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"Teaching, if you let it, will take over your life. Too many of us can think of times when family were put into second place behind our teaching commitments, not to mention our health, diet and sleep. Despite all the talk of wellbeing, a culture of 'look how hard I work' pervades our profession. Not surprising when this is often encouraged and rewarded. In this UKEdChat we will discuss the merits and pitfalls of navigating this difficult balance and, together, find some solutions."

"what strategies and plans can senior staff follow to ensure that they are truly making a difference to the work-life balance of teaching colleagues? Following a recent #UKEdChat session (click here to view), our community came up with a collection of ideas which you can adapt yourself, or share with the senior leaders in your school to set into motion to help improve the work-life balance of all staff."

"Teaching and leading within an educational setting can demand a copious amount of time, and many educators struggle to maintain a healthy work/life balance. In fact, previous research has shown that striving for a positive work/life balance is an unobtainable myth, and with constant mobile notifications, e-mails, along with the never-ending pile of marking and planning that needs doing, how can you stop working when you're off the clock?"

So, I have been asked by a few people to provide a further update to the 'worklife balance' issue.  As many of you will now know, when I started my first headship (the one I'm currently in) just over two years ago, I started my first Inset day by te…

"Despite our best efforts, teachers inevitability bring school work home with them at least occasionally, which can impact on family life and make a mockery of our work/life balance. Yet, are there advantages to completing school work at home, as well as the obvious disadvantages? Once we decide to complete work at home, are we doing so most effectively and in an appropriate environment, or are we trying to juggle marking spelling books while binge-watching a box-set?"

Yay, another new year! Where does the time go? Being a teacher is a stressful job, but one of the most rewarding vocations available. Sometimes, it is possible to lose sight of the important things in life, as the stress of the job takes over your life. We all make resolutions with good intentions, but reducing work stress is critical for ensuring that the job doesn't absorb every waking moment in your life. Below are 12 suggestions on how teachers (and school leaders) can reduce stress, for themselves, for colleagues, and for pupils. Some of the suggestions might seem obvious, but it's nice to be reminded, and to allow you to reflect on opportunities you have to reduce some of the stress in your life.

"In his new book, Adrian Bethune explores different angles of the life of children who are of primary-school age. For example, in a fascinating first chapter, Bethune examines our tribal roots, tapping into our pupils' primitive social instincts and their powerful effects on wellbeing and ability to learn. Citing the work of Louis Cozolino (Click here to view The Social Neuroscience of Education: Optimizing Attachment and Learning in the Classroom by Louis Cozolino on Amazon UK - worthy of a read itself) a tribal classroom embodies tribal qualities including a tribal leader, cooperation, teamwork, equality, fairness, trust and strong personal relationships. Such qualities enable everyone to feel valued and a feeling of a big family, helping secure positive relationships - the role of the teacher in this relationship is to help pupils feel like they belong, which is fundamental to learning. Developing this tribal theme, Bethune the proceeds to share ideas to be implemented in the primary classroom to help cultivate such positive relationships, including the design of a team flag, greetings and endings, teaching social skills, and building humour and games into the setting."

It has changed the very essence of daily life and revolutionised the way we work, play and interact. But has technology reached its full learning potential in the classroom? The picture seems mixed. While there is no doubt that technology has changed the admin of teaching, in lessons, technology is often still seen as an add-on or a simple replacement for traditional methods, rather than enhancing learning. But integrating technology into your teaching has so much more to offer.

We are told 'Don't let the system get you down', and 'rail against the system' and endure the untold misery of 'We are updating your system.' Systems have a bad reputation for being bureaucratic, red-tape decorated jumping hoops. This is certainly true of many systems and no more so than in education. A system which isn't working well is clearly evident while those that are working as they should are often invisible or unnoticed, but vital to the smooth working of work, learning and life.

Swift Playgrounds, an innovative new iPad app from Apple that makes learning to code easy and fun for everyone, is now available on the App Store. With Swift Playgrounds, real coding concepts are brought to life with an interactive interface that allows students and beginners to explore working with Swift, the easy-to-learn programming language from Apple used by professional developers to create world-class apps.

It consumed every evening and at least one day of the weekend. I had no life and the cycle repeated itself every week until the summer holidays. I hated marking. Oh, and by the way, it made no difference! I was ticking and flicking, leaving comments that were far too generic and the marking often went unnoticed or unacknowledged by the students. So, I've stopped. Or at least, I've stopped doing what I was doing. Now, my marking is less frequent but makes a much greater difference to the progress of my students.

"A recent study revealed students at an international school in Finland significantly outperformed U.S. students on tasks which measure digital literacy in social media and online news. The researchers suggest this may be due to the Finnish and International Baccalaureate curricula's different way of facilitating students' critical thinking skills compared to the US system and curriculum. The results of this study were published in the Journal of Research in International Education in April. Critical thinking is a 21st century skill considered essential for today's students to navigate the Information Age and for their future work life."

"Having worked in a range of schools over 20 years, with many colleagues and having been privileged to visit numerous other schools I think the importance of school culture is one of the key drivers that make a difference. Supportive, compassionate and challenging: encouraging and empowering all staff to be life-long learners: this is the type of culture I endeavour to promote and help flourish."

""Reduce teacher workload!" can be heard up and down the country, in staffrooms and online. The truth is it's one of the simplest things that schools can do to help retain staff and maintain their wellbeing. That being said, however, some schools aren't doing all they can to remove unnecessary burdens. Those who have done so, enjoy rave reviews on Twitter and elsewhere, which of course doesn't do them any harm when it comes to recruiting and retaining excellent staff. The best staff know their worth and will inevitably leave the school earlier than they would've done if they feel that another school would trust them and let them just get on with the real job of teaching. Even the Department for Education has begun to take note of the issue, identifying some key areas where schools can reduce teacher workload."

"There are many components that make teaching stressful, such as teaching for tests and hoping the pupils will perform well, marking and giving meaningful feedback quickly. Also, there are 'Pinch points' in the year where lots seem to come at once! Even when confronted with a group of students, when you get one of those classes where none of them cares or see the point no matter how hard you try to convince them otherwise. Ultimately, teaching is a massively important role in society, so there's a lot riding on the profession which equates to a lot of pressure/stress. It's just fortunate that most of the time the wins outweigh the rest."