewarding, exciting and stressful the return to school can be. I have a busy year ahead, with advanced higher, higher and credit classes, along some classes with some very challenging characters in them. With each class I have relationships to build, routines to establish and ideas to try out.
Before I came into teaching, I worked for a few years in an insurance company doing actuarial calculations for pension schemes - I job I fell into. The work exercised my mind, but that was all, and I hoped that as a teacher I would be able to bring more of myself into my work. I got everything I hoped for and more! My first teaching practices were the most challenging things I have ever done in my life.
The great thing about teaching is that whilst it gets easier over the years, it never becomes routine. Each new year brings a fresh set of challenges. Thank goodness we have 6 w…