'Next up is Benedict. Rose, would you like to say a few words?'
'Well I haven't got much to say, apart from he has been a wonderful member of the department and will be missed. I know he is really popular with the kids, but also with the staff too.'
I picked my way up through the crowded staffroom to the front, where the headteacher, Mr Boatwright and my Head of Department, Rose, were waiting for me.
It was the last day of term, and after five years, my last day at the school. Traditionally, those leaving would say a few words.
I had seen quite a few people over the years come up to give their goodbye speech. Some of them had been there for years and said hardly a word, some just a few and did presentations with pictures and jokes. Some were funny, some were boring, some were actually quite moving.
There were five of us leaving today, I was in the middle. After was an assistant head who was moving onto another school, and the acting head Mr Ross who was retiring after over twenty years at the school.
I got to the front. 'Thankyou Mr Boatwright, Rose....'
I looked out at the sea of faces before me. A hundred or more friends and colleagues all wondering if I would drone on, make it funny, or bottle it and just return to my seat.
My voice went dry and I fumbled with my notes. All the words that I had prepared and rehearsed went out of my mind. It is one thing talking to a class full of kids, even a year group, but to face your colleagues is an altogether more daunting prospect.
I paused, took a breath, and began.
'Its a strange feeling being up here now. Each year we see people come up, and know at some point we are going to have to do the same thing.
'When I started to think about what I should say, I got really stuck. I just came up with lots of questions. So I will try and answer some of them now.
'Why did I become a teacher? Well like a lot of you, I had inspirational teachers when I was young. They had a big impact on me, and I suppose I wanted to be that person for others.
'It is an altruistic job. Its easy to see the benefit you bring to others when you work in schools, and this indirectly has made me very happy. I genuinely felt a calling to be a teacher.' I hadn;t really been looking at anyone in particular. The faces blurred before me. No one was fidgeting, or looking bored, but then no one really looked that interested either. I began to wonder if I was going on too long.
'So what have I learnt? Well I have learnt how to teach! I certainly didn't know how to when I arrived, but with patience and some good teachers I have got a lot better.
'I know its the kids who are supposed to learn in lessons, but I often think that I learn far more than them - just watching and being with them I have learnt all sorts of lessons, patience, tolerance, forgiveness.... all kinds of things.
'And now the harder questions. If I love teaching so much why I am leaving? I don't have another job to go by the way.
'We all know that teaching isn't just a nine to five job, it takes as much as you let it and then some more. Even if you never take work home, or come in early to do marking, or stay up late preparing lessons, then it is exhausting. Looking round now, I can see faces as tired as I am'. It was true - all of us were at the end of our endurance after a gruelling eight week term. Everyone needed to get away and try and recover.
'I do not want to be a tired teacher. Going on year after year, giving until I am have nothing left, and then giving some more.
'I don't want to be a teacher that just goes through the motions either. Does the bare minimum, and doesn't care about the pupils'. There were a couple of teachers that I felt were sometimes like this, but very very few and only then just occasionally. Almost without exception my colleagues had been compassionate and well motivated professionals, doing their utmost for each and every child.
'I would rather leave teaching than be this kind of teacher.
'I don't want to burn out. Or maybe this is a burn out, but on my own terms.
'So what am I going to do next?' I paused, and took another deep breath.
'Now this is a really tough one, and to be honest, I don't know and don't really want to know. I don't have another job to go to, just a big blank slate before me. Its structured unstructured time if you like. A time to think and be and see what happens.
'I have some vague plans - I would like to go to India, get a motorbike and drive it round the Himalayas and the Deserts. I would like to go out in the wilds, away from everything. I would like to go to strange lands, meet exotic people, save beautiful princesses from monsters, discover lost civilisations, have adventures at the end of the world..... '. I was getting a bit carried away with myself now.
'Really I don't know. I don't know what will happen, what I will do, where I will go, if I will come back, what I will do when I return. Maybe I will find out what I want to do whllst I am there.
'But before I go who knows where, I want to say thanks. To everyone here, and the people who aren't, the staff who have left and the pupils I have taught, for making these five years so important.
'I am proud to have been a part of this school and it has been an honour and pleasure to work with you.
'Thank you for everything'.
I left the front and quickly went back to my seat. I was not sure how my speach had gone down. I felt utterly empty, I had given everything to the school and it was now coming to an end.
Andy the assistant head spoke briefly, and then Mr Ross quite movingly. But I barely heard them. My school was over and the adventures had begun.
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