What’s Not on the Schedule: Finding Meaning in a Shifting Role

At 7:30 a.m., I sit quietly in the corner of the teacher's room, sipping my coffee and refreshing my inbox, not to review lesson plans but to see where I'm needed. I don't have my own classroom. I don't teach a specific subject. My role shifts daily, sometimes hourly. I'm what the school calls a "utility player."

It's an odd phrase, more often used in sports than in education, but it fits. I go where I'm needed. I step in, support, adapt. Some days I work with students who need extra emotional regulation. Other days, I facilitate learning quietly in the back of a room. The role isn't glamorous, and it's rarely spotlighted, but within its quiet flexibility, I've discovered something deeply human.

In this new school, a globally diverse and fast-moving community, I came expecting a role defined by structure. I brought lesson plans and unit maps, ready to plug in. Instead, I've found myself floating between spaces. No fixed classroom. No routine. Just movement, unpredictability, and a strange freedom that has forced me to reimagine what it means to teach.

One of the rooms I often support includes one Year 11 student with identified special educational needs (SEN). He's not disruptive. He sits in class and submits work, sometimes half-done, sometimes late, sometimes with a quiet apology. One day, as I sat beside him, he turned to me and asked, "Do you think I'll ever graduate like everyone else?" That question didn't come with drama. It wasn't desperate or emotional. It was whispered, almost as an afterthought. But it followed me home that day.

I hadn't come to class with a plan. I wasn't there to instruct, assess, or intervene. I was just there to sit beside, to observe, to be. We didn't talk much. But at the end of class, he gave me a small smile. It wasn't big or performative, but it carried something real. In that moment, I felt my purpose click into place. It wasn't about outcomes or deliverables. It was about presence. About being the adult who notices.

As a utility player, I move from room to room, from Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to Business to Literacy and Numeracy. I hear snippets of lessons and conversations. I hand tissues to students in tears. I cheer quietly when a quiet student finally volunteers an answer. These are not accomplishments you can enter in a performance review. But they are, in their own quiet way, evidence of connection.

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if we measured impact not by student data, but by student trust. What if teaching wasn't always about what we deliver, but about how we arrive? There's a strange intimacy to a role like mine. I'm often invisible to systems, but deeply present in the lives of students. I've walked students back to class after anxiety attacks, sat beside those who've given up mid-assignment, and simply listened when someone needed to be heard. I am, in many ways, the adult who sits in the silence. And in that silence, I've found something I didn't know I was looking for—a way of teaching that is rooted not in control, but in compassion. Not in curriculum, but in connection.

Next week, I won't know where I'm going until the day begins. I might be in a Year 10 Global Perspective class or a Year 7 reading group. I might be sitting outside with a student who just needed a break. And wherever I go, I'll carry with me this quiet commitment: to notice, to witness, to be kind. In a world of structured roles and sharp expectations, I've found deep meaning in the undefined. Being a utility player has made me braver, more reflective, and more human. It has taught me that what’s not on the schedule might just be the heart of this work.