August is here...results day is looming

When I was a teacher, there was no bigger feeling of relief than the moment I left the school on the last day of the summer term. Of course, I loved the job, but by that time, I was exhausted, stressed and overstretched. It had finally come. In my first three schools, we would gather in the staffroom, or the library and listen to the farewell speeches and then probably head to the pub. In the last school I worked in, a private school, the last day of term was not the last Friday of school, but instead, it was a Saturday, where all the students in year 11 would be seen off by all the school, a lot of prizes would be given out and some inspirational guest would give a speech. We would sit in the boiling sports hall in our boiling university gowns and our expensive university hoods, waiting for it to finish. Then we would have a very civilised lunch on the lawn and then head off o our long holidays.

My summer holidays were at least 6 weeks long, but I worked for some of that time, especially in the last week. And I found it difficult to forget about school. Especially at the beginning of August.

August is the month when A level and GCSE students get their results. As soon as August hits the calendar, results day starts to loom.

It's never really a holiday if you can't forget work and I found it very hard to switch off from that. The results were always good. At the very least, people got what they were expected to get. It's like they say - the anticipation is worse than the event...

I guess, this is another post about being kind to teachers. Any teacher in August who teachers GCSE and/or A level children will probably have results day in the back of their head. So be kind to them.

And if you run a shop, please refrain from putting up "back to school" signs for a while.