No one wants to do school work during the summer holidays and if you’re a student half way through GCSEs or a teacher with loads of marking, we feel your pain!
Having taught for many years, both Maria and I know the pleasure and pain of the summer holidays. On one hand, there’s the thrill of the holidays – a summer of endless possibilities, the time to do whatever you like, maybe a trip abroad, loads of sunshine but most importantly, just fun, fun, fun! On the other hand (and I feel bad even mentioning it) there’s the dread of new school year, the nightmare of the summer being over and you haven’t even thought about going back to school. The marking and general ‘homework’, the new stationery you needed to buy and that important bit of reading that you just haven’t done – I’m breaking out in a cold sweat just thinking about it!
I used to be the sort of person who left everything to the last minute. I would leave summer marking until the very last week of the holidays and then slowly make my way through the pile, moaning quite a lot to anyone around me that would listen. You’d think that this approach would have meant that I was completely care free for the rest of the summer – not thinking about my work at all. But no. I wasn’t doing the work but I also couldn’t completely forget about the work. It loomed over me like a big black cloud, leaving me to let out a sigh at the end of each day and vow that tomorrow I would get on with it. Of course, I never did.
And then everything changed when I got a new job and moved schools. The work load was suddenly so intense and there was so much of it, that I just couldn’t continue with this pattern of non-work, guilt, rushed work, guilt, deadline. I had to get a new approach or I was going to drown in paper.
So I asked another teacher how she managed her work load and the answer was really boring but also completely life changing. Her advice? Do a little bit everyday.
And so I’m passing that advice onto you. If you can spend just an hour everyday (even during the summer holidays) doing a little bit of work, everything will improve. No desperately completing the work right before the deadline, no guilt because you haven’t done the work, no constantly looming pressure because you’ve got it in hand. Chipping away at it means it never really becomes a huge problem in the first place. Set aside an hour everyday, maybe at the same time and probably in the morning to GET. STUFF. DONE. You’ll feel so much better when it’s time to go back to school – believe me.