teachers - what aspect of going back are you dreading the most?

[minishiteboard]

( even if you like your job)

I am dreading sitting in the chuffing hall all day where they tell us the latest shitnitiative they have come up with

Seeing a colleague who barely said 2 words to me all last year despite sharing a class together.
Hearing about how they are changing the key stage 3 curriculum for the 4th time since I started the job.
Having to teach a subject I don't want to teach because there aren't enough staff.
Working longer hours than last year.
Having to a million and one things before 9am when I haven't even had chance to drink my coffee.

I'm with you OP. It always amuses me when they do the obligatory INSET on different learning styles and adaptation. This is of course whilst literally talking at a group of people for hours on end using a boring PowerPoint. Apparently different learning styles stop after childhood.

Having to get up early in the morning when the alarm goes off.

Having to go to bed earlier at night, so as to try to get enough sleep to not be too tired before I've even set foot in the school building!

Making packed lunches.

Quite.
Not to mention the fact that we teach our pupils that when they do a presentation they must absolutely NOT read the content of the slides. They should look at their audience and illustrate the point they are making. Otherwise it would simply be more efficient for everyone to just hand around a print out of the presentation.
Unfortunately, the folk who do the staff training days don't seem to have got the memo.
I'm doing a presentation myself on Friday and I have run through it several times so I can explain what the slides illustrate without reading from them.... and finding ways to add a little humour into it to keep my audience interested.... you know, like we do in the classroom with our pupils.

The interminable inset. The fact that timetables STILL aren't ready and I have no idea really who or what I am teaching from next week. The GCSE and A Level paper reviewing which I'm trying to stop stealing my last few days.

The stress dreams which started last week.

Loving "shitnishitive" as a phrase.

I can normally let all of that wash over me while I sip coffee and write in my planner.

I am another one not looking forward to the sheer pace and speed at which I am going to have to work, my perimenopausal brain hasn't quite recovered from last term yet.

👏 👏 👏

@BeachedOff

“Apparently different learning styles stop after childhood”

👏👏👏 The irony!!

Only being able to wee at set times. My bladder is currently in holiday mode and loves the freedom 😄

Deep dive😄

Left teaching at Xmas, so this is the first year not to have all this. Sun is shining so will be out on the river on my paddleboard /feels weird!!!

And differentiated learning as well- talking to everyone as if they are ECTs.

Awful toxic workplace which has now gone full Paul Dix to cap it all. I don't want to hear another word about relationships (which are of course crucial in teaching) and have now found out that detentions are being replaced by 'reflections' - to be run by classroom teachers whereas detentions were centralised and run by SLT. This was not shared before we broke up or even mentioned. So yes, not really looking forward to going back at all....

RUN.

RUN LIKE THE WIND.

This will end badly.

Mmmm tough choice.

1. The stress of sitting in a hall for the training days, when you have a lot of tasks to do to in your department, and SMT spend the day adding more tasks to that list, mentioning inspection threat, but ensuring you can't get to your room to do anything. Great feeling.

1. The ex- teacher paid speaker mental health experty they have brought at a cost of £900, who gives you tips on how to enforce boundaries and avoid stress. Some great tips because you're receptive and feeling positive and determined this year will be different! Then he leaves and the SMT encourage you all to sign up for the team building spiritual retreat that's happening..... next Saturday.

For me it's never the pupils or parents. And actually things start looking up once term starts properly.

• no spontaneous toilet breaks for my menopausal bladder
• having to listen to the bullshit during INSET, as everyone's said, when there's a mountain of organisation needing to be tackled before the next day's fun
• knowing that the SLT bullshit is just due to their own nonsense PD target-setting. Education is the snake eating is own tail at this point
• weekly learning walks (is that normal?) and constant scrutiny dressed up as useful. It's not. It's stressful and a distraction. Leave me alone and let me teach.
• lack of professional trust

I could go on.

Things I hated when I went back

Inept SLT and Head explaining things that could have been done in an email, and often repeating the same BS over and over again.

The Head, SLT and their bullying clique.

Watching the time that has been put aside for departments and curriculum organisation disappear.

Listening to the BS catchphrases and acronyms, and the SLT not explaining what they mean.

Getting what is essentially homework because there is never enough time left for the essential stuff that you have to .read.

Oh and the powerpoint of how good our mates did in their class results.

I gave up teaching quite a fre years ago, but I do remember feeling confident a d excited about the new year until the shocking inset day begone kids in where they throw a load of gumph they've decided you now need to add to lessons/ displays/ resources and so on that they then.expect.you to implement in the hour left after said inset day, before kids are in the next morning.

Laughable now I look back.

Good luck to all.

Excellent point. I don't think the appeal judge who overturned the asylum seeker ruling on the Bell hotel, who was on the BBC News at 10 last night had learned that!

Do we work in the same school .

I don’t know who I’m teaching next week. I feel ill today just thinking about it.

Noooo! Time to look for another school.

Oh god, that bad @noblegiraffe and @TaborlinTheGreat ? Behaviour was shit before it started and has got no better but no worse either since they brought it in but I feel it will be massively ramping up now.

Definitely the alarm going off - I hate early mornings!
Our inset days look like the usual rubbish but they finish early and I'm looking forward to seeing my colleagues so they'll be okay. There's lots of to get us through.

But I'm bored. My school is fine, I enjoy the teaching and most of the kids are great plus my dept are lovely (but lots are on SLT etc so less of a team feel these days). I'm ready for a new challenge, something to make me think or feel like I'm improving. I'm keeping an eye out for jobs but it's hard leaving a nice school.

but it's hard leaving a nice school

Definitely. The morale and vibe at my generally lovely school have changed since the arrival of the unpopular new Head, and some people have jumped ship. I'm going nowhere though. I wouldn't trade the lovely kids, easy behaviour management and great colleagues for anything tbh. Hopefully I'll outlast the new Head, who is the ambitious type.

Lucky to work in a fab school but Year 9. They were toads in Year 8 and I can’t imagine they’ve improved a great deal over the summer.
5.30 alarm will be a killer for the first week.
Excited to see work pals and the vast majority of kids though.