As memories of summer fade into autumn’s golden hues, we see the days shortening and must tackle those dark morning starts. It’s not something our ancestors had to contend with – they rose with the sun – but it’s one of the demands of modern working life.
If, like me, you’re relatively happy with a sunlit early start, but find autumn and winter mornings difficult, here are some tips on coping with dark mornings once the clocks have gone back.
Top tips for dark morning starts
1. Get out during the day, even if it isn’t sunny. Exposure to natural daylight can lift our mood, even on an overcast day.
2. Keep up exercise. It may feel harder when the weather isn’t at its best, but regular exercise is a great way of combatting daytime fatigue. A daytime walk, run or cycle outside will combine exercise and daylight exposure.
3. Think about taking a vitamin D supplement. Our skin synthesises this vitamin when exposed to light so shorter days may mean we are producing less.
4. Connect with nature. Getting outside is also a great way to stay in touch with the natural world. This is great for our wellbeing; noticing the little changes around us helps to remind us that spring is on the way.
5. Stay Hydrated. When we wake up we need to hydrate and this can contribute to feeling fatigued. While a caffeine fix is the first choice for many, try drinking some water first.
6. Prep the night before. Get as many things done each evening so you don’t have to start each morning with an unappealing to-do list. This might include choosing clothes for the next day, making a packed lunch, or packing your work bag.
7. No screens before sleep. If you’re finding it hard to sleep, or you aren’t feeling refreshed on waking, make sure that you aren’t using a screen for the last hour before bed. The light from screens can disrupt the natural rhythm by which our body prepares for sleep each day.
8. Turn off the snooze button. It’s very tempting to think ‘just a few more minutes in bed’ but it may be better to start your day straight away and avoid the risk of oversleeping. Turn the snooze button off and and put your phone or alarm out of reach, so you have to get up to turn it off.
9. Turn the light on. Put the light on as soon as you are awake. This will help your body maintain a sleep-wake rhythm and avoid daytime fatigue.
10. Try listening to some epic music on your way to work. Something like the film theme fromThe Lord of the Ringswill make even a familiar walk or the most humdrum commute feel like an momentous quest!
Here’s a run down of the ten most read posts on my blog in 2021. Topics range from perennial issues facing teachers to questions arising from the Covid-19 pandemic.
10. Things to look forward to in spring 2021. I write one of these for the start of each term but none have contained truer words than “This spring term may be more uncertain than any that have gone before”!
7. Wasp in the classroom. A perennial summer challenge for teachers – I was even asked this once at interview! This advice draws on my experience at the Museum of Natural History in Oxford.
5. Looking for a little inspiration? A post pulling together all my downloadable picture quotes posts in one place. The only ‘resource’ post to make the top ten. I update this regularly so it’s worth returning to.
3. Thank you teachers! I wrote this ‘thank you’ when some we might hope would be saying it weren’t forthcoming, despite the challenges teachers had faced.
2. Learning and long-term memory. Another older post that’s still proving popular. This one is about different types of long-term memory and learning.
1. Do windy days wind children up?Once again, a post I wrote back in 2016 is the most read! It’s about research on that perennial teacher topic: does windy weather make children’s behaviour worse?
I hope you find something useful in these posts. If you do, it would be great to hear about it!
With so many serving teachers incapacitated with Covid or required to isolate, the Department for Education are asking retired teachers and those who have recently left teaching to volunteer for a temporary return to teaching in order to maintain education for children.
The DfE are asking ex-teachers to temporarily return to the classroom
Whatever our views about this move and likelihood of its success, it raises several practical questions.
How will safeguarding be ensured?
Returning teachers are unlikely to have a current DBS check nor will they have up to date safeguarding training. With DBS checks sometimes taking weeks to be returned, it would help if the DfE could expedite this process.
It might also help if safeguarding training was part of the recruitment process, particularly newer aspects of Keeping Children Safe in Education and the safeguarding considerations in remote or blended teaching. Schools will still need to provide training on local safeguarding policy and procedures and time for this must be taken into account.
How will staff health be protected?
As many have commented, bringing retired teachers back into classrooms amidst high infection rates with little mitigation beyond open windows risks endangering them. Former teachers who have moved into other occupations are also unlikely to view a move into a risky school environment as attractive.
Carbon dioxide monitor. Image credit: Morn CC BY-SA 4.0
I used to teach in schools and now work in the education teams of a university museum and library. My current employer has introduced measures including active ventilation, HEPA filters, carbon dioxide monitors and protocols for safe levels, provision of PPE, mask wearing in work spaces, social distancing measures, and enhanced cleaning regimes.
Schools do not typically match these provisions, do not have equipment, or have not yet received equipment.
What about working conditions?
While some teachers may have retired contentedly after years of teaching, we know that there is a retention crisis in teaching with many leaving the profession prematurely, often for the sake of their health and well-being, or to restore a reasonable work-life balance. Unless these underlying issues are addressed, a return to teaching is unlikely to be attractive under normal circumstances, let alone with the additional pressures created by the pandemic.
Unfortunately, there does not seem to be much of a real commitment to improve the situation. One area that could be addressed immediately is Ofsted inspections. The introduction of the temporary returnee scheme is an admission that schools are currently operating in emergency mode. The operation of a school with significant numbers of absent staff cannot be a true reflection of its normal provision. Should Ofsted inspections therefore be suspended for the duration? This would have the additional benefit of freeing inspectors to volunteer themselves.
Who pays?
Schools aren’t just facing a shortage of teaching staff, they have also suffered an unprecedented drain on funds. If the costs of the scheme have to be met by individual school budgets it is unlikely to be affordable. Schools may apply to the Covid fund but must meet strict eligibility criteria to be eligible. Wouldn’t it be better for the DfE to fully fund this temporary provision for its duration. This would allow school leaders to plan ahead rather than having wait until finances reach a critical level before commencing an application.
Why use supply agencies?
The DfE scheme asks returning teachers to register with a Supply Agency. We need to ask what the advantage of this is. While agencies may be able to play a role in matching teachers with schools, this will inevitably lead to a proportion of public money going from school budgets to these private sector companies, rather than directly to teachers.
There can be few school leaders who have not been frustrated by the charges of agencies and many a teacher who has found themselves locked into a contract after realising they could be earning more by dealing with schools directly. It’s perfectly possible to secure supply work by contacting schools directly and these surely will be the first port of call for recently retired staff. Why isn’t this option available?
What about remote teaching?
While the aim may be to place teachers in the classroom, remote teaching should not be excluded. It may well be necessary for schools to move to remote teaching in whole or in part, as was already happening before Christmas. Even if it isn’t, provision will need to be made for pupils who need to isolate at home.
Teachers who have worked during the pandemic have become adept at remote teaching following a steep learning curve. Returning teachers are less likely to be familiar with the technology and may not have developed these particular teaching skills. Training in remote teaching should form part of the overall package.
How will it affect pensions?
A temporary return to work could impact adversely on pensions, especially for those older staff members who have final salary pensions and return to a main scale teaching position having previously held responsibilities or leadership positions.
The DfE should clarify the position on pensions with a commitment that a temporary return to teaching should in no way disadvantage teachers’ pensions.
What is your view on the recruitment of ex-teachers to help schools? What other questions does this scheme raise? I’d be interested to know your views.
A huge thank you to teachers, teaching assistants, and all school staff for how you have risen to the challenges of an extraordinary year.
2020 has been the most challenging year for as all as we have coped with the COVID-19 pandemic. As a parent, and a teacher who now works with schools in the cultural sector, I have watched with admiration at how teachers have risen to this challenge.
First, schools coped with staff shortages as colleagues became ill or had to isolate. Suddenly lock-down was upon us and teachers across the land had to get to grips with remote teaching and learning. Many parents tackling home learning gained a new-found appreciation of what teaching entails!
With incredible speed, teachers got to grips with setting work remotely and learning how to use MS Teams, Zoom, or Google Meet to work with colleagues and teach. Phrases like “virtual lesson”, “zoom bomb”, and “you’re still on mute” became part of everyday language.
Not that schools ever closed (no, Daily Fail, they really didn’t). Heads kept their schools open for vulnerable children and the children of key workers. Even as much of the nation’s workforce was furloughed, teachers not only kept going but upped their game. Many had to juggle teaching in school, setting work for pupils at home, looking after their own children, and keeping an eye out for the needs of elderly or vulnerable family members, friends, or neighbours.
Those teaching children in assessment years also had to provide, not only teacher assessed grades, but individual rankings of pupils in every subject. As it turned out, these grades would become the results for many pupils as the ‘Ofqual algorithm’ turned out not to be fit for purpose.
Following that gargantuan effort, the start of the new academic year required teachers to meet a whole new set of challenges. I’m pretty certain that there are few people in the DfE who would have the first clue how to organise 30 five year olds (or 15 year olds) to sanitise or wash their hands many times a day – but you did! Despite ever-changing guidance from the Secretary of State, often contradictory, confusing, and at short notice, schools dealt with it all, kept everyone safe, and enabled children to learn.
No sooner was there some semblance of normality than lockdown 2 was upon us. Again, schools kept going. Whatever Tier we were in, the schools were open, juggling ‘burst bubbles’ of children and staff isolating following positive tests, but still ensuring lessons went ahead and work kept being set.
Finally, at the end of the year, when teachers might have taken a moment from editing the KS1 virtual nativity play to look forward to a well-earned Christmas break, schools received an unwelcome present. No, not Nick Gibb “allowing” an Inset day before Christmas. Not Gavin Williamson’s threat of a Christmas court case for Greenwich council. No, the seasonal double whammy, delivered to school leaders in the now traditional manner of rumours on social media and a leak to the press, is that there will be a staggered start in January, so that schools can roll out their new responsibility for Covid testing!
So, as it seems that the thanks all teachers and school staff deserve for their unwaveringly fantastic work in 2020 is unlikely to come from either the press or Mr Williamson, let me say as a parent and, frankly awe-stuck colleague:
A few years ago I wrote a post about the impact of the summer holiday on my health called Holidays and Health. I followed this up with a second post in 2018, Holidays and Health Revisited, after my move to museum education, where I showed that my health seemed to be better over the summer, even though I was working running a Summer school for part of the time. I concluded that teachers might need the six-week summer holiday for the sake of their health.
This year there was some discussion about whether there should be a long summer holiday. Some argued that children had already missed a lot of school time and that a shorter holiday would be an opportunity to ‘catch up’. Proponents of this view Often didn’t seem to take into consideration that schools had not closed, remaining open to children of key workers, and teachers had worked harder than ever.
This made me think about my old blog post and whether my two year comparison might have been a fluke. I decided to gather data from my Fitbit over the last two years. In 2019 I had been working part time in a secondary school and part time in the Education team at The Bodleian Libraries. This had included a writing school for young writers (14-18) from local state schools during the summer holiday. 2020 started with a similar pattern, but in the spring I moved to working full time for the University, splitting my time between the education teams at the Bodleian and the Museum of Natural History. A planned summer school was converted to the virtual Six Legs of Summerresource, but we did work with children at summer school run by a local community association who wanted to help local parents and carers get kids ready for school in September.
My resting heart rate over Summer
As the graph shows, it looks like the 2018 graph wasn’t a fluke. My resting heart rate has remained lower that when I worked full time in school and does not seem to vary much across the holiday period. Perhaps significantly, it is lower than at any point during any point in the summer of 2017.
Resting heart rate is only one measure of health and these results are from only one individual. It would be interesting to see wider research in this area. Nevertheless, this data does seem to support my original view that teachers need a lengthy summer break in order to experience a positive impact on their health.
On the other hand, maybe it’s not the length of the holiday that’s the issue, but what happens in term time that requires six weeks to recover!
Much is being said and written at the moment about whether schools in England should ‘reopen’ on 1 June. Of course, the question isn’t actually about whether they should open or close because they are already open to vulnerable children of key workers. The real debate is about the conditions and timescale for the safe extension of opening to include more children. There are no plans to extend school opening on 1 June in other devolved regions of the UK.
Unfortunately, the discussion has not been helped by some sections of the media, with the Daily Mail taking the lead, attacking teachers. This could make the issue appear polarised but it is far more nuanced and, in my opinion, with two issues at heart: is the government’s guidance based on the best science available? Secondly, have plans drawn sufficiently from the wealth experience of teachers doing the job.
In reducing the issue to those two issues, I am not discounting other points that have frequently been raised, I just don’t think they are real points of contention. I don’t think there is any doubt that teachers want to teach. All the teachers I hear or read want to teach. I don’t think there is any doubt that parents want their children in school and learning. I think we all care about children, especially vulnerable children, and understand the dangers of missing education. The thing is, we know that teaching and learning needs to happen in a safe environment.
Is the guidance based on the best science?
The problem here is that COVID-19 is new, our understanding of it is developing at a rapid pace, and many scientific results in the media are unreviewed pre-prints. That said, there are several points of certainty:
There is no vaccine for Coronavirus. Protection therefore relies on limiting transmission through social distancing and the use of PPE
There is no treatment for Coronavirus itself. Current treatments involve supporting organ systems while an individual’s immune system fights the virus.
The average value of R in for the UK is less than 1, but closer to 1 than 0, and varies considerably between different areas and contexts. This means the number of infections will reduce, but slowly.
In comparison to other countries, the spread of Coronavirus in the UK (also US and Canada) is atypical. There have been many more deaths and a much slower decline in the UK than elsewhere. This means we should be highly cautious about using other countries as models for extending school opening. For example, Denmark has been given as a model, but has had hundreds of deaths rather than tens of thousands, and a lower R value when schools reopened.
There is consistent evidence that young children are less at risk of serious illness or death from Coronavirus. However a 30x increase in a previously-rare inflammatory condition which has led to a number of child deaths globally is a cause for concern.
There is mixed evidence on how infectious children are. Some studies indicate they spread the disease less than adults, others that they do so equally.
It is consideration of this evidence that has led the British Medical Association to endorse the stance taken by the National Education Union that insufficient regard has been made of the available evidence and that the timescale for extending pupil numbers in school is too rapid.
Do plans draw sufficiently on the experience of teachers?
The government says that it’s guidance has been drawn up in consultation with school leaders. As is sadly so often the case, it is not clear who these leaders are or how they came to be chosen as consultants. This has led many to the suspicion that they are an echo chamber of the favoured few whose views already chime with those in office. Without more information it is impossible to comment, but certainly the despairing reaction to the drip-feed DfE guidance from so many school leaders suggests that the consultation was not wide enough.
School leaders, teachers and other school staff have already worked incredibly hard. They have simultaneously adopted new ways of working within school, got to grips with a new world of remote working, and implemented other aspects of the response such as free school meals vouchers and the disappearance of the Easter holiday. They were already planning how their schools could be open to more pupils before any government announcement, with the benefit of full understanding of their context and in the light of their experience in school since March. While some of the DfE guidance will be helpful (if late), much of it seems unnecessarily constraining and not to take sufficient regard of the wide variety in school accommodation and contexts that exists.
I do wonder if the top-down model that government seems to be applying is simply inadequate in current circumstances. We have seen that central government perception of the the threat posed by Coronavirus, for supply of PPE, and of the needs of vulnerable groups, such as care homes, was at huge variance with the view of those working in health care. As a result, those on the ground had to act to address deficits in central planning and response. Hospital managers sourced PPE and ventilator parts from alternative sources, medical teams worked out new protocols, and volunteer community groups arose spontaneously in local neighbourhoods to support those in isolation.
I think the lesson from that experience should be that when planning a progressive easing of lockdown, both for schools and in other contexts, planning by central government departments will be much more effective, and safer for us all, if it starts with a lot more listening.
A way forward?
It is good that all parties are currently on discussion, although as yet the government does not not seem to have altered its stance on any point.
It seems to me that there are numerous points of obvious compromise and that agreement is possible. For example, the wording on PPE could be adjusted to give schools more discretion to use it. The commitment to ‘only when safe to do so’ could be reinforced by removing the dates for latter phases and making it clear that next steps will be taken in the light of evidence gathered. Heads who plan to use rota systems should be listened to (they have good reasons), and, in my view, whole school return cannot be considered until there are agreed plans in place to make that safe.
Lastly, while it’s good that so many people are talking about the importance of education, the welfare of children, and the benefits to families, the loudest voices in the media do not seem to be those of parents and carers, still less those of children themselves. We can only arrive at a solution by listening to the needs of families (not just a lone quote supporting an editorial stance), and our care for children must include a consideration of their hopes and concerns.
It’s the half term break and my Twitter feed is full of the usual story: teachers falling ill as their long awaited holiday starts. Is this just coincidence, people get sick all the time, so some will in their holiday, or is this a real effect? Are teachers actually more likely to become ill during the break from school? More importantly, if it is real, what can we do to prevent it?
Leisure Sickness
This term ‘leisure sickness’ has been coined by Dutch psychologist Ad Vingerhoets to describe the widespread anecdotal experience of becoming ill when we have a holiday. This isn’t a condition formally recognised in medicine but while there isn’t a straightforward mechanism to explain a link, we do know that illness can be induced by the effects of stress. It’s not the holiday itself that makes us ill, but the impact of stress in the run up to the holiday on our immune system.
Stress and Illness
In 1984 Janice Keicolt-Glaser demonstrated a link between exam-related stress in medical students and reduced immune function. Sheldon Cohen then demonstrated that people who reported stressful events in their life were more likely to become infected when intentionally exposed to cold viruses using nasal drops and were also more likely to develop clinical cold symptoms. Cohen’s research later showed that a range of chronic stressors (ie persisting for a month or more) increased our susceptibility to the common cold. The most significant stressors investigated in this study were those related to work.
So there is good evidence that chronic stress can impair immune function and increase susceptibility to infectious disease, but what about teaching? In a study of almost 300 US teachers, Dworkin et al (1990) found that illness increased proportionally to job stress. This supports the idea that workplace stress in schools contributes to teachers becoming ill.
Since a half-term is typically 6-8 weeks, workplace stress for teachers typically persists for over a month at a time, falling into Cohen’s definition of ‘chronic’. This is enough time for our immune system to become impaired do that we become more susceptible to infection. Add to this the incubation period for most cold viruses, and that’s the right timescale for teachers to begin coughing and sneezing just as their holiday starts!
What can we do?
The good news is that research indicates that there are several things we can do to reduce our chances of becoming ill.
1. Looking after our work-life balance during term-time rather than waiting for down-time in the holiday. We need to balance the demands of work with our health needs all the time. Easier said than done! Significant steps include being able to switch off from work and getting enough quality sleep.
2. Looking after our health. This includes making time for exercise, eating healthily, and avoiding things which have an adverse impact on our ability such as smoking. Cohen’s research shows that all these have a protective function. Initiatives like Teacher 5 a day can be a big help here.
3. Looking after each other. There is good research evidence that social support can provide protection against the effects of stress. If we all take some time to look out for each other, perhaps especially towards the end of term, we will all fare better. Those in leadership positions may have a special role to play: Dworkin’s study found that there was significantly less stress-related illness among teachers with a supportive School Principal.
You might also be interested in my posts on holidays and health which explore differences in resting heart rate during term-time and holidays.
I have been interested in the claims made for whole class feedback for some while, but have had some reservations. I have always seen formative assessment as a central element of teaching and learning, and providing written (as well as verbal) feedback as crucial to helping children understand what they have done well and what they need to do to improve further. I also quite like marking and enjoy both the immediate reaction of children to seeing their hard work appreciated, and their longer term journey of progress over time.
Nevertheless, while I may like marking, I don’t always like the time it takes. As I write the same comment on the fourteenth piece of work from a class, I find myself thinking that this probably wasn’t the best use of my time. As Anthony Radice wrote in this post Whole Class Feedback: A Winner All Round, it’s important for teachers to consider what else we could be doing with the time we spend in close marking like this, and whether other activities, such as planning or creating resources, might be more useful in helping pupils make progress.
With all this in mind, I agreed with my line manager that development of whole class feedback would be an objective for my performance review this year. I’ll be developing my practice in class and feeding back to the departmental team.
When and what to mark
I have decided to focus on year 8 as I have three mixed ability computing classes in this year group.
There are several types of task that these classes do:
Work in class which will be directed to an element of a unit, for example editing sound files in a unit on podcasts, or the use of subroutines in a unit on algorithms.
Half-termly Homework. In computing pupils choose a task for each half of each term. This is an individual project they work on for several weeks. Examples include designing a website on a theme, or designing a revision resource for a topic. Pupils work on different tasks.
Discrete homework. These are shorter homework tasks, taking a few minutes, for example reinforcing key vocabulary, or a quiz on PEGI game ratings. They are set one lesson for completion by the next. The tasks may be differentiated, but everyone is doing the same thing.
I think some of this work lends itself more to whole class feedback. In class we are usually all working towards the same goals. It’s easy for me to pick up on good examples and also to spot errors or misconceptions. In class it makes sense to give verbal feedback to the class (as well as taking opportunities to talk to individuals. The written feedback is for myself: picking up on what happens in the lesson to better inform my teaching.
Pupils put a lot of work into the half-termly homework and I think they deserve some individual feedback from me. What I’m aiming to work on is making that feedback truly individual. Rather than repeating comments on common themes, though, I intend to note these and address them as feedback to the class.
The discrete homework tasks are usually self-marking tasks such as quizzes, so my focus is usually in picking up on what the scores mean, such as a misunderstanding of a particular concept. Often I will revisit this on teaching, rather than give specific feedback on the homework, but I’ll see if doing so is more effective.
So, that sets the scene for what I plan to do:
Continue to use verbal in-lesson feedback as I do already, but keep better track myself of how it informs my teaching.
Restrict individual feedback for the truly individual elements of homework projects and add whole class feedback of common learning points.
Give whole class feedback a try for discrete tasks, where previously I might have just revisited the learning in the course of a lesson.
Could it really be that, even on summer holiday, school teachers experience more stress than educators in other roles who work through August?
Last year I wrote a post Holidays and Health, about the impact of the six-week Summer holiday on my health. I had been using a Fitbit heart rate monitor and I showed that it took the whole of the six-week holiday period for my resting heart rate to return to the level it had been before the start of the year.
Since then, a lot has changed in my professional life. Throughout the Summer I have worked as an Education Officer at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. I’ve written about not missing the long summer break because my new role isn’t subject to the same ridiculous pressures that teachers are often subjected to. In my post Summertime and the living is easy? I speculate that it is a combination of relentless pace, too few opportunities to collaborate, and lack of control over the education agenda, that result in teachers needing to recover from the school year, no matter how much they love teaching.
I knew I felt better this Summer, but I wondered whether there was a measurable physiological difference between this year and last. During the Summer term this year I did outreach work with KS2 & KS3 classes, visiting a range of primary and secondary schools, usually working with a class for a day. During the school Summer holiday, we did outreach work with a charity that organises holidays for children from economically disadvantaged families in cities, and we ran a week-long summer school at the museum and other university facilities. I only took the last week in August as holiday. In addition to my Museum role, I also started teaching part time at a secondary school close to my home. How did this compare with 2017?
As this graph shows there was a real difference:
My resting heart rate was much more stable this year, and was lower over the period I worked over the summer than it had been when I was on holiday from school last year. It very much looks like I was under less stress working through this summer, than I was by being on holiday from school last summer!
I appreciate that in the general scheme of things one measure on one individual is hardly going to be statistically significant, but when the individual is me, I hope nobody will argue with me feeling it’s important. I do think this is food for thought for all of us in education. Could it really be that even on holiday in the summer, a school teacher experiences more effects of stress than an educator in another role who works through the holiday? If that is the case, something is wrong.
I think this also show us that we need to keep an eye on our health. I’ve found the NHS Five Ways to Wellbeing a useful way to do this. The five strands are shown in this image from Wales NHS.
I have particularly enjoyed Martyn Reah’s work to encourage us all (in a profession which puts others first) to look after ourselves through #teacher5aday. With so many of us now wearing fitness trackers, these could be another way that we can not only monitor the ‘Be Active’ element, but also gain an insight general health and wellbeing.
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