Do you find the holidays hard???

[CaptainBrickbeard]

My Twitter feed this morning is full of advice on how to handle the transition to the holidays and teachers bemoaning how difficult they find the ‘lack of purpose’ and how much they miss the classroom. I am, frankly, agog. I have never struggled in the slightest to adjust! I often get ill in the first week or am extremely tired, but that’s not what the Edutwitter names are talking about and I’m finding it baffling and also a little irritating. The holidays give me a chance to indulge my interests, look after myself, spend relaxed time with my children and enjoy the break from stress, tension and pressure. I can’t imagine letting the job define me so much that I didn’t know what to do with myself in the summer - I will read, write, watch tv, go abroad...it’s like when people say they would stay in their job if they won the lottery because otherwise they’d get bored. I can’t understand it AT ALL.

I’m going to cherish this holiday because when we come back, the school is launching it’s new behaviour policy...no prizes for guessing which way they’ve decided to go.... I’m thinking that as a result, next year could be my last in the profession so this might be my last six week break! I’m certainly not going to mope about missing the classroom routine!

A lot of the edutweeters are desperately arrogant, and attention seeking , and often very nasty to each other!

DH is a teacher a and we do get under each other's feet a bit. He has longer holidays than me so is already bored. I miss seeing colleagues and the chit chat.

But the teaching and the marking and the politics of my school?? Not so much...

And, Twitter has sent me into apoplexy anyway today as Ofsted and the EEF are wishing us all good holidays. I have THREE MORE SCHOOL DAYS!!!!!

And , should I ever meet Paul Dix, I am going to tell him to fuck off. Repeatedly.

I actually really need a holiday this year as there are numerous colleagues I might tell to fuck off if I am not careful.

Clearly those teachers must be doing their holidays wrong.

They need to do more lying on the sofa eating biscuits.

unicorn - yep! Another Performing Arts teacher. I do extended diploma so literally have my students all day every day. And yes to the intensity of production weeks and so on. The current yr 13s were my first group in my new venture too so will always be a bit special!

They need to do more lying on the sofa eating biscuits.

This is my superpower

Paul Dix is without doubt, the worst thing to happen in the education world for a long time. And that's a crowded field.

feenie I like the sound of your holidays. I shall join in with lying on the sofa, but can't join in with the biscuits because I'm diabetic :( Sugar free alternatives are not the same :(

Before DC I did. Same with sick days. I just couldn't switch off and fell a bit out of it until I got into the swing of it. This morning however I woke up and had that dreaded "oh no, best get up and get ready for work" moment followed by the realisation that no I don't! So I do get it because I've been there, but only when I let teaching define me and that's all I had. It's sad really.

I need to start a not on holiday yet support thread!!!

Solidarity, piggy

A couple of things about holidays in Australian schools, they're blocked so that all breaks apart from the summer one are two weeks, and I love the way I can decompress and properly relax three times a year. Does make for long terms; though 9/10 weeks, but I soon adjusted.

The real transition challenge for me and other older teachers is retirement. We have no entitlement to go part-time and wind down, though most schools accommodate this.

Instead we have the lovely long service leave, accrued after seven years in service, and often used by pre-retirees to experience being off-work on full or half pay for a term/semester to live a different life before jacking it all in.

Staff who are not going to retire can do the same thing, of course.

As for twitter nit-wits, they seriously need to get a life. I've only read about Paul Dix and want to join the queue to tell him to fuck off, and his shite hasn't even infested this wide brown land.

9 weeks of no school?! And bored?! No way!!

piggywaspushed I also have three days left. Three heatwave days as well!

I absolutely cannot be arsed. It's an eighth week too far.

Virtual fistbump there feenie . We can do it!!

I find the come down hard and struggle to Stop "doing". I have a toddler so entertaining them is tricky at times.

DH is still at work all summer so the days become very long. I'm looking forward to seeing friends and a few events but I like to have something to do every day otherwise I'd go slightly insane.

I think it depends on everyone's circumstances and life outlook. I don't enjoy a lot of TV but can get lost in books for hours. So summer is book reading time.

Just a whole Y6 production to throw together by Wednesday,
it's all good!

Yessss, Teachermaths, me too - going on holiday in a week and will be overloading my Kindle in anticipation. Can't wait!

This is the new bread of branded twitter-centric teachers who have only ever had smoke blown up their arse from being recruited/groomed at Freshers week. They are all indoctrinated to believe they have a 'moral imperative'/entitlement to rise as quickly to the top as they can and post all about it as they go. They're not treating it as a profession, vocation if you will, whereby you hope to build experience and longevity...they're all racing against each other convinced they are closing the gap of social deprivation (whilst also pulling sickies to go to Glastonbury) and these pesky holidays just get in the way! #cheap&replinshing. I'm tempted to start a teacher recruitment company, sorry, I mean charity, called 'teach last'....

I can't say I enjoy the summer holidays

I have a 17 year old DS with HFA and an NT 15 year old DD and I'm a single parent

We all need the structure of term time

I'm never alone but I feel lonely

DD will go away with their dad for a few days -DS has no contact with him so will be with me for the entire holiday

I'll go back to work in September for a rest

Yes. I have struggled with depression all my life and I find the devil makes work for idle minds. I need the rest but by the end of the summer I am generally very low and need to get back to work for my mental health to stabilise.

I get bored in the holidays - I'm single, none of my friends are teachers and I don't have kids so there's nothing to do during the day that doesn't cost money which I don't have! I'm sure when I do have kids I'll change my tune though.

The thing is, I’d rather be bored at home than stressed at work! So if I were to find the holidays boring, I’d still massively prefer that to the grind and tension and relentlessness of termtime.

In fact, thinking about it more. I have never, not once, in any holiday pre or post children thought at any point ‘I’d rather be at work right now’ even for a second. Same for my maternity leaves. And I’ve never once gone back to work feeling like I’ve had enough time off. One year I had to have surgery five weeks before the end of the summer term so I was off in total for eleven weeks and I think it was the happiest time of my life - and I was actually immobile and unable to leave home (beyond my own garden) for quite a bit of that time. So I guess if I’m at the point where i would take being hospitalised and/or housebound over being at work...I really am in the wrong job.

I'd agree with that last bit. Don't get me wrong there are bits of the job I dislike and elements of how things are done where I am that infuriate me but it's firing me up at the minute.
I love my kids dearly but I also love my job. I love preparing new texts to teach and I love it when I see the enthusiasm of some of my students. Teaching (like many other jobs of course) is a rollercoaster but one where I get to talk about books and words ALL DAY. Why wouldn't I miss that?
I'm going back full time in September after two mat leaves interspersed with two years part time. I can't wait.

Definitely I recognise what you’re saying about the books and words and enthusiasm. But I can so rarely enjoy all of that in the data and the workload and the swamp of admin and meetings and policies and behaviour. I am just so very exhausted throughout every term that it suffocates the magic. Maybe I’m in the wrong school rather than job.

Also a possibility. I totally get what you're saying but the good should outweigh the bad (I don't always feel that it does especially after year 10 on a Friday afternoon!). When it doesn't it's worth looking around and seeing what's around. I'm pretty much trapped where I am for a variety of reasons but the good outweighs the bad and the bad is swiftly sorted with a brief rant with understanding colleagues!