Chapter 3: Enough is enough - the deciding factors to go.

This week, I went and collected my mug from school. There's something very poignant about bringing home your work mug. Your work mug belongs at work, not in your house. Yet here mine is, sat in my kitchen waiting to be filled with 'chilled a bit too much to drink' tea yet again. 

As much as I missed it, my mug is a stark reminder that I have failed what I started. I bought it a few years ago - My wonderful Emma Bridgewater, green and purple Suffragette trophy reminding me to be 'ambitious, brave and pioneering' and that 'strong women will change the world'. I unfortunately have not changed the world! And it was the realisation that I actually could not, which was the final push that I needed to find the courage to leave.

I have been working in schools for twenty years - that is half of my life! My entire adult existence has been built around being a teacher; training, working, upskilling, planning, living and breathing... And do you know what? I'm good at it! Kids are hilarious at times, and being able to be part of their development has been the been a huge privilege. But, it really isn't the job that it was twenty years ago. My heart breaks for where my beloved profession has gone, but the truth is it now doesn't feel like a privilege. It doesn't even feel like a blessing! Teaching has become a chore. Being a SENDCo in particular became and all-consuming, lead weight upon my shoulders, slowly breaking every atom of my being. I don't really feel I found the guts to go - I'm not sure I was left with any other real option.

I've been around a lot of teachers and school staff in my time and I can safely say that the main reason for going into teaching comes from a want to make a difference and a perplexity to care - it is a vocation. Not one of them went into it for the money (if it was about the money, they wouldn't be teaching!). Yes, the holidays are nice and definitely the main perk of the job - but as I have progressed through my career, it has been startlingly apparent that they alone are not enough compensation for the sheer emotional toll that the career has on your overall wellbeing. They used to be, but not anymore.

I'd like to spend a moment reflecting on just how lucky I have been to finish my career in the school that I am leaving. I love my school! So much so, my eldest daughter goes there and and my youngest will follow. I think this is a factor that has kept me going for so long. I've made the closest of friends in my colleagues who I will cherish for a lifetime and can honestly say, have never felt so encouraged, believed in and valued as I have in the entirety of my career as I have then whilst being there. It has given me my fondest memories of what a wonderful job teaching can be, and I made the decision after about six months of being there that I would not work in another school. When I was asked to do the role, I wanted to make it work for them. My students, for the community and ultimately, my work family.

So what has changed? A lot! (And this is where I can start to get rambley!)

You just have to click on to 'Netmums' or look at a local newspaper social media page to ascertain what the general consensus of schools and teachers is. As a child at school, I can vividly remember my parents consistently agreeing with every aspect of school and I knew that they would continue to do so regardless of what I said to the contrary. This attitude has significantly swayed now with parents and carers being more than critical and objective about the vast array of school life than ever before. Homework, attendance, access arrangements, SEND, giving consequences for behaviour, not giving consequences for behaviour - the list goes on! Having spent half my life in education, I will sincerely put my hand on my heart and say that the students who succeed are the ones where school and home are on the same page. Teenagers are wily creatures! Give them an inch, they will take a mile. It has become virtually impossible to now to know what page any of you are on, to work within inches and ultimately do the right thing.

I can remember in the pandemic when parents were forced to actually get involved with their child's education. For a while, teachers were heroes. Parents struggled to sustain attention, motivate and progress their children at the kitchen table, who were often working at different ability levels and held different interests, all the while trying to complete their own work and maintain behaviour. Of course, each outcome was all a bit skewed. Asking every child to learn in their home environment (like asking every child to learn in a classroom of 30), was not going to work as a one-size fits all. However, I can't help but feel that this has slowly had a negative impact on the general view of teachers and schools in society in more ways than one. The vast amount of services that schools had to deliver to ensure that children were safeguarded and healthy has left a rather entitled spin on the expectations of parents. We bent over backwards to ensure that we did our absolute best. Unfortunately this is now the expected level of input.

We also need to look at the current education system; or at least the precarious fragments of it! It absolutely terrifies me that my girls are expected to thrive and be successful in the 'Gove and Cove' legacy. Fortunately for them (despite suspecting that both have a degree of neurodiversity spicing up their brains), they are bright and resilient and have developed their own coping mechanisms to navigate their days. Not all children can do this. It has become blatantly obvious now (and seems to have become more so as the years from the pandemic have progressed further), that the current approach of academic rigour is no longer fit for purpose. It wasn't when it was introduced if we're completely honest! Putting children and young people into one box and expecting equal results is insulting - to them, to teachers, to the future prospects of our society! You can bake two cakes with the same tools, at the same temperature, in the same oven, but if one has different ingredients, you're going to get a different outcome. Why do we not look at our children in the same way? 

If you add SEND into the mix, it has become nigh-on impossible to meet the needs of all students, in all subjects all of the time, no matter how hard we try.  The SEND system is more broken than can be articulated. I am scared, saddened and despair of the catalogue of children that are being let down currently in the UK. Expecting children to sit down to an academic curriculum for five hours a day when some can't even sit in a chair for five minutes is unconsidered and unfair. Add in the expectation as mentioned above, and you are asked to make miracles happen - requests I have had this year include; for this child to have this intervention, that child to have an adult next to them in all lessons. This child to be able to leave lesson early and walk with a staff member to their next lesson, that child not to have questions asked of them in lessons. This child to sit at the front of the class and have all reasonable adjustments made for their ASD, that child to sit at the back and nobody to mention they have ASD as they don't like to be considered one of 'those children'. I wish I could meet every desired need whilst boosting independence skills and preparing teenagers for adulthood - alas, I seem to have misplaced my wand! 

In small primary schools, these aspects are easier to facilitate. What I have found in secondary schools is that children are not coming up emotionally resilient enough to cope with being in a building of two-thousand students, meeting five different adults in five different rooms on an ever-changing daily schedule. No two children are the same and it just doesn't work for all students. Covid has been a massive facilitator in this and most teachers will be able to tell you the specific year groups who this has impacted the most. This, and a much improved and necessary push on awareness has led to a massive increase in school avoidance and requests for Autism and ADHD - more children, in more systems which are fundamentally broken!

Unfortunately, this seems to have then become the fault of the school. I get it, I really do. As a parent you consistently just want the best for your child. The frustrations of enduring blocks to support and lengthy time scales in every step of the journey just to get some help for your child simply exacerbates fractions. Schools seem to be the only place where parents get the opportunity to vent their frustrations. (I was recently approached at parents evening by a parent who greeted me with a 'you never rang me!'. I had however contacted the child's mother, who dad apparently has nothing to do with. But what was I going to do about the fact his mum didn't given him his tablet on time and he was late for school?). Desperate parents then go for the secure way to get that support - they apply for an EHCP (Education Health and Care Plan for non-education readers). 

I think the above points combined are the aspects over time that have impacted me the most. Add social media into the mix giving disgruntled families a forum to complain, belittle and rally, and you've basically got a full-blown shit tornado! It got to the point where I no longer felt competent. Being told day in, day out that you are not doing enough, that I started to question my ability and consider what the actual point of my role was anymore. I questioned my every decision. If I said I didn't believe a child needed and EHCP , they'd apply for one themselves. If an ADHD referral came back as negative (twice), that was my fault for not filling the form in properly. You get tempted to become a people pleaser, because you can't remember the last time someone was actually pleased! But actually, I can't say things that to professionals that I don't believe are there. If you don't agree though, you are wrong and unsupportive, and thus the backlash will ensue! My professional integrity has been taken from me and it is going to take a battle to fully get it back. 

The impact that this was having on my personal life has been catastrophic as you now know. I was physically and mentally unwell. I was overweight, intolerant, snappy, overworked and generally, not myself. Despite being a so unhappy and broken, I'm really glad it happened. It was what I needed to do to say 'enough'. I've spoken to a number of SENDCo colleagues since, and this does seem to be a epidemic! One I was asked to encourage to take some time off and her exact words were "I will break before I stop". That to me sums it up. Putting everyone else's children first all the time (in fact, putting other people's children before your own), running yourself into the ground knowing you need another day at least to finish that day's to-do list, before tomorrow adds a new list. And still, you care. You push on because you want to make a difference.

I really did try and change the world - and I really wanted to. When I agreed to take on the role I could see what needed to be done and, despite a lot of wobbles and crisis' in confidence (I even went for hypnosis to overcome this), I tried. I didn't just try, I gave it every ounce of effort that I had. I wanted to make it better, which was the overall deciding factor to taking on the job in the first place! But in the current climate, I don't think it can get better. Change needs to happen - and I am working now with the right people to inform that change. Don't get me wrong, I was not perfect at my job and mistakes have been made (I AM a human being contrary to popular belief), but I honestly gave it my everything and have definitely positively paved the way for the next person to take the reins.

I might not have changed the world. I might not still change the world! But I can look back on my career and say that I did make a difference. My efforts have not always been in vain! I can look back and remember the faces of those individual students whose worlds I did change - and that's why teaching is a vocation and why not everyone can do it. I haven't failed. And nobody can take that away from me.