That’s it. You made it. Whatever kind of year it’s been – brilliant, brutal, or somewhere in the messy middle – you showed up. Every day. For all of them.
You showed up for the kid who needed you to be patient when you had absolutely no patience left. You showed up for the colleague who needed a cup of tea and a kind word at exactly the right moment. You showed up for the parents who were worried, and the ones who were angry, and the ones who just needed someone to say “your child is doing fine.”
You showed up on the Mondays that felt like Fridays and the Fridays that felt like they’d never come.
You did playground duty in the rain. You marked books when you should have been sleeping. You sat through at least one meeting that could have been an email, smiled politely, and only sighed a little bit.
You made a child laugh. Probably hundreds of them, if you added it up. You made a child feel safe. You made a child believe they could do something they didn’t think they could do. That’s not a small thing. That’s the whole point.
And now it’s summer.
So here’s what I want you to do. Nothing. For at least a week, preferably two. Don’t plan. Don’t organise. Don’t read anything about education. Don’t think about September. Don’t tidy your classroom in your head while you’re supposed to be on a beach.
Just stop.
If you can, sleep until you wake up naturally. Read something that has nothing to do with work. Sit in a garden. If you have them, play with your own kids. See your friends. Remember what it feels like to be a person who isn’t in charge of anything.
September will come. It always does. And when it does, we’ll be here.
But right now? Right now is yours.
Have a brilliant summer.