Things They Never Tell You You'll Learn On Your School Direct Year

I've now nearly finished my NQT year and have just come across this blog in my draft folder. This is something I started to put together at the end of last year, when I was finishing my training and most of these are still true as an NQT - althought you know they are coming after a year as a School Direct student.

You can never go to toiler.... ever.
As a teacher, you have to train your bladder to be as strong as steel. You can't just up and leave a classroom full of 30 children whenever you feel like it. Teachers look forward to weekends and holidays, when they can go when they like! At school, it's 8:30am and 3:30pm.... and lunch time if your lucky! Bladders of steel!

Your social life will vanish.
Week nights are spent marking, planning, sleeping or rocking in a corner. Talking to your family is a gold dust moment that usually involves a glass of wine, a rant and a box of tissues. Weekends are all about catching up life admin like laundry, food shops and eating something other than much needed chocolate or cake. 

School is never just 9am - 3pm
You get in at 7:30am and don't normally leave until 5:30pm.... and then take work home with you to complete. Lesson plans, marking, keeping your Student File up to date.... being a teacher, you never get to the bottom of your To Do List. Something I found really hard to deal with as a student, I love to get a job finished and I had to learn really quickly that in my chosen career.... that just wasn't going to happen. 

Chocolate is always necessary
Always. In varying quantities depending on how the day is going. It can be celebratory, stress relieving, commiserating.... but it is ALWAYS necessary. Luckily enough, there is nearly always some in the staff room to snack on. 

Wine is your friend
See above....I would not have survived my training year without wine..... at points A LOT of wine. 

Marking is the worst thing known to all man kind
It is a never ending, ever present, relentlessly boring landslide of crap..... until you read something that one your kids has done which blows you away.... at that point, it makes your entire week worth it. 

You will be asleep before 9:30pm most Friday nights

I have never experienced complete exhaustion like I did the first term of my student year.... until the first term of my NQT year. I did not know that it was possible to be that mentally drained. The job is a constant learning curve which changes as soon as you think you are getting the hang of things. (Something that I am sure is not exclusive to teaching). Most weekends of my training year, I would get home on Friday and be completely unconscious by 9pm. The weeks were so full on that by the end of it - bed was the only option.  

But after all that..... It is the best year of your life. (Until you o your NQT year) 
After all the stress and tears and hard work, you qualify. You are officially allowed to teach. For me, I entered the career I had dreamed of since I was 16. It was worth it. It was crazy hard, but it was worth it.
That's not to say there are things I wouldn't have changed about it. That goes for my NQT year too. There are things about teaching which are getting harder, more expectations from the Government and Ofsted, which means more pressure on ALL schools and ALL teachers. But, from personal experience so far, it is worth it. When a child in my class finally has a breakthrough moment or a kid produces an amazing piece of work that they are so proud of.... it's an amazing thing to be a part of.

It's a bloody hard job. It takes over your evenings, your weekends, your holidays.... it can destroy your social life if you let it...... but it's one of the most rewarding things I think I could do as my career.

I can't wait for another academic year to start, to see where it takes me and to see what I learn from being an NQT +1.