Typically New Years resolutions are made at the very beginning of the year but I've decided to make my NQT year resolutions a little bit into the term, only a week or so, to give me an idea of the sort of challenges I'm going to face. In true New Years resolution style they are unlikely to stick and probably unrealistic!
Having been in school and teaching for 7.5 days, my resolutions are as follows:
1) I WILL have a life! I will only do the work that I have to do, by which I mean if it doesn't actually need doing I won't be doing it. Teachers are notorious for doing much more work than strictly necessary and losing all sense of a work/life balance. I am determined that I will be able to have some evenings/weekend days off without that guilty feeling.
2) I will socialise with people that aren't teachers and keep a sense of reality. We all know that if you spend too much time around people that have the same complaints and problems you can end up driving each other mad and making the situation worse. It's important to have that outside perspective on the situation as well as talking about other things.
3) I will speak out when I need help. Be it in school or on twitter I won't let myself get bogged down with something that could probably be quickly solved by asking the right questions.
4) I won't panic about my lessons not being as thoroughly planned and detailed as they were during my training year. I've heard enough times now that NQTs shouldn't expect their lessons to be the same as they were. The timetable load is higher, I have a needy year 7 form, I have more meetings to go to, I have break duty to do, I'm teaching more exam classes - including sixth form. As long as I'm still planning lessons it doesn't matter that I've not got a sheet of paper that tells me exactly what AfL I'm doing and for how many minutes.
5) I will keep up my blog. This blog gives me a chance to make sense of things that have happened and think about what comes next. I think it's important that I carry it on, whether or not people are reading it!
6) I will join in with #NQTChat. Even though I've given up my commitment to @NQTUK to prioritize other things I will join in with it where I can. It's a really good resource and a lot of fun. Sharing with other NQTs has been really useful so far so I need to remember this and keep joining in.
I'll come back to these in July and see how they went. Don't get me wrong, I realise they're not exactly realistic but I'm aiming high!
