ABSTRACT
The author arrived for his first day at school as a teacher on a crisp September morning in York. The beautiful city was my new home of little over a week. As the author passed the threshold of the school gates, the freshness of the air was startling. In a desperate attempt to assert some control over his rabid nerves, the author had scripted each moment of each lesson of his first day, all by hand, in painstaking detail. Blowing shallow breaths, the author attempted to remember his script, before shuffling back to the teacher desk to read it over. It was effort, commitment and the support of his fellow teachers that developed his expertise, but it was confidence in himself, and his belief that he could make a difference to the lives of his students, that helped to persist in reaching that goal. Stress and teacher burnout are real problems that they had no doubt need to address.
