About

I'm Rob Kelly, a classroom teacher in Melbourne. This site grew out of a LinkedIn post about something teachers say to each other in staffrooms all the time: that a lot of the people making decisions about our classrooms haven't spent much time in one. The response was far bigger than I expected, and it told me there was a bigger conversation waiting to happen.

The articles here look at the parts of school life that are hard to see from the outside: what a teaching day really involves, the range of needs in one room, the paperwork, the data, the constant change, and why good teachers leave. The aim isn't to blame anyone. It's to give parents, school leaders and policymakers a clearer view from the classroom.

I love teaching. Writing honestly about what's hard is part of caring about the job, not a sign of giving up on it.

Views on this site are my own and don't represent any school, employer or department.