Like many of you reading this column, I’ve just returned to work from a summer break. As well as a chance for me, my wife and children to take some time out and refresh ourselves for the start of the new academic term, I was also hoping that my holiday abroad would provide an opportunity for me to take stock of my life in a year of great change for myself and my family: a new job for me, two sons in their last year of school and another finishing college.

As perhaps I should have predicted, it was difficult to motivate myself to think about the ‘big issues’ when we were all having so much fun. Faced with the choice between a read and doze in the sunshine, a swim round the pool with my sons or processing the emotional prospect of one soon fleeing the nest, it was far easier, and perhaps genuinely more useful, to take the relaxing or enjoyable options.

Many of you may have had a similar experience. It’s entirely justified and necessary that teachers have the opportunity to forget about the pressures of the classroom for a few precious weeks during the holidays in order to prepare themselves for the tribulations of term time once school restarts. Nevertheless, with pupils now back and the demands of school life beginning to mount, it’s good to take a moment to reflect on the balance of your life and identify areas that might be causing you trouble.

You might find our online ‘Wheel of Wellbeing’ a good tool to help with such as assessment. It’s been designed to help you look at the balance in different areas of your life, provide an opportunity for you to reflect on the state of your wellbeing and identify aspects you would like to change. It’s an interactive tool you can print out and use to complete the online exercises. There are six sections on a whole range of topics that should only take a few minutes each. We’ll also provide useful information and ideas to support you as you work through the tool.

Perhaps most importantly of all, you can keep the results completely to yourself. As I went through the exercises, I found it initially hard to be honest, even knowing it would only be me that saw the outcome. It was an emotional hurdle to accept that it was ok to find out things were not perfect in every aspect of my life. Whilst being able to reflect on my contentedness with many aspects of my life such as my career and family, the exercise confronted me with the realisation that my own physical health was not getting enough attention. I reflected that the swims I took with my family on holiday might have been good fun, but there were quite different from the 20 lengths I used to complete a few years ago at the beginning of every day. The Wheel helped me really concentrate on how to aim to restore my life to a balance with which I am happier: as the autumn takes hold, I’m starting to think that the curtailed evening dog walks that the cold induces might not be enough to keep me as fit as I’d like. Similarly, my night’s sleep seems to have become shortened recently, and I’m determined to get to bed earlier than I have been in order to make more of my waking hours.

As it true of many people, the break we took abroad has been the highlight of my year. Nevertheless, there is no need for the window of the summer holidays to represent the only opportunity in which we have the chance to impact on our work-life balance. The Wheel of Wellbeing proved to be simple but powerful aide to this task. As ever, changes comes in small steps rather than giant leaps, but I think the tool we’ve developed can represent a gentle but decisive stride in the direction of helping its users to improve the balance of the working and personal lives.