The Healthy Teacher Project 8 – Interview with Charlotte

What is The Healthy Teacher Project? Charlotte is an English teacher at a comprehensive secondary school in the Cotswolds where she's taught for five years. She's now the Associate Head of English. We talk about how Charlotte has recently made more of an effort to keep physically fit and how that investment in her health …

Five ways to keep your lessons inspiring at the end of term

Any term that's over six weeks in length is a struggle. They're all getting tired, losing focus and becoming irritable - and that's just us teachers. Personally, I always aim to get any assessments done within the first six weeks of term. Getting the most out of students (and yourself) is really hard after this. …

My Author Journey – Keeping the Faith

As an unpublished writer, keeping the faith in a project is hard. With no one to tell you to keep going, no hooked readers, trickles of sales or even friends and family passing on comments of encouragement -  having constant motivation can be elusive. Yes, I have a compulsion to write - that's why I …

The Healthy Teacher Project 6 – Interview with Sian Rowland

What is The Healthy Teacher Project?  Sian Rowland is a freelance trainer, advisor and writer. Much of her work surrounds creating teaching resources for education and other businesses. She was a primary school teacher for a number of years, before moving into leadership, before becoming an advisor for the Local Education Authority before working for …

Letter to my 16-year-old self

This week, we secondary school teachers, are saying goodbye to another group of students. We'll attempt to say something poignant in the final lesson, maybe pose for photographs - then they'll be gone, walking out into the sunlight, towards the school gates, as they have a thousand times over the last five years. From the …

The Healthy Teacher Project 5 – Interview with David Keyte

What is The Healthy Teacher Project?  In this interview, I talk with David Keyte, an NQT primary school teacher currently teaching year 4. David gives a fascinating insight into what it means to be a healthy teacher because he's relatively new to the profession, working for a number of years in recruitment before retraining. It's …

Teachers – five reasons to keep, value and proritise your hobbies

Answer this honestly - how many hobbies or interests do you no longer regularly follow because of teaching? As I write it's the final weekend of the summer half term. The academic year has flown -year 6 sats are done, year 11 are on their way out and we have seven and a half weeks …

The Healthy Teacher Project 4 – Interview with Catherine Parker

What is The Healthy Teacher Project?  In this interview, I talk with Catherine Parker,  currently a Secondary English RQT but with 15 years previous experience in the classroom as a teaching assistant. Catherine's positivity is infectious - she talks about the surprises of being a new teacher, how she copes with it, and why it's …

Protecting your mental health as a teacher

#MentalHealthAwarenessWeek Mental health is something that affects everyone. Some people are more resilient, some cope better, but everyone needs to be aware of their own mental health and the mental health of others. Teaching can be draining, tiring, fatiguing and knackering - it's important to know how to deal with stress, anxiety and exhaustion when …

10 great things about being a teacher

I've often heard it said that you should write the book/article that you yourself need. This is an article every teacher could do with reading.