Not the best start to a year...

Well today I face the reality that, despite 6 weeks holiday, I am still suffering from post viral fatigue/chronic fatigue. As a busy, highly aspiring teacher accepting that I can not do everything is really hard.  As I learn to cope with this I hope that blogging, something I reguarly do with children will help me on this journey.  As this is my first blog post a bit of introduction to me...

 
 Over the last 5 years that I have been teaching never have I felt like this.  I have always enjoyed the challenges of teaching and the further I progressed the more exciting opportunites have come up.  At the start of my second year I started leading ICT. It was fantastic because we were in the final stages of planning for a move into a brand new, state of the art, building.  I got to work alongside other staff to design what state of the art ICT would look like. We made some great decisions and some that haven't worked out quite as we would like.  Now a few years on I am still working to put them right!
 
On top of that 2 years ago I started middle leadership as hub leader for year 2 and 3.  It is my job to ease transition from key stage 1 to 2.  To make sure I support 6 teachers and 5 teaching assistants. I have designed timetables, rotats, supported assessment and dealt with challenging behaviour.  None of this could have prepared me for how I would feel at the end of last year. I became ill, thought it was just a virus and spent a few days in bed.  The problem was that I never really started to get better. I still felt really physically exhausted. After a trip to the doctors they provisionally diagnosed me with post viral fatigue.  4 weeks later and I finally started to recover and was able to build up to a full week at work.  Not to worry it was the summer holiday and I could properly recooperate. 
6 weeks later and 3 weeks in I am already struggling. Last week I got a cold, 2 hard days I struggled through (probably a bad move) and now I am back at home.  I have managed to put together my middle leadership management portfolio (more of that later) so not entirely unproductive but back to the doctors.  Blood test coming on Monday but most importantly a firm telling not to do too much. So we shall see- how do I learn to make sure that I am supporting the staff I need to without doing too much...
Location: West Bridgford, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire UK

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