Summer is coming.

Summer is coming. Or, perhaps, it's already been and gone. Regardless, after a few more days of toil, we will be free to get colds, fail to sleep in past nine and to be a passenger for a while.

In short, we can live again, free from the tyranny of timetables, top set and terrible weekly blogs.

It's been quite a year. We've been through it all together, and we've had our ups and downs... through it all, you've worked hard, remained professional, and you've focused on the most important thing of all. That, as I may have mentioned, is not personal advancement, or repeating stock phrases to sound like you're doing what you should be, or trying to make yourself look good when observed. It's teaching as well as we can, as often as we can. It's making sure pupils are engaged, and working hard, and seeing the purpose of their studies. It's working as a team, sharing ideas, supporting each other, being honest and sincere with each other, and all those other things you do so well.

We're not quite perfect yet. We can share more good (or better) practice. We can still, always, neverendingly, improve our differentiation and the way pupils engage with feedback. Perfection is, to be honest, a ludicrous but noble aim. Progress, over time, is what matters, and what makes a difference.

Thank you for your efforts this year, for going the extra mile, for dealing with every demand made of you. Enjoy your summer. Rest. Read, that rarest of recreations for English teachers. Do some exercise. And then, like some absurd Sisyphus, be ready to do it all again, except next time, this time, we really are going to roll that boulder all the way up the slope, and it will stay there this time...

On the march...

Blink and you'll miss it. Not t'tour; the last two weeks of the year / end of the first half term of next year. Let's make these days count. Who knows? That little bit of progress, that smidgen of enjoyment, that sudden realisation that, hey, this subject is all right, might really count for something, at some point, somehow.

Time marches on relentlessly, striking all equally. You can either be a passenger, or you can be crew. Either, way, you're coming along for the journey. Like the peloton, which many of us will have seen cycling through Yorkshire yesterday, it's easier together - we're geese flying in formation through a clichéd assembly. A shoal of fish, flickering silver in the blue depths, guided by a collective mind.

You might protest, or raise a red flag, but, ultimately, you know it makes sense. We're stronger together - we have worked hard this year to improve specific areas of our practice, and have, by and large, succeeded. Ensure, through consistent hard work, resilience and determination, that we're set up for next September, to keep making the little breakthroughs that add together to create success.