Can you hear that, fair Listener? It is the ecstatic collective squeal of school children around the globe as we approach the summer holidays.
And, if you listen carefully, you will hear the exhausted wails of several thousand teachers.
Fact: there is nothing more exciting than the last days of term.
Amongst the hysteria and the chaos and the inevitable child that got over-excited and quietly soiled herself in assembly, one thing was certain as we approached that last golden week: teachers would stop doing their one job.
Each lesson would become a lucky dip of unfathomable treats. What would await us on the other side of the door? A TV on wheels, stationed at the front of the class like a proud, tubby Emperor?
Or a wordsearch? The end of term is the one time in a human being’s life when a wordsearch is legitinately and shamelessly thrilling. When presented as an alternative to distilling some water, or reciting the German for ‘When the weather is good, I play tennis*’, a wordsearch is your ticket to happiness.
*Wenn das Wetter gut its, spiele ich Tennis. (Aber, wenn das Wetter schlecht ist, spiele ich Tischtennis.)
Sometimes, however, the teachers couldn’t even bring themselves to provide us with any form of stimuli, and instead left us to our own devices.
Oh, the thrill of getting away with slight alterations to your uniform! The teachers’ stringent term-time sartorial rules would gradually relax in the run-up to the holidays – they would half-heartedly frown at your trainers, or your whimsical approach to doing up your tie – until eventually they literally didn’t give a shit.
There were vague last-ditch attempts to send us on our way with some educational remnants in our brains, by making us sit through a final assembly on the importance of listening to our parents and doing our Tudor projects over the holidays, and remembering at all times that we were representatives of the school, but they may as well have been talking to a hedge.
And the peak of a mountain of almost unbearable happiness? The half day.
As the clock inched to 1pm on that final day, the teacher would take a last register and tell us to get the hell out, and as we left the school gates we would wipe away a single tear.
Oh, yes, I enjoyed years and years of tremendously exciting last days of term.
Until my very, very last day of term, in my third and final year of university.
I sat my last exam in the second week of a six week term. As I put down my pen on my Literature of World War One exam, I realised, with a strange mixture of elation and trepidation, that I had just completed my life in education. The years of coursework, seminars, lectures, revising, binge-eating Malteasers, were over. (Happily, it soon transpired that my life of binge-eating Malteasers had only just begun.) Naturally, I wanted to celebrate.
I rushed into the pub, expecting to find willing drink-gin-until-we-puke comrades, but was instead met with a silent citadel of revision.
I went home, had a cup of tea and watched Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, so I think you’ll find I had the last laugh.
So, enjoy these last days of term, particularly if they are your very last, as from now on there are no last days of term: just a continuous drudgery of work with no foreseeable end.
Enjoy!
BECKY SAYS THINGS 
Each time I think you’ve surpassed yourself you go and surpass yourself again.
I LOVED this. Every word SO TRUE.
xx
You are too kind, lovely Lav 🙂 x
I half watched soooo many shows on the run up to end of term, the lessons were never long enough to watch the whole film 😀
I KNOW! How annoying was that?? It was the only time you actually wanted to stay in class!
Incredibly, and it was always films I wanted to watch but hadn’t seen yet too!
Funny Becky.
Thank you Paul!
Oh.My.God, how I’ve missed you!! I would have gotten wankered with you for sure! Wankered all night long!! I think. Lol.
Yeah!!! Wankered all night long!
Good to be back! 🙂
I didn’t know you could wear an elephant costume to school, I feel as though I’ve been robbed.
You have. Elephant costumes were the best.
School’s out for summer…
Great post, Becky!
Thank you 🙂
I still have a week and 2 days left and I’ve pretty much been tuned out for 2 weeks already. The last half a term may as well be written off. I say let’s start summer after May. I will petition the new Prime Minister. I’m sure she has nothing else to do right now than listen to me ask for more holidays than I already get! 🙂 I ❤ stick man!
That’s an excellent idea. Let’s put that first on her agenda.
Stickman loves you too!
There are no more last days of term . . . unless you becomes a teacher! Even then, there’s not much difference other than a decided lack of students.
🙂
Teacher in the frame with the elephant costume… I heard the voice of a certain mustached maths teacher,… Although it can’t be him due to the first-nameness of his approach 🙂
Haha, I know exactly who you mean! No, you’re right, it’s definitely not him. I swear he never knew any of our first names….. 🙂
Yeah, but you miss it now, don’t you? We have summer interns at work. All they’ve ever known is the safe womb of academia. This is their first taste of the real world. You should see the looks on their faces. Priceless.
I know, it was such a horrific shock! Poor darlings. How we all long for that academic womb….
Sounds like a solid time. I love Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.
All the best people do!
Always a good day on WP when I can read a “Becky Says Things.” Thanks so much for sharing. I am a teacher who doesn’t have end of terms (private ESL thing) but that doesn’t stop me from sympathizing.
Oh, and that scene with the fire….totally did that.
Haha, I’m sure every teacher has let their kids run riot whilst they have a cheeky nap!
Thanks so much for reading 🙂
That discordant note you could hear amongst all that ecstatic screaming was the agonised moans of kids in Australia, where it’s the middle of winter, and their mid-year holiday has just ended. Poor buggers.