Wake me up when September ends… – Reimagining the Diary

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colours.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“Where did the holidays go?”, “It feels like I was here yesterday!”, and “I had a lovely summer, but it went so quickly!” are all things you are likely to hear over the coffee at the start of September’s INSET day.

In an article for Tes magazine Alex Waite discusses the ups and downs of the long summer break, acknowledging that the return to school can be challenging due to the contrast of six weeks of relatively unstructured time to the tight inflexible realities of the school calendar, and the opportunity to dwell and overthink that the summer break provides.

However, it’s not all doom and gloom. On the plus side, for many teachers September feels more like the New Year than January, and as well as creating a sense of pressure and ramping up the pace, it offers an opportunity for establishing new positive habits and those all-important work-life boundaries.

In this blog post we have a look at the factors that you may be able to influence going into the new term and offer some questions for reflection to help you kickstart the new year with self-care as a priority.

What’s new this term?

“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”
― Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa , The Leopard

Very few of us will return to exactly the same circumstances that we left at the end of the summer term. New colleagues, a new building or classroom, new curriculum, and almost certainly new students! It’s important not to let this overwhelm you. One way to do this, is to stop trying to control things that you have no power over. Change happens – it’s inevitable – and, most often it’s positive.

You might also be feeling like this is a good time for you to make a change – and the new academic year can offer this fresh start. The change might be around work-life balance and creating clearer boundaries. However, don’t put too much pressure on yourself; you’re more likely to keep this change up if you make it small and simple. Our creative and bespoke Diary Toolkit can help you make – and celebrate – the changes you wish to action. It will allow you to think carefully about the changes you want to make and the steps you need to take. Then, when you start making those steps – however big or small – you can celebrate and reflect on your successes!.

Goal setting

“A goal properly set is halfway reached.” ― Zig Ziglar

As education professionals we are all too familiar with target setting, but what about goal setting? This kind of aim is not about a number or even necessarily an achievement; they can be something you want to do, be, and/or feel.

If your goal is tangible, the SMART model is really useful. Divide your overall goal into Small, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time specific chunks and work systematically towards them. Keeping a record of your progress can be motivating and help you stay on track.

Sometimes a more self-coaching approach might be more useful. Try OSCAR for example.

What OUTCOME are you aiming for?
What is the reality of your current SITUATION?
What CHOICES do you have to bring your outcome to fruition?
What ACTION will you take based on those choices?
REWIEW your progress and if need be repeat the steps.

REMEMBER: Be kind to yourself. Your goals should reflect something important to you and something you can realistically achieve, even if it takes time. Progress doesn’t happen in a nice straight upwards trajectory; sometimes it slows and sometimes it feels like you’ve slipped back. That’s OK. Take time to set your goals and keep working at them for as long as they are useful. Again, this is where diary-keeping – and especially our Diary Toolkit – can help you. It offers you a place to visibly see your goals and start working towards them, but in a way that works for you personally and professionally.

Dealing with back-to-school dread

Get organized:

Although this might like sound like the kind of advice you’d give to a student who’s about to go back to school, getting orgnaised can help us gain a feeling of control over a situation that is making us feel anxious. Simple steps like working out what you’ll wear for the week, packing your bag, stocking up on stationary, a new lunchbox, meal planning (and/or prep if you are REALY organized!), as well as filling in your teacher planner or diary can all help you get into the frame of mind for work and ease nerves.

Get happy:

The NHS gives 6 mood boosting tips to increase happiness:

Manage your stress levels: This may sound easier said than done but things like exercise, diary-keeping, organisiation and time management can help.

Enjoy yourself: What do you enjoy doing? Running, baking, chatting, paddleboarding, Netflix, origami?? – make time for things and the people that are important to you. Have some fun – it’s not a waste of time, it’s self-care.

Boost your self-esteem: You’re rather fabulous, you know! Talk to yourself the way you’d talk to your best friend or your child if you have one – with love, respect and kindness – you deserve nothing less. For example, by way of diary-keeping you could write a letter to yourself from your ‘best friend’ with the words/advice you wish to hear.

Adopt a healthy lifestyle: We’ve heard it all before, but healthy food – lots of veg and fresh produce, less caffeine and alcohol, exercise, prioritising sleep… This advice gets repeated all the time, because it’s GOOD advice!

Talk and share: Take time to connect with close friends and family, tell them how you feel and share your worries. Enjoy the ‘casual links’ we missed so much during lockdowns – those corridor conversations and chats with your neighbours. Seek out help in the form of counseling or talking therapes if you feel your mental health needs some professional input. You could also make an audio diary entry – sometimes it helps to say things out-loud.

Build resilience: Resilience helps us deal with life’s ups and downs – and to make sense of the our negative experiences. This article from verywell mind offers practical tips on building the resilience we need. Diary-keeping also helps us process our experiences through reducing cognitive overload and gaining perspective.

Wellbeing questions and prompts for reflection.

To help you prepare, have a go at answering these questions- return to them as the year rolls on…

What were the best and least enjoyable things about the last academic year?

Is there anything you can do about the less enjoyable things? What and how?

What can you do to replicate the ‘bests’?

What have you done this summer that you are keen to continue that you might ‘sacrifice’ if you are short of time?

How will you make time for these things?

What is your workspace like? Is there anything you can do to make it a better place to work – (buy a plant, ask HR for a footrest…)

Is there one healthy habit you’d like to adopt this term? How can you integrate it into your daily life so that it’s manageable and sustainable?

Who are your ‘entourage’ – the people who cheer you on?

A message for yourself in late November when the evenings are dark, and energy levels are low… Perhaps you could write it now – either as a physical letter or as an email scheduled to be sent in November.

Follow these links for a selection of back-to-school tips: