You don’t want to compromise the school rules by being caught shovelling food down your hatch whilst rushing through the corridors, but you’re also absolutely starving. How do you put hunger off enough to get you through a busy day of teaching? Here are some ideas:

A Cheeky Snack During Morning Break

On those rare and beautiful occasions when you get the period 2 class out exactly on time and you have no morning detentions in your calendar, you may find you have 15 minutes to play with. What better opportunity to wolf down a packet of crisps (or alternative healthy snack)? If you’re not worried about savouring the flavour you’ll have additional minutes to whip up a filthy instant coffee in the staff room, and potentially nip to the loo as well.

Accept Questionable Baked Goods from Year 7s

Underhand and dangerous though it may be, accepting a culinary delicacy baked by an enthusiastic year 7 in their D & T lesson can be passed off as pastoral encouragement as well as crucially filling that growling chasm in your stomach. The downside, of course, is that it won’t be the finest food you’ve ever dined upon, and there’s no knowing what hygiene risks may be associated with accepting such a gift; but they have dishwashers, and warm water and soap in the food lab right?

Say ‘No’ to Working during Lunchtime and Actually Have Lunch

It’s not always that easy unfortunately, but you will operate best when you’ve got fuel to burn; sometimes you just have to turn your back to everything that is going on around you, shut the staffroom door, put the marking pen down and enjoy your sandwich. Traditional, impractical, but useful. That said, if a fight kicks off in the corridor outside… well, you can’t always win.

Birthdays

A teacher should feel entitled to shamelessly help themselves to any cake that’s going in the staffroom. Even if it’s the birthday of Mr Burnham from the P.E. department with whom you have no intention of spending the time of day, cake is a means to keeping your engine stoked until hometime. There is always the possibility that politer teachers or staff on health drives will pussy-foot around partaking, so check in again after period 5 and there may still be some left.

Those Sweets You Bought for the End of Last Term and Forgot to Hand Out? They’re Yours Now.

OK, hands up here: I often have a bag of sweets in my bottom drawer that I “forget” to hand out at the end of term. My favourites are the cheap supermarket rip-offs of mini Mars and Snickers bars. For some reason, at the end of the school day once you’ve dismissed your final class and are having a 5-minute breather, these wannabe Celebrations are delicious and hugely moreish. Just be careful, a student popping back into the classroom to collect their left-behind coat could catch you gorging on them – and then it’s rude not to share.

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