Overwhelmed and Out of Time

This term will be my last after 16 years supporting the children and families of one school, and about 27 years of teaching altogether. The decision to leave education was huge for me as I consider myself to have been good at what I do: igniting fire in young minds as I have built relationships with the children in my care, working hard to support their families and also being there to listen and help out colleagues however I could.

I am sad to say that I no longer feel able to do the job that I trained for and that I developed an expertise in, as the direction that education has taken has brought with it so many obstacles that I have found the people that matter, the children, have been lost amongst the targets, the red taped package of Ofsted and monitoring and the tick box exercises of daily teaching. It is with much soul searching that I have had to accept that I cannot continue trying to reach the goals set externally and have been left overwhelmed by a system that currently appears to be unsustainable for the long term positive future of the profession and the wellbeing of our children.

I accept that I have been struggling with family issues which have centred around both physical and mental health of different individuals within the family, alongside the process of managing a highly stressful job. This has been a double edged sword as whilst it has given me an obviously difficult time juggling the hats of career, wife and parent as discussed in my blog post “Diva or Door Mat,” it has also given me an insight into the difficulties that I have tried to help parents with as my role within Special Educational Needs has developed in recent years.

There have always been certain individuals or families that have made indelible marks on me during my career, often the ones I have had to invest the most time in to support. Over my time in education, my interest in SEN has grown to the point that I studied and completed the SENCO qualification a few years ago and have spent the last two years attempting to embrace the immense task of being a SENCO in a busy primary school. This has put me in the privileged position of being the trusted person when families are at some of their darkest moments and it has been a joy to see the relief when together we have been able to find solutions or gain much needed support when paperwork is agreed by SEN panels. For those cases that I leave unresolved, I feel a pang of guilt and hope that others in my place will sort things quickly as, unless you’ve been part of the roller coaster of accepting that a child in the family has special needs, you cannot begin to imagine how all-encompassing this becomes.

As for me, for many reasons, I found that I had become completely overwhelmed by the demands of the job alongside family issues to the point that I now have to consider my own mental health. So, rather like a large sand timer, I see that the time has come to accept that the sand has all run through and my energies have been sapped with it to the point that I am now out of time.

That phrase is apt for several reasons - out of time in how I now feel that I cannot continue fighting the daily battles with accompanying rising stress levels, out of time in how, as a middle-aged teacher my training was at a time that now seems unrecognisable for the current demands of the job, out of time in what I value as important in teaching young minds and how that doesn’t fit into the narrow focused curriculum that measures all children in a one-size fits all way that actually does not fit at all well for many of them.

I face an uncertain new year, with no fixed plans of what I will choose to do next. I have given myself permission to take some time to have some head space, to focus on my writing, to consider if there is another route that I may take work wise. I do not know right now, if I could return to teaching at some point. I feel that I have more to offer, especially in the field of SEN, but as yet have no plans about the form that this will take. I hope to make something of my writing, as it is certainly true that blogging my thoughts this year has helped me to confront long buried emotions and face up to issues that have been hard to talk about. I am too close to it all right now to answer questions about my future. Just today my husband asked if I feel I could do something in the future to keep making a difference in the field of SEN. I could not even think of how to respond to the question without welling up - I suppose that must mean that the guilt in leaving families part way through a journey, in stopping being the one waving the SEN flag at school and fighting a child’s corner is all still too raw for me. Being a SENCO is more than just a job, it seeps into your bones and you certainly cannot leave it at work.

Perhaps readers of this blog will have ideas of where I could jump next? I would be happy to hear suggestions. For now, I have to remind myself that it is okay not to know where I am headed. Moving from a heavily time managed environment to a situation that is bound by no rules or deadlines is simultaneously liberating and intimidating. Friends have put a rose coloured spin on it, encouraging me to follow my dreams. Perhaps they are right? So I am working hard to think of this point in time not as an ending but as a beginning. I have a lot of people to support me and I have got better at asking for help. My past successes will always be there, my future ones are worth striving for and I am truly blessed to have my support network helping me to keep moving forward. Perhaps I am not out of time, more choosing my own time, my time to shine.

Acts of Kindness

Sometimes the smallest gestures have the greatest impact. This week I have been fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of several small acts of kindness from friends and colleagues, who have seen a need and stepped in to support me, without being asked. When I have been caught up in the whirlwind of a work and home life balancing act these past few weeks, these little actions have touched my heart and been appreciated so much.

Several of my previous blog pieces have touched on the value of friendship: ‘Friends and Frivolity’ for example, talks of the positive impact of sharing times and making memories with friends. The last few years, I have definitely had more opportunities to spend evenings with friends, to take part in celebrations or simple social events with them where shared interests, conversation and fun have featured to make memorable times. This has had a positive impact upon me but my thoughts within this blog are more focused upon how significant a seemingly small act of friendship can be. Perhaps it is only when you are feeling lost in life that you notice the minutiae of people’s actions?

For a variety of reasons, I have been feeling low recently and the friends who have noticed have truly made a difference to me through their kindness. Whether that has been quietly taking on a task for me so that I have less things to worry about, dropping everything they had planned that evening to come round to chat and keep me company, or diverting my attention from the things that are causing me anxiety by sharing silly stories or reminding me of how much I have to look forward to that’s positive - all these things and more are noticed and have meant more than may be outwardly apparent to those involved. 

People say that it’s when you’re at your lowest that you find out who your friends truly are. It’s whilst I have been in the darkest places that such acts have shone a light to guide me forward and to keep me moving on, to keep me talking about the struggles that often sit within the confines of my mind.

Having taught within the Primary school sector for over 25 years, there has been a lot that I have seen change and much of it, in my humble opinion, for the worse. This is not the right platform to discuss the politics involved in educational decisions or the seismic mind-shift there has been in the processes of teaching little minds. However, it is the little minds of those I have been privileged to teach that are simultaneously the most at risk and the space within which huge potential lies. In the days of Gove’s grammar legacy where infants and juniors are taught to bark the mechanics of reading and writing, it is with some sadness that I reminisce of past teaching days where there was scope to ignite a spark in their eyes as we journeyed together through the adventure that was learning to read and write. There was time to immerse ourselves in a fantastical story and to use their fuelled imaginations to create their own writing, with not a success criteria in sight! The success was obvious from the pride in their achievement of writing a story.

It is against the current backdrop that I have observed the proliferation of some new elements to school: mindfulness sessions giving children techniques to manage their stress and growth mindset displays showing children how to have positive thoughts. At the risk of sounding like a dinosaur teacher, back in the days I am reminiscing of there were no such things in place around the primary school because then the curriculum was broader. The children had regular access to music, art, drama, basic creativity which all the research shows helps to relax the mind, opens the doors to higher order thinking and problem solving which in turn builds resilience skills. It is of no surprise to me that as these subjects have been squeezed out of the curriculum, except for perhaps the odd day in a term when everyone does an art or DT project for a whole day, that I have seen a sharp increase in the numbers of children who are clearly stressed and suffering anxiety and psychological problems. 

Mental health may have become more in the public eye recently, it may be talked about more openly but I worry about the ticking time bomb of child mental health issues that are mushrooming out of control in our schools.

I did not start out in this piece to write what is I accept, a somewhat political or contentious article. It is just that having been through many stresses and in the position to know what it feels like to be in that dark space, it has given me a more acute awareness of what some of our little minds are facing daily. The benefits of kindness cannot be stressed enough. If I can vouch for its power as a lady of a certain age and life experience, then I can only imagine how powerful it can be to a child. You may never know the true extent of the ripple effect of that one small act, upon the rest of a person’s day, week or whole well-being. In a world where you can be anything, choose to be kind.