I started working in January 2017, in a 2-form school, I was in Reception, however as soon as my wonderful maternity cover left the school, the attitude of the EY’s lead (my year group partner Teacher) was fired straight onto me. It was suffocating, but I ploughed through quietly and as professionally as I could. My mom always said, give people 2 to 3 chances before you fully make your mind up and so I did. These chances ran out in week one, but typically I’d come in early and crack on with printing resources, setting up the activities (or lack thereof) and tidying anything I didn’t manage to put away the night before. The EY’s lead would walk in, ignore me/or literally pull me up on a ridiculous thing. For example, on DAY 1 she demanded why wasn’t the outdoor Risk Assessment (RA) signed. Bearing in mind, it was 7.15am and I only walked in 10 mins before… being a “preppy” NQT I was quick to drop everything I was doing and proceeded to complete the RA to the best of my ability, lifting tuft trays and moving literal Wendy houses to see if there was a snake or half a tonne of glass lingering anywhere.
The petty, but demanding remarks just became the norm. It was strange having a day without them… sounds like Stockholm syndrome but it was a cycle of abuse that I struggled with for years. There were even days where she would randomly rock up and spontaneously plan events e.g., a tea party to celebrate Megan Markle and Harry’s Royal wedding. I wasn’t opposed to a little spontaneity especially in EY’s, so I was up for the plans. However, she spent the whole morning telling my class off for and I quote “not having good enough writing like my lovely class”, she said other unprofessional and highly disgusting things, but I will omit them, as it’s better to take the high road (sometimes). The afternoon rolled around, and she expected me to come outside and sit with her class for a “party”. She went as far to say, “I haven’t got enough cakes for your class, but your kids can join us if they want.” I hit the roof, I said (quite loudly across the classroom) “we don’t want to come outside, we have writing to do”. She laughed to my face (in a patronising way) with the TA and told me to lighten up… I resisted the urge not to say something unprofessional and once again went along with it. Turned out there was enough cakes for my class, she just didn’t want to share. Again, this was another trend that re-occurred on numerous occasions. She would buy resources for her children to play with and during free flow child-initiated play, have the cheek to stop my children from accessing the resources because she had paid for them. The petty-ness was untrue. I’d never known anything like it.
PPA would roll around and I would do my best to keep up with the EY’s lead. Some positives came out of working together. Her pace of working was out of this world, and I just couldn’t believe how she teased out her planning to produce something tangible. I’ll always appreciate just sneakily being able to observe her brain function and produce ideas. Despite this methodology being my downfall, it did get me through the subsequent 5 years of Teaching. I think working a mile a minute can be something Teachers’ can sustain, because they may be able to switch that part of their brain off when they go home, however I just couldn’t do this. I’d drive home thinking of planning, cook dinner thinking of meeting children’s needs and go to bed creating a plan of action for the next day and if my never ending to do list would ever come to an end.
To shine a light on my partner teacher, I will say she was a highly undervalued, over-worked and exhausted member of staff. At the time of my NQT-ship, she had been Assistant Head for 3 years, so clearly had a lot riding on her shoulders and had to continually prove her worth. Problem is, every year EY’s staff were leaving and the common denominator, that remained never seemed to be questioned about this fascinating anomaly. The Senior Leadership Team (SLT) and their dynamics were one on their own and something I never sussed out. On one hand, they would love a ‘all singing, all dancing’ environment and on the other, they expected the children to produce writing evidence daily, which was an unreasonable ask when the room was far too stimulating and distracting. The priorities were never right and it really was a shame.
Something I majorly struggled with was the lack of effort some TA’s would put in, during my time in Reception. I’ll vouch for my placements here. I truly met the most amazing TA’s who cared and put a lot of effort into their day-to-day work with the children, however that was no longer the case. The TA’s clearly had been overworked to the point they were in the “I don’t care” territory”. I continued to play the game. I hyped them up, praised them and just tried to be positive in a sea of negativity. In the end I just faked it. I faked it till I made it. The people weren’t bad, I think they just had their fair share of next level tasks sprung on them, so they stopped caring. This was the first school I had been in, where the TA’s were doing Teacher level things. I know this is becoming more of a norm now but having experienced it so early in my career was eye opening and heart-breaking. TAs are a level of support network for Teachers’, that’s not to say Teachers should only rely on TA’s but at the same time reciprocal support is HUGE. Your colleagues should be your cheerleaders and I was always a cheerleader for others. I tried my best to be kind and not let the negativity get to me. In the end I did give into it, but I tried hard for the longest time to fight it.
Another incident that left an impact was during Sports Day rehearsal. My class were incredibly slow at getting dressed for P.E. – not their fault, their gross motor skills just were not quite there yet. Hilariously, the expectation was to have two pieces of writing evidence stuck in their Child-Initiated writing books per day, along with juggling Writing, Maths and topic lessons was just too much. I find this funny because if they children struggle to lift their arms up, to pull off their jumper, how are they going to use precise fine motor movements, to produce paragraphs of writing. It was perplexing to say the least and let’s not forget these children are in Reception. I had a class full of LA writers and strangely the other class had all the HA children, which was a common occurrence according to staff. Again, trying to be the “good” NQT I said very little and tried to push through. One day, when I finished Maths earlier, I decided to just take my children out onto the field to practice some Sports Day games, nothing that required pumps/trainers very limited resistance games e.g., bean bag on the head and egg and spoon. As soon as the EY lead saw me leaving, she insisted I stay in the room. I explained my children need to practise these two games because we no longer have time to write if they get changed. She out right refused to hear what I had to say, and in that moment, I grew some balls and ignored her. I slammed the door behind me and walked onto the field with my wonderful class. This was 4 months of dealing with her attitude and I just felt empowered because I finally felt like I could run away from my problems. A small part of me deep in my heart did a happy dance and egged me on for being defiant for the first time. Sounds lame but it’s true. The EY lead had the nerve to ring the Deputy Head to come down and stop me. Both approached me on the field and the Deputy calmly asked if the children could change for P.E. I explained if I was to change the children, they would not have chance to get a 2nd piece of writing which is compulsory requirement at the minute. She understood my concern and said to the EY lead, I’m sure we can drop down to 1 or no pieces of writing on some days during the lead up to Sports Day. Her face was a picture, but I was happy to oblige because the expectation had been tweaked appropriately for me to be able to support the children. It was the children that mattered, not the petty and unnecessary writing expectations.
On a positive note, I realised my school did a yearly questionnaire which was “anonymous” (it wasn’t anonymous, if you bitched about SLT, the Head would question said SLT member about the issue and probably even name people who made these accusations however, it was a cathartic experience to write how I really felt on a yearly basis). It was sent out around Easter and had a set deadline. One year a competition was set where the first 3 sending their questionnaire would win an Amazon voucher, which wasn’t bad considering we had very few incentives EVER (I of course trying to win, did get mine in to ‘win’ this prestigious prize). Inevitably I did spend the voucher for school resources, so was redundant but technically it wasn’t my money. As I read this back, I cannot believe I used to say nonsense like this all the time. I was brain-washed to think this was acceptable. Within the questionnaire I made it CLEAR that I wanted to move to Nursery. Our Nursery was the only 1 form part of the school, which meant I could lead it the way I want (well, not really but I could try) and I could show the school that I don’t need to be micro-managed every step of the way. I’m not sure if it was my compelling statement or the desperation she sensed when I wrote my reasoning, but it did work. Thus, I was put in Nursery after a 6-month stint in Reception and stayed there for 3 years, but little did I know being in Nursery for so many years would catatonically destroy any passion I had left for Teaching.
It’s now September 2017 and I’m finally in Nursery. Put simply Nursery humbles you! Planning the most out of this world lesson with all the bells and whistles can be thrown promptly out the window, as soon as you get a new starter crying for their mommy, or when somebody soils themselves all over the brand-new rug. Every day was quite literally a school day. The TA I was assigned was very strong willed. She meant well but sometimes I did question who the actual Teacher was. She threw me under the bus a couple of times, just ‘because’ and it became a ritual at one point. I would come back from PPA, get pulled by the EY’s lead to “have a word”. I could pinpoint from what point of walking into the building I would be pulled… it was excruciating and in hindsight I should have said something, but again I ploughed through because my self-worth would not let me throw in the towel and my ego stopped me from going to the Head. The complaints were always silly and mostly fabricated/non-issues. One particular concern that I will never forget is “I’ve been made aware that you have been teaching the children about metaphors and I wanted to check the curriculum you are teaching is relevant to EY’s, because metaphors is not something we cover down here”. The look on my face said it all, I tried hard not to roll my eyes and explained there has clearly been some misunderstanding. I shut the nonsense down but still left feeling like the EY’s lead would never believe me, even if I grovelled and begged, hence I struggle to let go of the memory.
The time I spent faking it, whilst in Reception and during my first year of Nursery, really would take me to such a dark place every evening. I got to a point where I would come home after 12 hours (6am-6pm), cook dinner, go to bed, and just cry for hours into my husband’s arms, poor guy he’s an actual angel in human form. Some nights I’d drive home, and I’d always slow down by a very large tree that stuck out down the road, where I would map out how much speed I would need to gain to hit the tree with my car, to kill myself and to not let the tree fall onto the houses on the corner. I wanted to die but didn’t want to leave a path of destruction. I felt bad enough for the circus act in my brain, I just couldn’t handle dying knowing I killed innocent people in my wake. After admitting to these thoughts years down the line and talking about my suicidal thoughts to my Teacher friends, they mentioned that they also had their ‘tree’ which had a similar feeling attached. Hearing that gave me a sense of community. The fact is many Teachers consider suicide and this is unacceptable, yet we talked about it like we were discussing paint options for a re-decoration- insane… truly unacceptable.
After a painful year of Nursery, working unreasonable hours and dealing with constant back biting, I passed my NQT year in January 2018 and then September rolled around quickly. In my second year of being in Nursery, a new staff member was employed to the school, and I finally felt rewarded for all my hardships. I was given a TA who literally stepped out of heaven. She is to this day a good friend of my mine and she truly saved my life (she doesn’t know this, but I’ll never forget just how much she helped me). Her passion, support and level of knowledge really pushed me through that year. Despite Covid-19 getting in the way and ending the year quite abruptly I genuinely believe she was put with me to give me a new lease of life. My head and heart were in such a dark place in the 6 weeks holiday before that new academic year, but my mindset changed quickly due this amazing soul. This year went interestingly. It was a test to see if I am good enough to “guide and support” this amazing T.A. to the insane expectations of school. She didn’t need any support to be honest, she smashed it without my help, but any guidance I did give her she was appreciative of. Again, I wasn’t used to appreciation, so it felt nice to be told a heartfelt thank you. I finally experienced having a T.A. who cared about her job and did things using her initiative promptly, rather than feeling like I was asking for a lot e.g., just putting some work on a display or tidying away something that they had out. These requests never came out my mouth all year because this ray of light truly had it together. The major hurdle we had to overcome was the Early Years lead essentially being jealous of our working relationship. In a nutshell, she wanted this T.A. and because she was put with me, she was very butt hurt. She tried hard to throw both of us under the bus and manipulate her way into making sure we were in some type of trouble; however, I quickly taught my T.A. how to handle this and we had a very drama free year.
It got to around January 2019 and Covid-19 had officially hit, so schools shut down. Lockdowns were crazy and thus the EY’s and Year 1 team became glorified CBeebies presenters. Recording lessons, juggling, and uploading resources and forcing a smile was part of the day to day. Years 2-6 were uploading learning to the website, and teaching online, when the functionality finally came in. It feels like a blur, because we had to do a lot but without a real-life audience which is why it felt like a weird time to be alive. People were scared for their lives, but I tried to take this in my stride. A way of working from home to not do the day-to-day slog of school, was very cathartic. We were all on rotas to look after the vulnerable and key worker children, which was a great way to meet different groups of children and help them have some semblance of normality. I also got the chance to work with a range of TA’s which was a nice experience. Turns out there was other TA’s who still cared and weren’t completely burnt out, so I really appreciated the change. During phase 2 of lockdown, ‘Bubblegate’ began, which was horrific for my depression. Being classed as living with highly vulnerable people in my home, had stricken me to be a remote worker and I was tasked to plan for Year 1. A year group I had never planned for or knew much about. In hindsight, I’m glad it happened because this was my lifeline. I could prove to the school that I’m not just an EY’s Teacher who will never leave Nursery. After planning for a few weeks, I felt I got better and better! My confidence was growing, but I was working horrible hours. Even after subtracting the travel times, I was still uploading home learning for Nursery and planning for Year 1, which equated to early starts and late finishes. Clearly, the teachers/SLT in school thought the home working Teachers were slacking off, but the truth was the complete opposite. Thankfully the 6 weeks rolled around, and everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief.
FYI the picture on the left was this 'whacky' new idea that the EY Lead came up with for all Teachers to do during lockdown. We had to take photos / videos reading books in unique ways e.g. in the car, under an umbrella, next to a toy... it was stupid because living in a small house during a lockdown, their was only so many quirky placed to take these photos. Along with the ream of home learning we had to upload, this was just another tick box that we had to just do. I literally ended up in the shower for one photo op- why was this acceptable?
September 2019 rolled around and so did my third year of Nursery. Shockingly the Headteacher had decided not to move any Teachers to different year groups. This was just to maintain normality for children which made no sense, since all children were moving years, but ok… I was desperate to come out of Nursery, and had begged for Year 1 in my questionnaire, but knew it wouldn’t happen. So, another wild year of Nursery began and this time I was working with a TA who notoriously was excellent, and I was prepared to have another positive year, at least from the support front. She didn’t disappoint. She’s another TA I would class as a lifelong friend. We connected on Inbetweeners references and Netflix recommendations. She was the type of TA that you just had to give the ‘look’ to and you would both be on the same page, and you’d burst in a fit of giggles. It was never a dull moment working together despite some hardships with particularly challenging children, we cracked on and worked hard to keep a sense of order and decorum, amongst the chaos. We were even coined as “negative adults” when during one incident, the challenging child was punching, smacking, pushing, and even spat on us. It shattered our morale at points, and we struggled putting the effort into our day-to-day work, because our screams for support were unheard of. Miraculously when the child moved to Reception, there was a support system in place which was very much ingrained in the child’s support plan, so again we wish he had this sorted earlier, but in hindsight we were happy things were now in pace to help the child. Side rant- why are schools so obsessed with emotion coaching. I absolutely agree children enter schools with an array of adverse environmental conditions, but I genuinely felt on numerous occasions, that when a child who literally is doing something to harm my staff, me, the children, and themselves I need to act quick. Whether that means guiding them into a quiet room or evacuating classrooms. I hated playing the “emotion coaching” game, it was fake and not something I could do without sounding overly sarcastic. I take my hat off to people who can do this with some degree of seriousness because I genuinely didn’t get it.
One word I got used to hearing whilst in nursery was “MONITORING”. Oh, how I would hate the EY’s lead randomly dropping in for some unannounced monitoring, with insane expectations, BUT I quickly cottoned on to her manipulation tactic. I pre-empted times she would spring these on me and try my utmost to make sure the room was prim and proper. To be quite honest, the nature of the monitoring was never specific or supportive, I tried hard to keep everything together e.g., live displays, engaging activities, printed planning on the planning wall etc. Again, in hindsight I ticked boxes for SLT, many of things didn’t matter to the children, but it’s the nonsense jobs that burnt me out. I spent a LOT of my own money to make sure the Nursery had something, and this made me really resent the workplace. To the point I would struggle to sleep through the night, drive to school on autopilot and walk into the Nursery and just sit on my flimsy computer chair for 15 minutes contemplating my life choices. Again, it sounds lame, but I hated my life. My heart said I am doing the right thing staying and I am helping the children, but my head screamed “GET OUT”. I tried hard in Nursery for years trying to make it a good learning environment, but the more I did the worse the intakes got. I felt over the years, we would get more and more children with various needs to support (as discussed already) and only having two adults in the room (including myself), we just couldn’t support everybody how we wanted to. It was tough to watch, doing your day to day with children going through the “system”, having a multitude of needs and not even having a quarter of them met.
A major problem in particularly at this school was the lack of awareness the Headteacher had of Phase 1 Phonics. She truly believed all Phonics lessons need to be all singing and dancing, but didn’t understand e.g., why we needed to teach alliteration- a literal part of the curriculum. It was baffling and the lack of understanding, which became so apparent through e.g., Phonics learning walks, observations. Sitting there whilst getting feedback and listening to the most mind baffling nonsense was soul-crushing. I genuinely think back and pat myself on my back for biting my tongue. How I didn’t draw blood is truly remarkable. I just couldn’t believe it. Often the EY lead would tell us to implement XYZ into our Phonics lessons as a way of “Coaching and Mentoring” us but when this got observed by the Head, she would hate it all and make a point that we did not know the “true essence of Phase 1 Phonics”. At that point I would just have a blank look on my face which matched what was happening inside my brain- TUMBLEWEED, just TUMBLEWEED. Again, I wish I said something, but after passing my NQT year I just tried to be a good Teacher who never complained. If they asked me to jump, I was asking how high? I just couldn’t stand the treatment, it was excruciating.
Subject Leadership was a pain. I know as Teachers as soon as you pass your NQT year you are expected to lead on a random subject, but I always thought this was unjustified. I didn’t consent to this; I wasn’t getting extra pay for it and the expectations to do the most was always too much. I had a strange relationship with my Headteacher. In one beat she was nice and had good ideas, but in another she would rip apart our (my) Leadership action plans and expect us to have completed a million tasks in a very short period. The workplace was made to feel toxic because the head knew “knowledge is power” and exploited it in the best way possible.
Four years of being in Early Years made me desperate to finally get a taste of Year 1. I made my case to move to Year 1 in those “confidential” questionnaires and by some miracle of God I was finally moved to Year 1 in September 2021. I truly loved it. I felt all these years of literally being dragged through the mud of Nursery, I felt happy and at home. It was a lovely environment, made even better with my year group partner who was a complete gem. I worked hard and showed her what I could do, whilst simultaneously taking the tips and tricks from her who helped me get to grips with Year 1. My fourth year of teaching went by in a mostly happy, blur and thus my 5th year began.
Please go to the "Life NEARLY THERE" page to learn about how I finally took the plunge to leave.