Detention Diaries

It’s half term. We’ve made it.

Just about.

Eight long weeks of teaching, marking, data drops, detentions, and detangling headphone wires from confiscated phones.

We’ve crawled to the finish line, our souls held together by caffeine and passive aggression, and now… here we are.

Half term.

The calm between storms.

The briefest of respites before the final push to Christmas — which, as every teacher knows, is less “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and more “Saving Private Ryan: Festive Edition.”

The Enemy on the Hill

We’re midweek into the break now.

The laundry’s done. The sleep debt is partially repaid.

And yet… there’s a faint rumble in the distance.

The enemy is regrouping.

They’re on the hill.

You can practically smell Year 9 from here.

Somewhere out there, a 14-year-old is filming a TikTok with the caption “Miss is so moody” — and you can feel it in your bones.

By Saturday, the anxiety will start creeping in. By Sunday, it’ll be full-blown Year-9-parade-ground flashbacks.

And by Monday, we’ll all be back in the trenches, armed with whiteboard pens and misplaced optimism.

Cold, Dark Nights and Fluorescent Lights

This time of year is always strange.

The nights close in, the corridors smell faintly of Lynx Africa and despair, and staffroom conversations start with:

“Just gotta make it to Christmas.”

That’s the phrase that gets you through: “Just gotta make it to Christmas.”

Not joyfully — more like a soldier whispering a mantra before charging into no man’s land.

And of course, cover is everywhere.

Teachers dropping like flies, viruses spreading faster than Year 7 gossip, and everyone else doing triple lessons in rooms that haven’t been cleaned since 2003.

You try not to resent the absent ones — you really do — but by Friday afternoon you’re half-convinced that “sickness bug” might actually be “early Christmas shopping and a latte.”

The Kids Who Don’t Want Christmas

And then there’s the other side.

Because for every member of staff counting down the days until they can collapse on the sofa with a tin of Roses, there are kids who are dreading the holidays.

You know the ones.

The ones who come to school hungry, or cold, or quiet.

The ones who act out because the structure of school is the only structure they’ve got.

For them, Christmas isn’t magic — it’s messy.

We joke about how chaotic the run-up is, how “the kids go feral in December,” but sometimes it’s because they can feel the uncertainty ahead.

And that’s the bit that sticks with you, even when you’re moaning about your workload.

Because you know — underneath the chaos — school is the safest place they’ve got.

Saving Private Ryan: Christmas Term Edition

If you’ve ever watched Saving Private Ryan, there’s that final scene where Matt Damon’s character is sat on the ground, clutching his rifle, surrounded by smoke, rubble, and chaos.

He looks broken. Exhausted. Haunted.

That’s every teacher in the last week of term.

We’re all Matt Damon — clutching a pile of unmarked books, staring into the middle distance as a student asks if we can watch a film “because it’s nearly Christmas.”

The building’s shaking. The photocopier’s jammed. The supply teacher’s gone missing.

And somewhere in the distance, a child’s playing Jingle Bells on a glockenspiel. Badly.

That’s the vibe.

That’s December in a British school.

But for now — in this tiny, quiet half term eye of the storm — we sit.

We drink tea. We scroll. We pretend the email app doesn’t exist.

Because we know what’s coming.

The Christmas term.

The last stand.

The longest, loudest, glitteriest battle of them all.

And when we finally emerge on the other side — bruised, broken, dusted in tinsel — we’ll raise a glass (or a Gregg’s festive bake) to each other and say,

“We made it.”

Then we’ll go to bed at 8:30 and not move until Boxing Day.

enjoy it while it lasts.

Get ready for the whistle because we’re about to go over the top!!!