Case Study: A Maternity Leave Masters

Jessica Carter (@JessoftheShire), primary school teacher and Mum of two, currently on maternity leave, explains how she has balanced her Masters with the Open University around her children and flexible working hours, and how the study has enriched her teaching and learning.

I'm currently part-way through a part-time MA in Childhood and Youth with the Open University. This will take three years in total (the recommended pace is 16 hours a week). The course is interdisciplinary and explores policy and practice in services for children and young people. I enrolled on the course after we moved back to the UK from overseas at the end of a teaching contract. I didn't feel ready to be back in the classroom, but I wanted to continue my professional development: to keep my brain firing on all cylinders whilst I immersed myself in the work of being a mum. It has always been a personal goal to work towards an MA, but it took time to find a course that really suited my interests and seemed worth the financial sacrifices.

When I began, my daughter was eight months old. My husband was working full-time but we lucky to have the support of both sets of grandparents and, at one year old, some time at a local nursery. One term later I also felt able to take on a part-time teaching post alongside the study and mum-time. In lots of ways it was the perfect balance for me: I benefited hugely from the flexibility of home study during my second pregnancy but, being a compartmentaliser, I struggled to fit study around newborn nap-times and toddler exuberance after the birth. The wonderful, flexible Open University were able to grant me a postponement and, now that my son is five months old I am thoroughly enjoying engaging with my studies again, with the continuing support of my tutor.

When my husband and I first had The Conversation (who would take what amount of leave) we were surprised to find that the traditional two-week paternity/long maternity leave model seemed the best fit for us. He was incredibly supportive of my MA and career development plans, despite the huge dip in household income it would entail: I fully appreciate that this is not an option available to everyone. For these 'baby years' he feels strongly that his priority is family: he wants to be able to come home for dinner, bath and bedtime each night without bringing work with him. Ironically, during the last few years he has been promoted twice while I am back on the lowest rungs of the pay scale with no leadership responsibilities. Research into the 'fatherhood bonus' versus the 'motherhood penalty' in the workplace certainly mirrors our experiences so far.

So what do I hope to get out of it? As well as reigniting my passion for education the course has opened my eyes regarding government policy and the importance of integration between services for children and young people. There is a strong emphasis on reflection on personal practice: the things I am learning can and have been immediately applied in the classroom and staffroom. It also promotes the view of teachers as active researchers, encouraging me to explore my potential impact on the profession and the wider field of children's services. I haven't enjoyed the temporary loss of income but I believe there will be a longer term benefit on the trajectory of my career, in terms of both financial and personal development.

School Trips

Team #maternityteacher have just come back from our first family weekend away to the Peak District which was the most fun, and it got me thinking about how awesome parental leave is because of all the flexi-time it offers. On Friday, when all other teaches were in the classroom, baby, Frenchie and I were zooming up the M1 to the countryside, and I thought, 'Gosh, it's great being on maternity leave - I'd never be able to do all of this learning-outside-the-classroom if I was on full teaching timetable and restricted by contracted hours!'

Now, for anyone reading thinking that maternity leave is a holiday, it is not: this was not a mini break, this was a bonafide CPD school trip. Had I been on a full time pay roll, I would definitely have put in an expense claim - that's how linked to my teaching and learning practice this was, as it was inspired by my FutureLearn course, 'Literature of the Country House'.  The course includes excerpts from 'Pride and Prejudice', 'The Sylph' and 'The Mysteries of Udolpho', all which have links to Derbyshire in the form of that dramatic rock that Kiera Knightly stands on in the film; Chatsworth House, home to both Mark Darcy and Georgiana Cavendish (also Kiera Knightly), and Haddon Hall, the gothic inspiration for Ann Radcliffe's 'Udolpho'.

School trips like this absolutely count as CPD for the exact same reason that they count as learning for our students - they bring learning and texts and theory to life and make them so much more exciting; they develop soft skills like determination and organisation and confidence; they inspire ideas to bring back into the classroom, and they provide opportunities that teenagers and teachers both love for awesome, no-inhibitions, dream-fulfilling photos:

I am Lizzie Bennet.  This is her rock.  Jane Austen lives through me etc.

Having returned from this trip, for example, I am now completely convinced that I can accompany a DofE trek, a commitment I have previously hesitated over volunteering for because of a concern that I might not be outdoorsy enough - such things are for Geography and PE teachers, surely?  Well, not any more.

In a previous trip to the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences in Cambridge, I spent about an hour pondering climate change and my insignificance in the gazillion-year-old scheme of things, and am now on the hunt for copies of the letters of Mary Anning, Darwin's diaries, Adam Sedgwick's letters and Thomas Hawkins' 'The Book of the Great Sea Dragons' to create a portfolio of Literary Non-Fiction and Literary Fiction like 'A Sound of Thunder' and 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth' to create a portfolio with a cool name like 'Dinosaur Hunters' that will make exam practice feel like a trip to the cinema to see 'Jurassic World'.

One thing, from a parental point of view, that has been really fun, has been basing these trips on whatever the baby is supposed to be doing, developmentally.  There's a point, for example, when babies go into sensory overload, so we went to Kew Gardens to smell (I learnt a lot about bees and want our Science Department to do a trip here), St. Martin-in-the-Fields to listen, the V&A to look at shadows (amazing STEM opportunities) and put our feet in the cold water of the courtyard pond, and Borough Market to eat all the free tasters.  When the baby started to make connections and appreciate patterns, we went to the Tate Modern with my Mum and I wrote a whole scheme of work on Shakespeare, dance and physical theatre.

What has also been fantastic about a lot of these London-based trips (I work in a London school), has been the opportunity to act almost as a travel agent for my Head of Department, letting her know about experiences that I have already tried and tested, and which would be suitable for different groups of students.  As a busy manager, she doesn't have as much time as she would like to get out, discover, research and test drive these school trips, so having someone who will do this for her - and have a lot of fun, cuddles and tea in the process - is a huge bonus for her.

Live Stream

Today, this #maternityteacher made a joyful discovery.  Please keep in mind during this anecdotal blog that despite my incessant Tweeting and blogging, watching me try to navigate social media and many forms of technology is a little like watching your grandmother trying to use a computer mouse for the first time.  ("Right click, Nanny.  Click.  On the right.  With your ring finger.  Right click.")

Imagine me, if you will, doing a mix between ballet, dry ice-skating and aerobics in my living room at 11am this morning, in my pyjamas, to a soundtrack of Paolo Nutini, with a baby attached to me in a sling.  Why would I do such a thing, you might be wondering.  Well, the baby had just had a significant poop explosion whilst seated in the bouncer - that genius piece of equipment that allows me to get on with blogging and Tweeting and researching during the day - and it was now out of action.  Baby refuses to sleep during the day without some form of intense lunging involved, so it was rather resentfully that I swapped my morning coffee with accompanying bouncer for a sling fit work out.

Eventually, exhausted, I sat down to Twitter only to find that the whole world apart from me was talking about ResearchEd. "Oh gawd!" I thought, with severe feelings of FOMO, "The whole world is progressing apart from me.  Interesting learning discussions are happening and I'm sweaty and still in my pyjamas at 11am and the baby has begun to dribble in my cleavage!  Maternity leave sucks!"

But oh how wrong I was.  When I clicked on the @ResearchED1 handle, I saw this magical Tweet:

"What is a 'Livestreamed'?" you may be wondering.  Well, #maternityteachers, I asked myself the same question, and curious beyond measure about what kind of Narnia this digital wardrobe door might lead me to, I clicked on the link and was greeted by this:

This is @daisychristo talking, in real time, about the Ark Academy's research into comparative moderation, and here I was, with a baby, in my living room, with dirty hair and sleep-face, listening as if I were in the Theatre of the Capital City Academy with all the other gazillion CPD-ing teachers. Amazing!

I obviously then had a fantastic morning with the live stream playing on my laptop in the background, a bit like Wimbledon or the Olympics whilst I went about breastfeeding, burping, playing, tummy time, laundry, Tweeting, Googling, drinking cups of tea and performing baby massage on a very disgruntled and windy baby.  "Being on maternity leave is fantastic!" I thought, "You can come in late to presentations without offending anyone; I don't have any marking or planning to do that's keeping me from concentrating on what @PhillippaCcuree is saying, and I'm not sickened by the idea of anything to do with education on a Saturday because I've lost track of what day it is today!  Plus, I have time to really think about lots of big ideas and put them into action.  How, for example, could research bodies mobilise the teachers on maternity leave out there who are not drowning under the weight of their teaching load to contribute to their projects?"

Life got even better at 2:05pm when this chap turned up:

What Teach First ambassador doesn't love a bit of Brett quoting familiar statistics?  Way to reconnect with the mission!

The best thing about Live Stream, I discovered, was that it doesn't just exist for ResearchEd; this chap Leon Cych at least, films loads of education-related events and Teach Meets so that they can be accessed from any remote location with Wifi.  Can you think of anything more compatible with the #maternityteacher lifestyle?

So, here's what I think we should all do:

• Explore further opportunities for live streaming.  If there is a conference you want to attend, but can't, what infrastructure do the facilitators have for creating a live streaming link?
• Learn how to do live streaming with @periscopetv - apparently you can do this with your own smartphone!
• We should all make friends with Leon Cych (@eyebeams) and ask him to partner with The #maternityteacher Project to make all of our live streaming dreams come true.
• If you attend an event through live streaming, you've attended that CPD event! (You just didn't get lunch).  Make sure you include it in your CPD record or on your CV so that you can use it to impress your Principal on your return to work.
• Use social media to record and maximise upon your attendance: blog about your reflections; network through Twitter; follow up on introductions and ideas.

Even better, I have just discovered that ResearchEd is family-friendly, so you have two options for their next event in Washington (!?): get a ticket and put your baby on a plane, or grab a cup of tea and a muslin and access through live streaming!