Many of you currently are approaching your long summer off (if you’re not already there!). It’s a great chunk of time that is definitely well-earned… but it can go by in such a flash!? Our breaks are such an important and precious time for us teachers, so here are my top 3 tips for how to make the most of your summer break:

If you want to hear the audio version of this post, you can listen to this podcast episode below:

1) Unwind slowly
It can take a few days to a few weeks sometimes, to fully unwind. It’s understandable why as we’ve been running at 100mph up until dismissal on the last day! So give yourself a chance to slow down from the momentum gradually.

Imagine it like you’re driving a car: if you went from 100 to 0 immediately, what would happen? You’d spiral out of control and crash, that's what! Just like when you’re driving, you need to slow down gradually before you come to a complete halt. How do you do that? By taking it easy on yourself the first few days after your break. Sometimes it’s hard to actually just stop working for me right off the bat; I like tinker about as my brain is still in momentum and needs to slow down gradually. Soon enough though, you reach the point where you’ve slowed down the pace; you’ll know you’re there when you are actually taking your time eating, you’re seeing friends and family again and you’ve forgotten what day of the week it is. Once you reach that point it’s "hello break"!


2) Stay productive 
After you’ve managed to unwind, eventually doing nothing will likely result in you feeling bored and disgruntled with life. There’s a difference between enjoying freedom and being bored wasting your time. I don’t like to feel there’s no purpose to my existence, as I’m sure you don’t either! So in order to make the most of your break, keep productive to feel like you’re making progress and doing something worthwhile with your time. It doesn’t have to be school related, in fact I advise that you keep that to a minimum - you are on break after all, they get enough of your time during the school year! But keep productive for your own life: that could mean cleaning out a room in your house, purging your wardrobe, redecorating, gardening, reading, getting crafty with home décor, learning something new, practicing different recipes, filing paperwork / taxes, going to the bank, running errands etc. The list goes on!

Basically, the break is an ideal time to get your life in order and focus on you for a change. I’ll also add a short disclaimer to say that while I personally like to have a break from all things school for the first few weeks of a long break, you might quite enjoy the idea of doing up your classroom which is totally fine too, providing that you’ve given yourself time to unwind as well so that you’re operating at a more reasonable pace and not getting yourself into a tizzy! 


3) Make the most of your day
This sounds similar to number 2 and being productive, but it’s not all about keeping busy. What I mean by making the most of your day, is that it’s so easy for the days to get away from us when we’re not at school. For me, a day at school can feel like a week by 3pm - I am exhausted by the end of the day but I can look back with satisfaction knowing I really made the most of that day. But when I’m at home not doing much, it’s so easy to just blink and it’s dinner time which can feel like such a waste!

You don’t want to look back and not know where your summer went or what you did with your time, so you need to make an effort to make the most of your day. Fill it with fun memories (even if it is just you, home alone watching a movie or playing dress up with the kids). Make sure you’re enjoying yourself and savouring every minute of it so come the start of the next school year, you can look back at your summer and know it was filled with fun times.

And another thing, fun is defined by you and no one else! Don’t feel like you need to be living the "Instagram life", reading by a pool on an exotic island in order to be having fun and making the most of your break. You don’t need to do anything fancy or expensive in order to have a good time and make the most of each day. Make a list of things you enjoy doing and just start doing them because you want to and because you can!


As teachers, our breaks are precious. We work our hineys off and we deserve that rest! This is your time to build yourself back up so that come next year you’ll be ready for the regularly scheduled programming of putting your cape back on and saving the world!​

​What are some of your favourite things to do in your break, leave a comment below!

In my opinion, every month should be teacher’s appreciation month! However, since it is officially recognised in May, let's take advantage of it! Most of the things we see about teacher appreciation month come from fellow adults, which is nice of course, don't get me wrong! But there is something to be said about the gratitude that comes from our students... especially if you teach teenagers like I do as we know how rare it can be!

If you’ve ever received an adorable hand written note from your students, you’ll know how wonderful it feels. Seeing their carefully crafted hand written words and reading how you have impacted their life is such an uplifting feeling that makes it all feel worth it. I have kept every single note given to me on beautiful cards or even scraps of paper, and I read them whenever I need a boost to help me keep going through the tough times. Thoughtful thank you notes are the gift that keeps on giving!

It’s interesting though, that it’s only some students who make this effort to write us notes, and the probability of them doing this decreases as they get older! But knowing how magical it can be for teachers to receive these, what if they had a little nudge in the right direction to do this a little more? If they knew how much this small token means to us, perhaps they would be more inclined to write us little notes of thanks and lift morale all round?

That’s why I like to do this thank you note activity every so often in my school. I ask my tutor group (you might have something similar like an advisory or home room class) to take a thank you note template and write just one note of thanks to a member of staff in our school who they are grateful for or who has impacted them. Then I take the notes and leave them in the teachers’ tray in the staff room as a little treat! The looks on peoples’ faces, the morale boost and strength in relationships is absolutely priceless.

So if you want to do this in your school for your fellow colleagues this month, you can download this thank you note template for free below, which looks great once your students colour it in and add their personal touches too:

​It’s such a simple thing to do that barely takes 5 minutes, but the impressions it will leave will last a lifetime. Happy teacher appreciation month, now and always! 

Are you currently working as a teacher but also running a side business? I know how difficult it is to "do it all"! Teaching is a full time gig and an emotionally and physically demanding one at that - how on earth do we manage to fit in any more? Well it can be done, so if you're still in the classroom and are looking to manage a side hustle, here are some of my top tips for your time management as a teacherpreneur!

1. Use golden hours of your day
Have a look at your every day routine and evaluate when you think you are most productive. This time of the day is usually when you have some quiet, undisturbed alone time or when you're feeling the most fresh. For some people that's first thing in the morning - getting up before everyone else when it's quiet and you've had a restful sleep (or as close to one as you can!) For others it's once everyone has gone to sleep - there is no right or wrong, just find out when your golden hour is and make use of that time for productivity. This time is not for binge watching Netflix, it's for working on your side biz so make that time count, no matter how long you have!


2. Block out your calendar
Again, look at your routine and work out which parts of your day are purely for school and which periods of time you have available to your business. Just like you have as a teacher, timetable some slots in your week that you can dedicate to certain tasks of your business (it might not be every day and that's ok!). It could be that some times you're working on social media and others you're working on content creation. Play around with different routines for a while and see what works. For example, you might find that during the week is simply too manic to be productive after a long day of teaching, so you might decide to schedule an hour or two on your weekend to dedicate to a certain task instead. The bottom line is, if it's scheduled in it's more likely to get done. 


3. Create a productivity list
This is important to getting things done, but it also helps if calendar blocking isn't working for you yet. Sometimes our daily routines get messed up and we can't stick to certain times every day, but at least with a daily productivity list in place you can have more freedom to do things when they suit you - but you are still accountable to getting them done! Just make sure you're not including too many things on your daily list - remember, you're teaching full time as well... play around with different expectations and find your own sweet spot for your expectations. 


4. Prioritize your tasks by importance
Too often we look at what is easy or fast to complete to "get the ball rolling" but those tasks might not be important in which case, you're losing valuable time: you'll never tick the needle forward enough using this method. Instead, look at your to do list and work out what is most important to get done first. You'll make much greater progress in a shorter space of time!


5. Set aside personal down time
OK, ok, you've hustled hard teaching kids all day, working all night weekends (no one said being a teacherpreneur was easy!) so inevitably if you are to keep going for the long haul, you need to give yourself permission to take a break. Teaching is tough and takes up a lot of physical and emotional energy so it's necessary to rest! Use the calendar blocking technique to hash out some "you time" as well and if you need to take a break for a few weeks, then do that too! 


Being a teacherpreneur (especially one who is actually still teaching, as I know many aren't anymore) is a tough gig and it's not for everyone, but it is rewarding being able to support teachers and students around the world too. I hope these time management tips have given you some ideas to keep on top of it all. I also have a fun quiz for you to take that lets you know your teacherpreneur style: take the quiz here!


I'd like to answer all your questions and help you  how to manage teaching full time with a size business, so click on this quick survey and leave any questions you have so I can offer you more support in being a teacherpreneur! ?

Interested in learning more about being a teacherpreneur? Check out these articles that may be of interest:

• Take this quiz to find out your teacherpreneur style!
• Are you ready to be a teacherpreneur?
• 7 free apps you need as a teacherpreneur
• Why selling my teaching resources made me a better teacher
• 100 blog topic ideas for teacher bloggers