How Teaching Personnel Helps an Intrepid Supply Teacher Balance Work With Life in the Great Outdoors

The first day of the 2019/20 school year, my husband and I took off on another long-distance walk, Wainwright’s Coast to Coast. We walked for a fortnight in varied weather and terrain, backpacking. It’s what we love. We met while I was walking the 630 miles of the South West Coast Path solo, ten years ago. The following year in 2012, I became the first woman to walk Wales Coast Path. Walking and appreciating being outside is who we are.

After returning from those two hardcore weeks, the supply work began to creep in for my initially teaching in Dorset for five months. Agency teaching was not an experience I had expected to enjoy and I wasn’t looking forward to it. To be honest, I was scared. I thought I was going to be eaten alive by all those streetwise teenagers that have historically used supply teachers as a reason to wreak havoc in class. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised.

The majority of schools and students I worked with were great. My fears were unfounded as I have learned to quickly build rapport in the classroom, and guess what? I don’t have to bring home all that marking anymore! My trump card in each lesson is being able to learn all the student’s names in one go. It gives me a little kudos with the kids and then also means I can refer to them by name if they need reining in! I also believe that the resilience I have built in my out-of-school activities has set me up to be more adaptable.

Even with all that ‘free time’ at home, I’ve since managed to fill it with more exciting things instead, such as blogging, moving to live on a narrowboat in South Wales, walking and practising yoga. I speak about my long-distance walking experiences and facing fears at various engagements, including a live online talk for the Royal Geographical Society’s Microlectures. I have had three articles written about me in national magazines in the past fourteen months and I had the chance to write and illustrate a 5,000-word chapter in The Biggest Book of Yes during the first lockdown. During the second lockdown, I penned the first ‘warts-’n’-all’ draft of a book… an adventure memoir. It’s resting right now, waiting patiently for me to move myself into editing mode. That’s something I’ve never done before, so will be a steep learning curve. 

Yet another new experience - in September 2021, I launched HeadRightOut, a podcast that spreads the message of the importance of heading out of our comfort zones to build our resilience in the outdoors. I’ve already had some amazing conversations with incredible women. There are even occasional bonus episodes called HeadRightOut-Out, where I head outside to undertake my own adventures and  my own HeadRightOut Moments. The most recent of these took place just last week, when I finally completed my #100ScaryDays challenge - by jumping out of an aeroplane on a tandem skydive. Did I say I’m terrified of heights?!

Moving to Wales also meant moving to work in more new schools and finding my way around the area. I’ve built up a healthy range of schools that I enjoy working with, including King Henry in Abergavenny, Crickhowell High, Brynmawr Comprehensive, St Julian’s in Newport, Croesyceiliog near Cwmbran and a number of lovely primary schools too. It’s given me such a rounded experience while affording me the financial cushion I needed, yet without the home working. I do enough of that now with my new projects, without bringing home planning and marking too!

Every member of staff at Teaching Personnel are super-friendly and take the time to listen and care about me as a person. Me and my crazy activities. Me and my alternative life. For this I am grateful. Working in schools keeps me connected to others and to young people. It grounds me. But on the other hand, when I need to take the time to head off on a new adventure, working as an agency teacher means I can pick and choose when I work.

The flexibility fits perfectly around my lifestyle, to allow for my podcast interviews and editing, writing, care days, outdoor adventures and boat moves! Oh and two weeks ago, my daughter gave birth to a deliciously cuddly baby boy, her first. So here I find myself amidst my newest and most exciting adventure yet - Nanny Zo getting to know Baby Wren.