I had agreed my first day of work to start on the 4th January. Turns out the nice Indian lady who interviewed me, was my new line manager so was excited to work alongside her. She had rang me to have a casual conversation on a few occasions during December and her vibe was always relaxed and very understanding. Turns out her husband is a Secondary School Teacher, so she could only sympathise when she would ring me at 5.30pm and I’d be printing things from the school printer. My first day of my new job rolled round, and I pulled up to the Council House. For the first time ever, I had not even an ounce of anxiety. The drive into work was non-descript and I got in just on time. Usually if I’m not somewhere early, I am a nervous wreck, so this was nice. It was a better than nice, it was blissful. My new manager greeted me warmly with a big hug and took me upstairs to meet the other colleagues that interviewed me. It was truly a dream. I’d put my hand out for them to shake and they were just straight up giving out hugs. Bearing in mind I had only met these people once, in real life. I felt really accepted and cared for immediately. They offered me a hot drink, told me to relax and chat for the first hour, as we were waiting for ICT to email my manager and tell her if my equipment was ready to collect. The expectations of the first day were remarkably different. They weren’t bombarding me with crazy expectations, I hadn’t been sent a list the length of my arm to prepare for before arriving and I wasn’t spoken to like a sewer rat. I was respected all day and my heart just grew throughout the day.
After collecting my equipment, my manager had arranged for me to get some lunch from a local café with our whole team. Again, never did I have time to even go to the local Greggs to get a sandwich and we were sat in this café talking casually, drinking hot chocolate, and munching on decadent ciabatta sandwiches. The lunch lasted over an hour and the ladies explained what ‘flexi’ time means and how my hours for the week are made up. It took a few attempts of them explaining this, because a lot of these concepts were alien to me, but we got there eventually. I had to complete up to 7 and half hours per day, but this can be tweaked based on which days have more or less work. I can also put an ‘out of office’ into my diary if I have an appointment / would like to go to the gym, if no meetings clash with this, again I can manage my own time to work. The flexi time explanation had truly shocked me in the best way. Essentially if I work more than my 7 and a half hours per day, I can start accruing flexi time. For example: if I did an 8-hour day, the extra half an hour gets added to my bank. After collecting the additional time over the month, I can use 7 and half hours to take a full day off or split it into two over the month (so take two half days off). When applying for the job, I had read about this and it did sound good, but I didn’t understand the literal flexibility attached to this, it was truly astounding.
The end of the day rolled around quickly, it just involved having a few 1:1 meetings with my team and managers and just talking about roles and responsibilities. I got home and just gave my husband the biggest hug. I told him about my day and his reaction despite being positive was very neutral. He said, “that is how normal people are treated in jobs, I’ve been waiting 5 years for you to be happy and content and I’m just glad that days finally come around. I’m proud of you for smashing your first day, this is what you needed”. I thanked him for his support over the years and had the most peaceful nights sleep, that I’d not had for years. This was the start of a better beginning and I couldn’t wait to see where this would take me.
After collecting my equipment, my manager had arranged for me to get some lunch from a local café with our whole team. Again, never did I have time to even go to the local Greggs to get a sandwich and we were sat in this café talking casually, drinking hot chocolate, and munching on decadent ciabatta sandwiches. The lunch lasted over an hour and the ladies explained what ‘flexi’ time means and how my hours for the week are made up. It took a few attempts of them explaining this, because a lot of these concepts were alien to me, but we got there eventually. I had to complete up to 7 and half hours per day, but this can be tweaked based on which days have more or less work. I can also put an ‘out of office’ into my diary if I have an appointment / would like to go to the gym, if no meetings clash with this, again I can manage my own time to work. The flexi time explanation had truly shocked me in the best way. Essentially if I work more than my 7 and a half hours per day, I can start accruing flexi time. For example: if I did an 8-hour day, the extra half an hour gets added to my bank. After collecting the additional time over the month, I can use 7 and half hours to take a full day off or split it into two over the month (so take two half days off). When applying for the job, I had read about this and it did sound good, but I didn’t understand the literal flexibility attached to this, it was truly astounding.
The end of the day rolled around quickly, it just involved having a few 1:1 meetings with my team and managers and just talking about roles and responsibilities. I got home and just gave my husband the biggest hug. I told him about my day and his reaction despite being positive was very neutral. He said, “that is how normal people are treated in jobs, I’ve been waiting 5 years for you to be happy and content and I’m just glad that days finally come around. I’m proud of you for smashing your first day, this is what you needed”. I thanked him for his support over the years and had the most peaceful nights sleep, that I’d not had for years. This was the start of a better beginning and I couldn’t wait to see where this would take me.
“Teaching is the most rewarding career” is what they tell you when you start the journey, but once you embody that role, there are hundreds of things that can affect you in the long term. To re-iterate, this website was not created with the intention of negating the value of a Teacher, but instead it is a hopeful insight into how we as practitioners are multi-skilled and multi-faceted. We put ourselves down by self-deprecating our self-worth because there are points in our career where we are made to feel useless and not deserving of positive praise. I’m here to tell you- that’s not healthy and living in this toxic cycle of work is ultimately detrimental to your health.
I hope you enjoy exploring this webpage and reading my story and learn all there is to know about Life Beyond Teaching.
Please do have a read of my "Tips to Exploring Other Careers" page to support you, if you are thinking about a new career outside of Teaching.
The satisfaction that you get for people doubting you and you showing them what you are really made of can be atoned to the most satisfying feeling the world.