I love the act of teaching, of sharing my knowledge with students and watching for the aha! moment. I chose to retrain as a teacher not for the money. I had a passion for science and maths and I wished to spend my days sharing that with the next generations.
I also believed that teaching was one of the few professions that was “family friendly”. I was wrong. So very wrong.
Last October my husband and I welcomed our first child into our family. As a full-time permanent employee I was given 14 weeks paid maternity leave. So far, so good.
I also took another four weeks unpaid so as to work around the flow of school terms. Nothing unusual here.
When March rolled around I started to think about getting ready to head back to work and what I could do to make the transition as smooth as possible.
This is where the “fun” began.
As an educator, we do a lot of additional work outside of our contracted hours. According to my contract of employment my official hours are seven hours each day, five days a week. Yeah, right!
To be a good teacher, you need to be organised. You need to know what topics students are learning. You need to know who your students are, what special adjustments and support might be required due to social, emotional, physical and/or cultural influences of the 30+ kids in each of your 6 classes. You need to have extension ideas in mind for students who race ahead and a dozen different ways to explain the one concept as students, like all people, learn differently.
Likewise, returning to work in the middle of a school year, you will also have parents upset at the disruption to their child’s timetable. And you’ll have students who might take a while to re-adjust to someone new.
Listen: Rebecca Judd shares her maternity leave plan, including what worked and what didn't, on our pregnancy podcast Hello Bump. Post continues after audio.