How Teachers can Make the Most of the Christmas Holidays

The Christmas break is a great opportunity for teachers to escape from the busyness of term-time life, relax and even prepare for the term ahead. Every teacher likes to spend the festive season differently, but here are some ideas on productive ways to spend your vacation.

1) Start preparing for the new term

If you want to get ahead for the New Year but don’t fancy spending Christmas marking, try some creative activities that have been lingering on your to-do list. You could plan an activity on mental health for your tutor group or decide on a fun chemistry experiment to inspire your students.

2) Begin planning upcoming school trips

School trips and educational tours are great ways to bring your students’ curriculum to life. Browse our selection of academic travel programs for inspiration. If you prefer paper, order our brochure via post. Then enquire via email, phone or live chat. We understand the responsibility teachers take when they organise school trips, so we take as much of the work as possible off your hands. Print out our downloadable and customisable timeline to see how we break the process down.

3) Catch up on some well-earned rest

We are an office full of former teachers, so we understand that teachers are some of the busiest, most hard-working people in the world. The Christmas holidays are a much-needed time to unwind, ditch the 5am starts and put the marking pile to one side. Once term ends, a quiet few weeks can gear you up for a more productive spring term.

4) Schedule appointments

Being free during working hours whilst most other people are still at work means the winter vacation is the perfect chance to catch up on your routine appointments. Get a health check-up, go for an eye test and visit your dentist.

5) Take up a new hobby

Trade teaching for learning. Pick up the basics of a new language or dig out your old violin. There are plenty of free online resources and apps to make solo learning easy and convenient – our favourite is Duolingo, an app designed to help you learn languages.

6) Start thinking about your next move

A lot of teachers use vacation periods to grow their career and professional skillset. You could go on a residential course or do one from home with FutureLearn.