So, this is how it ends. I’ve poured myself into this for twenty-seven years.
The doctor says I must quit, or I’ll be dead inside a year. I hope he’s exaggerating.
It’s no comfort that I’m not alone: who’d be a headteacher?
When I started I thought I’d be the one to turn things around. And for a while, maybe I did. But somewhere along the way, it changed: I changed. Or perhaps the job changed beyond what any one person could carry.
Was it my fault? Rational people tell me No, but I stopped being rational a very long time ago.
I failed to protect my staff from the relentless pressure of targets and inspections. I watched good teachers walk away, burnt out, unsupported, and I told myself we had to keep pushing. I thought if we just worked harder, the results would follow, and the inspectors would stay off our backs.
I convinced myself that league tables were the true measure of success. I spent nights poring over spreadsheets, all the while missing the child who crumbled in my absence. There was that boy who never spoke, whose trousers were always a size too small, who needed a word of kindness more than any tick in a progress box. I failed him.
I stopped sleeping years ago: the anxiety of another failed safeguarding case, another budget cut, my body gave out before I could admit my mind already had.
So, I quit, not in triumph, but in retreat.
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Words: Richard Rooney
Illustration: A.I.
Flash Fiction 250
Flash Fiction 250 