Scrolling through LinkedIn is one of my least favourite parts of running my own business.
It’s necessary – without visibility there is no business – but it often feels like walking through a corridor of the same story told a hundred different ways: teaching is broken, everyone is leaving, look how exhausted we all are.
Same headlines. Same tone. Same clamour to be seen.
So I’ve had to get really intentional about how I show up there. I only comment on posts that genuinely interest me. I try to add something real, not just “great post!” into the void.
And somewhere along the way, my feed quietly filled up with early years practitioners.
Honestly, it has been a lifesaver.
But underneath it all, I see a quieter question: what happens when we squeeze out play – for students and for teachers?
Like many UK teachers, I’m trying to protect space for play for students and teachers, without being swallowed by workload and burnout.
Why the Early Years Crowd Feel Like “My People”
I’ve never worked in early years. I’ve spent my career in secondary, in D&T and 3D design.
But the early years posts I see on LinkedIn are full of joy: children playing with paper, experimenting, getting messy, discovering what materials can do. These educators talk about curiosity, wonder and play as if they’re non-negotiables – because in their world, they are.
Their language feels like home to me.
My own approach to teaching has often felt slightly out of sync with the dominant secondary narrative. So much of secondary can feel like “serious business”: progress scores, mock data, retrieval grids, “no time to waste”.
Play is framed as a primary issue. Something you grow out of.
And I can’t help but wonder: is that attitude part of what’s killing the profession?
Ali Abdaal writes in Feel-Good Productivity about the importance of play for adults – not as a childish extra, but as a genuine driver of motivation, creativity, and wellbeing.
If that’s true for adults, what are we doing when we squeeze every ounce of play out of our classrooms and our own lives?
How Creativity Saved Me (More Than Once)
My relationship with school as a student was… turbulent.
I rarely felt like I belonged – on the days I actually attended. Lessons often felt like something happening to me, not for me. The bits that did make sense, the bits where I felt some kind of connection, were always the creative ones.
Art. Design. The spaces where there wasn’t just one right answer.
At college, my BTEC Foundation in Art and Design genuinely saved me. I’d drifted so far away from education that I couldn’t see myself in it at all. That course changed that.
It was expressive, experimental, gloriously hands-on. I got to try a huge range of materials and processes. Somewhere in all of that making, I started to find myself.
A 3D Design degree cemented it. I found “my people” – the makers, the experimenters, the ones who wanted to push and test ideas. The course was experimental and, for a long time, I resented the lack of clear career focus that so many modern courses seem designed around.
Now I see it differently.
The skills I developed through that creative education – risk-taking, problem-solving, iteration, living with uncertainty – have been a rare gift. It’s only later in life that I’ve realised just how powerful that freedom really was.
Because of it, I’ve:
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worked in commercial design,
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led an exciting D&T department, and
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had the confidence to start my own business ventures.
All of that traces back to one simple through-line: I was given permission to play.
Bringing Play Back Into the Secondary Classroom
I still love my subject. I still find genuine joy in the classroom.
One of my favourite projects to deliver is called “What makes paper special?” Students spend time exploring material properties in a playful, hands-on way. They fold, tear, twist, layer and test. They push the material to its limits and, in the process, push themselves a little too.
The aim isn’t a perfect final product. It’s to develop their creative risk-taking.
Every rotation, I’m reminded how important this is. You can see how much confidence has quietly evaporated by the time some of them reach secondary. They’re terrified of being “wrong”, of wasting materials, of not producing something “good enough”.
Through that project, we begin to rebuild some of what’s been lost.
For too long, D&T has been preoccupied with rigid outcomes. Controlled assessments. Perfect prototypes. Evidence for displays and inspectors.
The casualty? Creativity.
And when creativity disappears from our curriculum, it doesn’t just affect students. It affects us too.
The Hidden Creative Lives of Teachers
I’m surrounded by brilliant teachers in my current setting.
Recently, I stumbled across a LinkedIn post by our music teacher. He’s released an album of the most beautiful, moving piano compositions. I’d taught alongside him and never known this side of him existed.
That bothered me more than I expected.
Those are the shout-outs I want in our staffroom:
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“Look what she’s been composing.”
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“Look what he built over the weekend.”
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“Look at the exhibition she’s part of.”
Instead, we too often celebrate martyrdom:
“Somehow survived another brutal week and still delivered the [insert intervention / mock / cover / revision session here].”
We glorify endurance instead of creativity.
Sacrifice instead of self-expression.
No wonder so many teachers feel like shadows of themselves.
Play Isn’t Just for Children – Or Teachers on the Brink of Burnout
If we believe play is essential for early years children… why do we act as if it’s optional for teenagers?
And completely irrelevant for adults?
How often do we do the things that light us up, purely for the joy of it – with no CPD badge, no “outcome”, no data point attached?
And more importantly:
How often do we bring that version of ourselves into the classroom?
When I read early years advocates talking about play-based learning, I see a vision of education where curiosity, experimentation and joy are baked in. My question is: why do we stop there?
What would our profession look like if secondary teachers also gave themselves permission to:
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design more playful, open-ended projects,
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celebrate their own creative lives publicly, and
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protect time outside school to make, write, perform, explore… just because?
I suspect we’d see less burnout, less bitterness, and more teachers who still recognise themselves after ten years in the job.
Why I’m So Passionate About Balance and Authenticity and Teacher Wellbeing
This is why I talk about balance in teaching with such intensity.
For me, balance isn’t just about working fewer hours or saying no to the extra meeting (though that matters). It’s about refusing to become a two-dimensional version of ourselves for the sake of the job.
It’s about:
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keeping hold of the creative identities that existed before timetables and targets,
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letting our students see that fully human, fully alive version of us, and
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designing learning that leaves space for experimentation, risk and joy.
Play saved my education.
Creativity built my career.
And now, as a teacher and founder, I’m determined not to let a joyless version of professionalism squeeze that out of the next generation – or out of us.
We can teach well and live fully.
We can care deeply and protect our spark.
We can demand rigour and make room for play.
In fact, if we want this profession to survive, I’m not sure we can afford not to.
If you’re quietly fighting for play for students and teachers in your own classroom, you’re not on your own. PPA Buddy exists to help UK teachers protect their time, keep their creative spark and teach in a way that feels sustainable. Share this with a colleague who’s lost touch with their own creativity, or come and join the community so we can protect that space for play together.