Do not go gentle into that good night… rage, rage against the dying of the light.

My greatest fear is that I won’t have the strength to rage. That I’ll just turn and let the darkness overwhelm me. I remember doing that once.

Ten years on, I feel it’s time to get my thoughts straight on my rather short teaching career (at least as far as children are concerned – adult education was fifteen years and it’s a shame I didn’t stick to it). It lasted three years; the first year, my NQT year, I was treated as a full teacher. I remember being asked to sign off on things, and seeing the list of support – observations, meetings – that I had supposedly been offered. No point in rocking the boat by questioning it – I assumed they didn’t feel I’d needed that support.

Second year was okay – no signs of problems from above, not always the best of lessons, some shaky areas, but I got through with nothing said.

Third year – I started that year so positively. I was really going to crack this! I was going to work on my weak areas, I was going to figure out how to do things better and it was going to be so good! I even started a notebook, a teaching log, where I was going to reflect on the good and the bad and work out how to improve.

We had a new head teacher that year. Two weeks into the school year, they put us through a mocksted, a mock ofsted inspection that would highlight strengths and weaknesses of the school and prepare us for any real inspection. And two weeks after that, the real ofsted turned up. And as the whole school was still recovering from all that, I was told I would be observed by a member of senior staff.

Now the lesson they were going to observe was with a class that I shared. I’d previously asked for support with this particular group, and the solution given was that I would share them – a more senior staff member would have them one week and I would have them the next. So for this lesson I’d been told they’d been set up with the work and knew what they were doing. Despite that, it became obvious during the lesson that they were struggling with the work.

In the feedback to the observation, I was expecting support and advice. Instead, I got told that I was doing it all wrong, that I should have reacted sooner. That my teaching wasn’t up to standard and they’d be observing me more often to keep an eye on things.

This resulted in several weeks of drop-in observations, where at any point a member of senior staff might turn up and sit in for a while, then tell me what I did wrong. Never with any advance notice, just at random. This left me a bag of nerves – I lost a lot of weight over that year altogether. Eventually things were made more formal, with me expected to attend observations of other staff to learn what I was doing wrong, as well as being observed myself. Three events stand out during this time.

I was criticised for allowing a student to keep their coat on during a lesson on a day where 2/3 of the students were off school due to the snow on the ground. I then observed a lesson with a head of department where two students were allowed to sit with their coats on all lesson without a word being said (and no snow in sight).

I was criticised for writing three learning objectives on the board and only covering two, because it showed lack of suitable planning. I observed a lesson where a colleague was praised for reacting to the class and only covering two points instead of sticking to the plan of covering three, because it showed they recognised the students weren’t ready to move on and they could be flexible.

I was criticised because I allowed students an extra five minutes to finish what they were doing on their coursework instead of pulling them together for a review of the lesson. I was told that even if students are only working on coursework it was important to have a starter and plenary. I was then sent to observe a colleague teaching the same stuff as me, who barely interacted with the students all lesson – they came in, sat down and got in with their coursework – or not – and he would occasionally wander around and speak to one or two but there was no direct teaching or whole class time at all.

All this was incredibly frustrating – how come I was being criticised for the exact same things colleagues were doing without problems or even being praised for?

On top of all this, one challenging class I had was a fairly large one of difficult boys – probably half and half behavioural issues and severe learning difficulties. It was agreed that the class should be split and a member of senior staff would take half of them off elsewhere for their lesson. Except that he only turned up to take them about half the time, and when he did it was usually well after the start of the lesson, which made it even more difficult to cope with than having those students in with the main class.

The climax of the year came when it came to my last planned observation. The lesson went perfectly, as planned, and I was so proud of those students and what they achieved in that lesson. The only problem was that the observer had forgotten and failed to show up at all, despite me expecting them to walk in any minute.

That observation was rescheduled, and in the end I was relieved that the observer wasn’t happy with it, because that was it. I wasn’t going to fight anymore. Rather than struggling on, with more and more pressure from management, I went to the head teacher that afternoon and handed in my notice.

Instantly the pressure was lifted. I was invited to stay on until the end of the school year with no more observations – this was just before Easter – and was told I’d be given a good reference elsewhere, with nothing on my record.

But by this time I’d had enough. I had two interviews elsewhere. One, I was frustrated because I didn’t have a chance to explain an answer in the interview following the sample lesson. The other was perfect, a part time job teaching boys in a boys’ grammar school. It all went very well – but the job went to the other candidate, who was an ex-pupil.

So I surrendered instead of continuing to fight for my career, and I set up working freelance as an editor, proofreader and formatter. Working from home, my own boss, no outside observations to deal with… I wish things had turned out better. I sometimes think about going back. But then I remember the incredible pressure, no chance to breathe, and the lack of support.

I don’t regret trying, though. At least I know I gave it a go, and it didn’t work out. I just wish I’d been given more support from the beginning. Or given the chance to work things out for myself as I’d been planning to do, rather than having my confidence constantly knocked and not being given a chance to think straight.

So in the end, is there any point in raging against the dying of the light, or is it better to turn and face the inevitable and go gentle into that good night? I wish I knew.