Yep. I think everyone feels the same way. I was quite literally suicidal my entire first year of teaching. Felt like I’d wasted all this money and years at University and had no fucking clue what I was gonna do. On top of that, I became the kids confidant in a low SES school and I’d cry every single weekend and holidays about the fact they were at home because of the horrors they were facing. I had screaming nightmares about those kids over 6 months after I left that school.

Here’s what I did: - accepted that the site wasn’t for me and moved on - stopped giving so much of a fuck about admin. nobody looks at that shit. seriously. - focused on more informal teaching. discussions. the kids are more engaged than they are in explicit learning activities which are hard to organise and never work because of behaviour. - if you ARE doing an activity, get the kids making something or moving around. project based learning is the best. textbooks and answering questions individually doesn’t work.

My second site? I fucking loved it. I moved on from there too, became a teacher librarian and live country. It’s the best. I like my job now.

Sometimes it really isn’t for you and that’s ok. But the first year is always FUCKED. Don’t give up and for God sake resign before you get to the point I did. Nobody should want to end their life over a job.