Blue Monday might be considered the most depressing day of the year but for teachers, it could be something to celebrate! Don’t lose heart yet; here are three ways to make the most of it this year!
- Blue Monday falls at the end of January, and because the autumn term was so long, for many schools you are half way through the academic year. ‘Boo’ shouts every teacher living up against the looming spectre of this year’s pupil progress style targets, but choose your attitude and switch that humph to a ‘Hooray!’ when you realise you’re half way to summer!
- You can put your pastoral hat on and make a difference today. Be on the look out for individuals under a grey cloud – they may have no idea that the emotional funk is not just them and that, in fact, Blue Monday has become a national phenomenon. It’s tied in to being short of money at the end of the month, feeling a come-down from Christmas, and the freezing weather. Even if you don’t teach science, today is a great day for a debate on S.A.D. and whether your students believe it’s real. You can reveal that the NHS officially acknowledges SAD now. Promote that vitamin D!
- This is the time of year that job seeking website activity rockets; in January 2019, our weekly registrations jumped 5x from 400 to 2,000 in 3 weeks! So whether you’re considering moving on, or moving up where you are, it never hurts to find out what opportunities are available to you.
- Blue Monday is the perfect day to experiment. If you simply anticipate low moods, maybe today is the day to scrap the structured afternoon lesson and crack out the creative investigations - are you able to do something fulfilling outside?
Whatever happens, you can tune in to any local Radio station on your way home and you are almost guaranteed to hear New Order – which can’t be bad!
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About the author
Katie Newell
Katie Newell BA(Hons) PGCE is an ex-primary school teacher, Head of Maths, Head of Year five and languages specialist. Katie qualified in Psychology at Liverpool then specialised in Primary Languages for her PGCE at Reading. Katie feels passionately that teachers are the unsung heroes of society; that opening minds to creative timetabling could revolutionise keeping women in teaching, and that a total change to pupil feedback is the key to solving the work life balance issue for the best job in the world.