Hi everyone, I am just looking for advice or to see if anyone has been in a similar situation and can help. And also a rant. I returned to work today after 5 months off as my husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I have 2 young children and could not cope with working full time in a very challenging school as well as caring for my husband. I finally managed to change to working part time 3 days a week. Before my husband became ill I was already struggling with the demands of teaching, with more and more children with complex needs, ridiculous expectations and workload. I returned today to find feedback from book monitoring that was given to the supply teacher covering my class a month after I first was absent. So feedback about what I had taught. It was absolutely awful to read, stated there was huge concerns with the books over handwriting, not enough differentiation, not enough in books etc. This has absolutely broken me to come back to, especially as it was shared with someone covering my class and I was not there to defend myself. It made me look and feel like a rubbish teacher. I had spoken to the ht earlier in the year about how challenging the job was, as so many children in the class had additional support needs and one child was violent and I was usually the only adult in class. Sometimes all children had to be doing the same simpler task just to make magaing behaviour easier!
Anyway my point is how am I supposed to cope with this constant criticism and absolutely hating the job, as well as looking after my own kids and looking after my husband? I can't just stay off as we have no idea of the prognosis (husband didn't want to know). Also I long to change career but it is so difficult to get a job where I am and sorting childcare in holidays would be a nightmare. Please help and sorry for rambling on!