As schools begin another academic year, we all look forwards, but the dramatic changes imposed upon education at the moment, have, forced a great number of educators to look over their shoulders, rather than ahead to a target.

The great John Clare wrote this for the TES a long time ago, but it appears to be gaining more relevance year upon year

http://www.johndclare.net/Teaching/Teaching_AmazingTeacher.htm

 You will be doing the most precious, fascinating, exciting and fulfilling of all jobs, and also the most stressful, aggravating, depressing and mundane. Your vocation is to unlock the riches of learning to young minds; but you must realise that most of your time will be spent lugging books, filing worksheets and filling forms.