the way back - nervous breakdown and all that

Two weeks ago, I mentioned that more than half of class-based teachers have left my previous school this year. Interestingly, this has not been mentioned on any social media linked to the school, nor does it feature in any newsletters on the school’s website. In fact, the traditional end of year newsletter has yet to appear on the school’s website (see picture below). It could be an oversight, I guess – but one cannot help but be a little dubious. In previous end of year newsletters, the head had very little to say about the departure of staff (especially those who had had the audacity to question their poor leadership). Maybe this year’s exodus has proven too difficult to whitewash.  And where would they even find room for any other messages once they had said all those goodbyes? It is a small wonder that neither the council, nor the governing board seem to consider that haemorraging teaching staff is in any way problematic. Staff retention is surely an essential considerati...

The MAT campaign is over for me. We lost. We lost well. However, I cannot function properly without writing. It is a way for me to process my messy mind: a way to funnel my anxieties and make sense of the world. For years now, especially since my nervous breakdown in 2019, I seem to be stuck in a fight or flight state. It tends to be more fight than flight these days to be honest. The blog helps anchor me. I was wondering what I could write about, and then bingo: it came to me… Obviously: what better way to move away from recent events than to write about my previous school which is so rich in happenings...  It would appear that things have not exactly improved as far as work conditions go in that hotbed of toxicity. In fact, rumour has it that over 50% class-based teachers are leaving this July. This has been reported to me not by a little bird, but a whole flock of them... While it is true that staff retention is a real issue at the moment in England’s schools, two thir...