Returning from Paternity Leave as a teacher in the middle of a pandemic

Returning to work from paternity leave is an interesting experience. Jenny Webb made this point in her excellent Naylor’s Natter podcast interview that men in this situation tend to get asked how everyone else is doing except them. Not exactly difficult to work out why this is of course. If anything makes you feel a bit puny in the grand scheme of things, it’s being there while your wife or partner gives birth to your child and goes through everything that entails.

So please bear in mind I am aware of my own insignificance when I come to talk about this. But returning from paternity leave is actually jolly hard and this is often overlooked. I had my first day back today after two weeks. It was a full five period day. Certainly gets you back into the swing of it quickly. But as I sit here this evening I reflect on what I now have on my plate in the run up to Christmas.

ISSUE 1: Unpicking the issues of two weeks of supply cover.

So I think one reason why lots of teachers go to work when they probably aren’t well enough to do so is because sorting out cover and then picking classes back up after cover can be a bit of a nightmare. Now imagine you’ve got two weeks of this to untangle. I’m looking at my classes and I see three big issues to resolve.

1. Some (most?) students didn’t work very hard for two weeks while some students worked very well. How do I get all the students back in the same place in the most efficient way possible?
2. Some students were quite happy not being pushed too hard during those two weeks and now resent being put back under pressure again.
3. The cover supervisor (and this is not a criticism — I don’t envy people doing that job) went through some of the material too quickly and this means that knowledge of the key content for many students is insecure and needs putting right. Now normally I’d try and set revision work for cover, but if you’re getting a subject specialist and it’s for two weeks, that’s not always really possible to do for that length of time.

Trying to rectify this is of course additional work to sort out and there’s the issue of my classes falling behind those of my colleagues which makes sorting out things like common assessments a bit of a nuisance.

ISSUE 2: The backlog of marking and other jobs

This has been a tricky time of year to go off. Right in the middle of mock exam season (I ended up marking Paper 2 of the mocks while on paternity leave — not ideal but it had to be done) and also with lots of other work from other year groups coming in that needs feedback. I teach Year 12 and 13, and Years 9 and 10 are also GCSE year groups for us. I had some end of topic key pieces with Year 7 and 8 to sort out as well. All of a sudden I’ve got six year groups worth of work to mark while they add new work to the pile as I return. Trying to fit this in is going to be tricky. Thankfully my managers are pretty forebearing but I know this is not always the case for many.

There are also the Head of Department jobs to do. Getting curriculum plans in place and sorting out assessment frameworks for our new approach to Key Stage 3 needs doing. Supporting ITT students and an RQT to make sure they’re getting the best deal is also on the cooking pot. After Christmas we’ve got some lesson observations to do which I need to think about before we go off. This is of course part of the normal demands of the Head of Department job — it just all gets a bit crunched when you chop out two weeks in the middle of a busy autumn term.

ISSUE 3: There’s no time

I’ve mentioned before about how time is even more pressured during the current situation. We have to leave school by 4.15pm to enable the daily deep clean to take place. There are more duties to cover (or at least it feels that way). And as a head of a non-core department I have a pretty full teaching timetable as it is. Now add a new baby into the mix. I get home maybe sometime between 5 and 5.30. When I get in I obviously have important childcare responsibilities to fill with one or both of our two children. This might not be done until about 7.30 potentially. My wife and I are pretty good at sharing out domestic duties — we are a real team in this way (although I’m certainly not the boss here) — although she’s great at picking up more of that stuff while I’m at work and she’s on leave (although also I’m cognisant that what she’s doing is just as much ‘work’ as what I’m doing!)

The point of this is that the work I would normally do at work until maybe 6pm in pre-COVID times, now gets pushed until after 8pm now. It moves to the fringes of the day. This is pretty tiring and it means I’m maybe not as on top of all the things that I’d like to be on top of both in my home life and in my work life! Which usually I can rationalise but sometimes I don’t always feel too great about it.

Concluding points

I guess my message to new dads in a similar position is this — don’t feel bad for feeling overwhelmed when you come back after two weeks off. It is inevitably chaotic, especially at the moment, and it’ll take time to get you fully reset to where you were before you went off. For leaders, I say this. Don’t forget to check in on your new dads when they get back to work, and please be forebearing and supportive as they get their bearings back. They aren’t going to be able to just go straight back to ‘normal’, even though we often assume that they will. Bear that in mind during the next batch of work scrutiny or lesson observation. Remember that there will be Dads who are working during their paternity leave to help keep their heads above water, even though they’re on statutory paternity pay which is pretty rubbish. I don’t want a medal for it — but a thank you always helps with morale!