teaching nerves

[castasp]

Does anyone get really bad nerves as a teacher?

I can remember being really nervous a lot of the time when I did my PGCE/NQT, but they gradually faded. I've been teaching for 12 years, and recently moved schools and oh my god! - I am just a bag of nerves all the time! Almost paralysed with them. Staff are lovely, school very friendly/welcoming, but behaviour at the school is difficult, although not anything I haven't dealt with before.

I get especially nervous when I know there are particularly confrontational pupils in a class, but it's not just behaviour. I'm over-planning, panicking that I'm going to forget crucial things for my lesson, or the whole lesson is going to go pear-shaped and I'll have to wing it - I've dealt with all these things before, but I'm a bag of nerves all the time with these thoughts since I moved schools.

It's massively impacting on workload, because I'm spending too much time planning, too much time double checking everything and then I'm getting stressed on top of nerves because I feel like I'm working all the time and struggling to get all the work done. I'm now finding it difficult to find time to relax, which I know I need, in order to calm down from my week of nerves! What's worse is that I'm finding myself procrastinating over planning lessons because I get nervous just thinking about the week ahead!

I just wish these nerves would go away. I sometimes wonder if I'm in the wrong career altogether, but I know I'd enjoy it if I wasn't so nervous.

I still feel like this a lot . It's 'The Dreads'. I get it very Sunday night and it is especially bad after a holiday! I have been teaching 25 years! I tend to over plan too if I am feeling a bit anxious : things like a new spec/ text or subject do this to me, as does the feeling that a difficult child dictates the classroom ethos: this can heighten anxiety. Sometimes , it's also about a lack of control because leaders tell teachers what- and how- to do much more these days!

I do think it's probably a by product of teaching. I think writing to do lists and not doing minor twiddles and tweaks to lesson plans is part of what you need to do. Also, it sounds a bit hippy, but some breathing exercises/mindfulness seem to work wonders for some people.

Are you getting appropriate support with the difficult pupils? Is over planning the lessons actually making the lessons a bit fiddly and over fussy for the students?

Piggywaspushed Glad to hear I'm not the only one. Some of it is "stage fright" I think as well.

I'm getting tons of support with the difficult pupils, but it's still me who has to deal with it initially and decide what support to seek out. The workloads with chasing up discipline issues have been ridiculous as well.

Some of my lessons have been over-fussy, some have just been plain crap. Plenty of others have been good. Some lessons have been a waste of time due to behaviour.

I wouldn’t work in a school where I got butterflies in my stomach before each lesson.

I was listening to a Mr Barton Maths podcast recently and they were discussing what it’s like to move schools. They said it’s not talked about much but it’s a huge shock. The kids don’t know you, you don’t know the rules, and things that worked, that you thought you had sorted just don’t work any more. As a new teacher the kids test you all over again.
It does get better. You’ve done it before.

CraftyGin but I've always got butterflies in my stomach to some degree or another, even in my previous schools, it just lessened a lot over time, and there was nothing wrong with the schools, there's nothing wrong with my current school, it's definitely me. Maybe I'm in the wrong career? But then, I've heard successful actors and comedians talk about the exact same feeling before they go on stage/set and they don't think they're in the wrong career? They just see it as part of the job.

Some people just are fuelled by a bit od adrenalin that leads to nervous energy. I don't believe any teacher who doesn't profess anxiety to certain degrees. I agree with noble that moving schools is like starting all over again and that things will ease back to the way you used to feel. I am considered a confident teacher and I get butterflies, as I said ( I used to deliver assemblies to 420 students and staff ; of course I was nervous!). It's perfectly normal

I'm like this in September or before an assembly or an observation. Or when the head walks in. Otherwise I am fine but I imagine it's because you've moved schools.

castasp I still get butterflies before certain classes, I think as you said it is a kind of nervous energy that can be channeled. I think you need to prioritise. The chasing up of discipline issues would be my number 1. If word gets 'round that if you mess around in catsasp's class you won't get away with it everything else will then start to fall into place. Make sure you follow the discipline procedures to the letter would be my advice.

My classroom is one of the places I feel most relaxed and in control, and my class are some of the people I feel most comfortable with. I shut my classroom door for a break from the complications of life.

It must be very different in Primary though, where there is much more consistency. Maybe you would prefer UKS2?

I'm moving next term, after more than fifteen years in my current place. Although I can teach the lessons with my eyes closed, and I'm stepping down for leadership to main-scale, it won't stop me being really really nervous.desperate even now to start swotting up on their policies and systems, but I've still got this term to go at my current place!

Thanks for all your insights. People don't seem to talk about it very much, apart from occasionally PGCE students, so even though I don't wish these feelings on anyone, it's nice to know I'm not the only one.

OP every word you write describes me! I thought I reacted this way because I have returned to teaching after a long career break but actually I see now that the fact I’m in a new school is probably as much to do with it. Several teachers have said the children respond so much better in the second year. I’m thinking and hoping I will regain my confidence next year. I hope you do too.

A lot of the teachers at the school insist that behaviour will settle down come September and I think that's mostly true.

I think behaviour would have been better if I'd started in a September rather than mid-way through the year.

I don't understand the psychology around it though - they know I'm not a supply teacher, they know I'm here to stay? Although I suppose there are plenty of teachers who start off permanent, then leave fairly soon after for one reason or another.

I've thought about leaving, but there's something about the school that I really like. Staff are a good laugh and very supportive, no micromanagement at all, they expect very little marking (one homework, and 2 tests per topic, no book marking). Workloads will be low once I get my head round everything.

When I moved to my current school, I was the ninth in a long line of teachers that year so when I said I was staying( at the time, I was finishing the year for them, but didn't want them to know that!) they didn't initially believe me. Starting mid year is really hard, I agree that September ought to see things being a bit easier. They sound like a great school.

Taking any class over midway through the year is really hard. Even taking over a Y11 class who had a different teacher for Y10 is difficult. Kids don’t like change and you will always get kids who say ‘previous teacher was better, I wish we had them back’, not because there’s anything wrong with your teaching, but because some kids are like that.

To be fair, not a single pupil has compared me to the previous teacher, other than one comment which was positive, along the lines of "I've actually learn something for the first time this year now that you are teaching us". That was from a pupil in one of my 2 good classes, so I suppose I should be thankful for small mercies.

Just started at a new school too and this is all so true. Thank you for making me see that it will pass and it's not going to be forever. It's horrible though isn't it! X