Open Writing

As James improves, I am again faced with going back to work. This time, I'm frightened, almost superstitious. Once you've had three months or more out of the classroom with a stress-related illness, you could be a danger to children or yourself so must be cleared by local authority doctors. I've nearly reached the 100-day limit for receiving full pay and need to return. Fortunately, the doctors clear me and I go back to school for a week before the February half-term holiday. This gives me a chance to get used to being at work, assess the children and plan more accurately for the coming weeks.

During the holiday, I take James for his monthly cancer check-up. For two weeks prior to this, I can feel pressure building up in my chest. I wake earlier and earlier each day, between 3 and 5 am, unable to get back to sleep or lie still or concentrate. My breathing is short and shallow. I get through my days a moment at a time.

At the clinic, we queue for a slip of paper, which we take to another building where we queue for x-rays. We wait in a corridor with others in pain, resigned, afraid. There are elderly people laid on trolleys, children, a woman in flowing clothes of bright fuchsia, carefully embroidered. Illness cares nothing for age or race, gender or religion.

From there we return to the clinic and wait again, this time to get the results and speak to the doctor. The familiar pink plastic furniture, smells and news of other children amplify the adrenalin I can feel burning round my twitching muscles. My body is pumped up tight.

The doctor tells us James' lungs are clear, he'll see us again in a month. Relief, euphoria and deflation slam through me in quick succession. The fight-or-flight chemicals switch off and I'm suddenly so weary, I can barely walk out to the car. It takes a week for the wrung-out feeling to dissipate.
I am surprised by the similarity to the flatness I feel after Christmas. Then the build up, preparation and anticipation culminate in the big celebration. Despite all the lovely gifts and pleasant memories, I often feel sad when the day is over. This should have been the opposite. It was dread and fear that lead up to the results. James has stayed clear of cancer for a month. This is the best of all possible outcomes. I should be dancing. But the roller coaster exhausts me and I am wary of another ambush. I curl around this good news and keep my head down.

Back at work, the head teacher receives notice that we will have our first ever OFSTED inspection in the next school year. The inspections are very rigorous and, being fairly new, rumour and horror stories proliferate. A team of people will come into our school for a whole week, having first reviewed all the policies and planning. They will examine displays and resources, talk to children and parents, watch everyone teach several lessons throughout the week and members of the senior management team will have intense, individual interviews.

My head teacher comes into my classroom shortly after this news is announced to the staff. She asks me if I will consider giving up my senior management position for a year. She says she's concerned that I am under enough stress at home and the additional burden of the inspection at senior level might be too much. Part of me is offended and very angry that OFSTED should be able to have such an impact on my life. It's supposed to make teachers more accountable and I have no objection to anyone looking at my work. I always try to do my best whether anyone is watching or not.

After all we've been through; it feels so unfair to be asked to give up my hard- won position and possible future promotion. I'd completed one module towards a Master's Degree and still hoped to become a deputy head teacher one day. I talk to friends, family and colleagues, even my union. I pray, worry and try to consider all the 'what ifs.

In spite of this, the intensity of teaching is just what I need. Not only is there relief from imminent financial worries but my days are spent absorbed in the care of others.

*

The school I teach in is multicultural and nearly half the children come from families with different cultural backgrounds and often languages other than English are spoken in their homes.

In the year before James became ill, my head teacher suggested I might like to take part in a Multilingual Achievement Partnership project. There was an optional opportunity to attend extra night classes at the university to complete the first module of a Master's Degree, which I decided to take. I found the action research based on the work I was doing in my classroom, the lectures, meetings and extra reading, gave me a new energy and enthusiasm. The extra course work, teaching year two children, with the added pressures of SATs (Standardised Achievement Tests) and my additional management responsibilities kept me very busy.

As part of this project, I was one of four people asked to do a presentation of my work to the other sixty participants. Being very nervous about this, I tried to ensure I was fully prepared for the big event. The night before, I retired early in order to be fresh and relaxed for the coming day. My hair always sculpts itself in weird and wonderful ways, if I sleep on it damp so I planned to wash it in the morning. I'd been asleep for about an hour when I was woken by Howard's shouts.

He'd decided the central heating boiler needed some adjustment. It's situated in a cupboard in the spare bedroom so on his way to bed from the bathroom, he started tinkering with it.

I found him with his bare bottom in the air under the boiler with water spraying everywhere. I managed to turn the water off at the mains but we were unable to fix the problem. This meant that waking from a poor night's sleep, I had to brush my teeth with water siphoned from the de-humidifier and beg my friend to let me wash my hair at her house when I arrived to collect her for the seminar. There's something about rushing in slightly late to give a presentation with wet hair that allows you to abandon all thoughts of making a good impression.