Feature Writing: From Worried to Overwhelmed: A teacher’s daily struggle to make a difference.

 It started at 3 a.m. this morning when I started thinking about a particular child in a class of 30. I mean just 1 child amongst 30 others got you thinking at 3.am in the morning. My thoughts drifted into a dream where I had to think about all 30 students together. Before I knew it, my alarm went off, and it was time to get ready for school.

Ben Fraser, Primary School Teacher: Photograph by Paul Bacon

After my morning routine, I went on to school and prepared the resources for the day. You know the usual, switching on the computer and making sure to arrange the desks and chairs appropriately, as well as getting the teaching slides up.

 However, as a primary school teacher, my days are filled with unexpected twists and turns. On this occasion, I received a message from my year partner, “Oh, I’m not in today because I’m not feeling very well.” I immediately knew that I had to find someone to cover for my partner. I moved into the teacher’s classroom, turned on the lights, and logged on to get the same slides up that I had in my own classroom. There and then, the cover teacher walked in, but couldn’t log in as the login details wouldn’t work for him. It was frustrating that I had to ask that the children in his class be sent to mine. I ended up with 60 students in my classroom for that day. It was a chaotic experience.

Throughout the day, I found myself constantly on the move, teaching in different classrooms and ensuring that all 60 students were accounted for during break time. I had to adapt to unexpected situations, such as the internet going down and resorting to using a flip chart to teach.

After school ended at 3:05 pm, and the children had left, you would think that my day was over. But, as its often the case, I had to mark all of the books from the day.

Then I have to get ready for another 2 hours that I have to spend tutoring. I have taken up this extra job due to low salaries which leave me driving for half an hour after school hours to get to the tutoring location. I usually don’t return home until around 7 pm at night.

In a nutshell, my day typically starts at 3 am and doesn’t end until around 7 pm.