Working in a school with a physical condition

It's absolutely possible. I have a mixture of physical and neurological disabilities and I taught for the best part of fifteen years. I was a good teacher, even if I do say so myself. As with anything in life, you adapt and figure out your own strategies. Your able-bodied colleagues will be going through exactly the same process - being an NQT is a daunting experience for almost everyone, and it's very common for people to feel that they're much slower than all the other teachers, that they'll never get on top of all the things they need to do, and so on. Moving past this requires you to understand that teachers don't all come out of the same cookie-cutter mould and you don't have to do things in exactly the same way Ms A or Mr B does them in order to be effective. The most valuable advice I was given as an NQT was, "You are your own best resource." A very experienced teacher said this to me when I was spending hours frantically preparing resources each night and fretting that they weren't good enough. It took me a while to grasp what she meant. At first I thought she was reminding me that I'd burn out if I spent all my time working. She was actually pointing out that the pupils needed me and the contents of my brain far more than they needed two hundred impeccably designed worksheets. She was more right than I can say. You're enough. Trust yourself.

Secondly, you need to remember that your main objective is for each of your pupils to fulfil their learning potential. Displays? They're not meant to win the Turner Art Prize. They're a way to celebrate pupils' achievements, keep them motivated, nurture their curiosity about the topics you're covering, act as memory aids, and help to create a pleasant environment for study. This doesn't have to involve huge effort. In my last job I had one board where I would showcase pupils' work...and all I did was laminate the work and get them to choose the colour of card it would be backed on. I made them back it and hang it up themselves. They enjoyed that. Even though most of them were teenagers and they often acted as if they couldn't care less about what they'd done, they were proud of their achievements and they were glad to have them noticed. On another wall I had a small thematic display that I changed twice a year. Once again, I always got the pupils to help me organise it. It was their classroom and I found it was a big help with behaviour if they took some responsibility for their surroundings. From an educational point of view, this was much more important than having a perfectly symmetrical display that looked as if it belonged in a museum. Apart from these two displays, the only other things I had on the wall were a poster to add a splash of extra colour to the room and a couple of learning aids (e.g. reminders of spelling patterns for commonly misspelled words). And that was it. I was a teacher, not a mural artist. Did it matter to my pupils if I couldn't balance on a stepladder while wielding a staplegun?

The final thing to bear in mind is that you - just like all your colleagues - will have your strengths as well as your weaknesses, and a good school will support you with any difficulties you have while enabling you to contribute your talents to the community. It sounds as if your head did this on Sports Day by making sure you had a task that wouldn't be too physically painful or difficult for you. The fact that you're 24 doesn't matter. Roughly 17% of the UK population has a disability/long-term health condition that impacts on their life, which means that sooner or later you will teach children with disabilities. They may well have similar difficulties to your own. Would you say to them, "You're only 12, you shouldn't have problems"? If you wouldn't expect perfection from them, don't expect it from yourself either, and remember - how you view your limitations teaches them how they should be viewing theirs. You have the power to set a very positive example. Unless children are willing to make mistakes and to keep trying even when their best efforts are unlikely to result in a 'good' grade on a certificate, there is no chance of them learning anything of value, because learning always carries the risk of error and it's about more than becoming objectively 'good' at everything. Seeing you accepting help when you need it, recognising your limitations, and getting on with your day will help them to understand that, and it's a crucial lesson. You really are your own best resource.