Lesson 2: How to not become a crazy hoarder

When I moved into my new classroom, I could have cried.

The space - amazing
The display areas - generous
The bookcase - hmm
The stock cupboard - something out of a channel 5 programme. The one where they drag a lovely, in denial person out of their home and proceed to tell them that their home is full of utter shit and is a health hazard.

I have never been one for hoarding. When I moved into my new house, I spent 3 car journeys transporting my worldly belongings across, slightly hyperventilating about the amount of 'stuff' I had. Before looking at my teaching resources.

Looking into my stock cupboard however, I could have cried. I know, I know. We might NEED this old stack of atlases from 1983, where at least 80% of the countries are probably the same! We saved these old worksheets from 1999 because they were so useful when that strategy was published - they might come in useful. I could have taken a blow torch to the lot and claimed ignorance, but working in a school where most of the support staff had been there for the best part of three decades meant that I would have probably been hunted down.

After trying to justify myself to at least six different members of staff (none of whom were teaching my year group), I became selfish. I got the bin liners out. And I pillaged, ripped, binned, sorted, and cleaned until my hands were black with dust and dirt, and my lungs were coughing up a grey sort of phlegm. Sexy.

18 - yes, 18 - bin liners later, I felt better. There is a culture, especially amongst teachers, where you need to save everything. But when does saving become hoarding?

Essentially, I believe that it is when you have not used something for at least one year. It is holding it's place like an old chair in the staffroom, with a rip in the fabric and a nice dip which has caressed the bottoms of decades of teachers, but could not possibly be thrown away as, you guessed it, it can still be used.

Now, before you think, Christ, she obviously does not have any idea what is coming in the next few years, she should save everything, let me share my go to guide before anything is actually thrown out:
1) Is it older than me? Yes? Bin.
2) Has it been used by anyone as part of a lesson effectively within the last 3 years? No? Bin.
3) Is it relevant to the new curriculum? No? Bin.
4) Does it still work? No? Bin.
5) If, when taking out of the cupboard, children scream with delight, put it back (I'm talking wet play board games/cards etc - easy enough to sort with some of your willing students).
6) Is it a collection of worksheets that you have never seen before which have been copied out of a book from 1980? Yes? Bin.
7) Do you know what it is? No? Bin.
8) Is it laminated, and could be used as part of a display/lesson (maths/French resources, I am looking at you)? Keep.

And so on.

I threw out broken baskets, boxes of used worksheets from 6 years ago, copies of old worksheets from old strategies, broken pencils (actually boxes and boxes of old pencils with an average of 3 inch length)... You get the picture.

I, of course, kept books (send them down to the library - books are meant to be read, not stored away from sunlight for all eternity), whiteboards, usable stationary, and anything that I seriously believed that my TA would notice and tell me off for throwing. In the end, I had a clean cupboard, with space for actual things that we would need and use, as well as restocking the numeracy cupboard, the science cupboard, and the gardening cupboard (if anyone wants to tell me why we had 12 gardening forks and shovels when we don't do any gardening past KS1 in school, come and find me).

Clear cupboard, clear mind.

You see so may blogs about how to 'recycle' old bottle tops into a chair, or saving these old pieces of ratty cardboard because they could be used to make name plates, or a fun game. Fair enough, I say. If you have got the time and energy to spend your weekends trawling through the, let's face it, rubbish in your house, then good for you. There is definitely a place to use things like this, but as for storing them for all of time just because... well, that's not a good thing.