It's been a bad day

It’s important to recognise that not everything that you try out will work, especially not the first time you try it.  I think we all understand that sometimes it’s important to persevere with a strategy if it’s not having immediate benefits.  It’s also important to recognise that sometimes what works for somebody else won’t work for you; don’t just keep doing something forever if it’s not getting results.

But that’s not really what this tip is about.

The tips we give you work ‘bad-day-not-withstanding'.  Sometimes in this profession, you will just have a bad day.  It is very important to recognise, acknowledge and spot when this happens.  Don’t over-analyse why.  You might have worked really hard, and events just happened on a particular day that ruined those best laid plans.  Sometimes you didn’t get it wrong; it just went wrong – schools are chaotic places.

Stop.  Have a chat with your colleagues (they have these days as well).  Offload.  Do something fun.  Go again tomorrow.