Stress

I missed it.

Me.

The one with the extra training.

The one with the personal experience.

The one whose childhood was blighted by issues out my control.

The one whose shouting and screaming ended with a teacher realising I was at the brink of a nervous breakdown aged 17.

I missed it. A child in need. A child with the signs that others miss that I’ve confidently noticed in others over my years as a teacher.

I missed it.

I’m beside myself.

Forget the training. Forget the child protection seminar every year. Forget the stern comments from near misses that make you stand and watch one child amongst 20, knowing you’re using up valuable morning lesson time just to check that this child is ok.

I know why Its happened as well.

I was stressed. Stressed and underpaid.

The government won’t pay me more than 5.5 hours a day and even if they did, Scottish teachers are not required to provide 2 days of planning or resources, thus making this the number 1 priority of the day-supply teacher. That, and, where to pee and grab a coffee.

I walked in at 8.41. giving myself over 15 minutes at start to lay out my lesson and try to get a lay of the land and 15 minutes at the end of the day to tidy up and get my form signed (anyone who expects to leave 5 minutes after the bell goes is kidding themselves, it can take 10 minutes to locate someone to sign your form). Not being a permanent member of staff at that school, I couldn’t get into the school until someone came to get me. They had a busy morning. They got me at 8.53.

Nowhere in that 7 minutes was there time for enough information about the children to be passed to me. I didn’t even know who was on a staged intervention. There wasn’t time. I didnt even know where the nearest toilet was.

Maybe if I had been there at 8 I would have had time. But for that to be the answer, schools would have to let you in at 8. Some schools the heads haven’t arrived at that time. Reception staff out of school hours are another no go. And even if I got in, locating the right information would rely on the class teacher having prepared and left information just for such an occasion, which is precisely what the SNCT and unions have fought for them to not to have to do. It’s a lose lose situation.

So, you see, the child protection part of my job is really a box ticking exercise. I really have no chance of actually helping children whose distress may not be obvious. I’m too busy trying to get the whiteboard to turn on and stop the 5 loudest children from running rings round me.

And the time I’m not teaching? I’m resting. It’s the only way to take any control over protecting my health. Covering sick teachers with a compromised immune system was never going to be a riot. But the stresses of the job have led me to let down a child. Which, incidentally, contradicts the reason I went into teaching in the first place.