Have I ever mentioned before that I used to be a teacher?

I feel like it has come up once or twice – maybe three times, at a push – but just in case you weren’t aware, before I tried out this journalist thing, I taught English, first in a school, and then in a college.

I hadn’t wanted to be a teacher at any point in my life but ended up loving it – and yet here I am, outside the classroom, albeit in a job that gives me a regular excuse to visit them.

One of the most common questions I’m asked, especially when I’m out visiting schools, is whether or not I miss it, and it can be harder to answer than you might think. There are some major aspects that were a bit of a relief to get away from, and my mental health is in much better shape these days than it was in the last few years of my time teaching.

And, like a lot of English teachers, I’d always wanted to write, so getting to do that for a living is fantastic.........

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