How can I make things easier?

[Farontothemaddingcrowd]

I seem to be getting overwhelmed at the moment. I'm a HoD of a core subject at a school, single parent of 3 dc - 12, 11 and 9 and I have the dc 10 days in 14. I'm struggling to manage to keep on top of everything I have to do and my eldest is currently being truculent with regards to homework.

I'm up at 6 each day, get kids ready, in work for 7.30. Home at 5 on a good day but often in work later. Then there is the homework, lunches, separating fighting kids, cleaning the house, feeding the cat and marking. I feel like I'm not doing a brilliant job at anything. Xh is a bit useless. When he eventually returns the kids ' clothes it's usually a month late and unwashed/damaged. So it's costing me a fortune to buy new things.

I earn a reasonable salary but despite spending v little on myself, I never seem to have enough money. The dc are so expensive and being single makes it hard to manage too. I feel fed up with being a drudge.

I try to give the kids a good life - birthday parties, sleepovers, dance classes etc - but I am feeling like I'm going through the motions at times and I'm not getting time for myself. It doesn't help that I don't really have family support with childcare or anything and I've also had to work late a couple of saturdays this term.

Not sure if it's just exhaustion or something more but I scratched my own arm in frustration this week because I was just not getting a break. Feel ashamed to admit that.

I am cancelling plans with friends because I don't feel I have much in common with friends without kids and I don't have the disposable income they have. I suppose I'm a bit envious of couples with kids who have support and people without kids who have freedom and time! I also feel like I don't want to socialise when I do have free time because I'm tired but also because I am just pretending to be jolly I suppose.

Being head of department sounds hard enough on its own. Can you do things like move to school dinners instead of packed lunches and buy some ready meals so that a couple of times You just put three trays into the oven, eat out of it, no washing up involved. I’m guessing money doesn’t stretch to a cleaner. Or could it if you cut back on something?

Hi there

I feel or have felt quite overwhelmed most days, like I’m on a hamster wheel running to keep up all of my/life’s obligations.
I was a single parent for a long time and although I have a partner now, because of the age of my ds it’s still me doing most of it.
I find that I set the bar very high in entertaining the kids, housework, general chores and never give myself positive downtime.By positive I mean constructive.
I am so worn out from full time day job that after everyone has gone to bed I just end up reading mn/Facebook etc
I have no helpful suggestions but I wanted to say you are definitely not alone.The only way I see people getting a balance is by having a partner, grandparents or a work from home job where they can do things without kids.
I also totally understand not wanting to meet up with anyone in your free time because it’s precious, don’t feel guilty about that, your kids will get older and your time will come.
Just sleep/eat/excersise in those free days so you do feel refreshed ( I’ve yet to follow this advice to the letter!)

Do you use whole class marking? Anticipate what you think the issues the pupils will struggle with are; read all of the work without writing comments on it; jot down the initials of pupils next to the issues they face (assuming you were right about these) eg selecting quotes that actually prove the points they are making, being able to interpret and explore meaning rooted in the language of the quotation chosen, being able to make connections between the extract and the whole (English examples, sorry if you are not English). Then plan your next couple of lessons addressing the most common issues and have individual chats with the pupils who have different issues. Don't write any marking comments - demonstrate progress by the work getting better and the pupils being able to articulate how they are dealing with things they previously found difficult.

It does save a lot of time - I moved from 6 hours (I know!) per set of books to 1 hour, including the re-planning.

I do use whole class marking but in addition to normal marking rather than instead of it. We are under pressure at the moment with work scrutiny etc and so I don't think I could switch to that completely. The main thing that's bothering me work wise is the extra curricular activity I've been left in charge of and which involves giving up an entire Saturday 9-5 on a weekend I have my children. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do and I'm worrying because the students aren't doing the prep or turning up to rehearsals.

I'm never going to get a partner to help because I don't have the time or energy to find one. I do also think most men prefer to meet someone childfree or perhaps with just one child, so that's not realistic at the moment.

It's not really how I imagined my life.

Next weekend my friends are meeting at 1 for drinks and then dinner at 3. Then the Christmas markets. I wanted to go, but I just think the cost of that all day thing would end up being astronomical.

I work all the time and there is little room for any pleasure.

That does sound really tough. I can't think of many other time-saving suggestions but if you say the teaching things that take the most time there might be a couple of short cuts. The issue is that the job is just bigger than the time available, really, and invades all aspects of life.