Best Practice

NQT special: Finding your work/life balance as a new teacher

NQTs Staff wellbeing
In your first years as a teacher, it can be easy to push yourself too far. Dorothy Lepkowska looks at how NQTs and second-year teachers can find that all-important work/life balance.

When Hugh Brenton’s girlfriend walked out on him two years into their relationship, he realised he had to change his lifestyle.

The couple had met during Hugh’s PGCE year and moved in when he got his first job as a geography teacher in a secondary school in the North East of England. 

“The problem was quite clearly my work and how it was impacting on our lives,” said the 32-year-old. “I was getting up at 6am to be in school for 7am and often not returning home until after 6pm. Then I had two or three hours of marking or preparation ahead of me.

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