Why teacher burnout matters

 Over the past few years I have often felt like I had reached the end of what I could do. At one point, about 3 years ago, I literally did and ended up off work for 3 weeks. Since then I have been reading and researching techniques I could use to help myself. I will freely admit I do not have all the answers. I still get to the point of feeling overwhelmed and over-stretched in my working life. But I do have better strategies to deal with it. 

Multiple times I have sat down with trainee teachers and ECTs to discuss how they can use ‘cheats’ to help them manage. When experienced staff overhear they then start to use them too. It made me realise that we are not talking enough, not sharing enough, about how to deal with the stress of the job. This made me start to research the current situation in teaching. In turn I started to write articles (like this one for Music Teacher magazine on using technology to help music teachers) and give presentations and workshops on different ways to reduce workload and therefore improve well being. 

So what got me fired up? Well, my personal situation aside (which I initially thought was down to my weakness rather than an issue with the profession as a whole), this is what I found when I researched the big picture. 

Official census data collected in November 2021 and released in June 2022 showed: 

  • Teacher departures in 2021 were up by 12.4%., In fact 8.1% left state funded teaching, and of those only 11% were down to retirement. 
  • 12.5% of ECTs left within 1 year.
  • Teacher vacancies were at the highest since at least 2010 (when they started collecting this data)
  • The average number of days teachers had off sick had jumped from 4% in 2014-2019 to 8.6% 2020-2021.
Data from Schools Week article by Tom Berger, 9th June 2022 

So what is behind this rather bleak view of teacher retention? The NEU completed their annual survey and released the following figures:
  • 44% teachers plan to quit by 2027 - 65% of those were because of workload
  • 52% of those who completed the survey said that workload was ‘unmanageable’ or ‘unmanageable most of the time’ 
  • 71% of teachers in English state schools said that the biggest thing schools could do to improve wellbeing was to reduce the volume of work. 
Data from NEU annual survey released 11th April 2022

Obviously these are now dated, but as I await the new data I’m not hopeful that it will show this has improved in the last year. 

If we do not look after our workload we cannot look after ourselves or our families. Home/work-life balance will not exist and we will end up continuing to leave the profession in droves. The next generation of students will not have the guidance and support from our well trained, experienced, colleagues. 

I’m currently working on trying to do my small bit to help with this, writing up my own strategies, researching those used by others and bringing them together into something cohesive. I hope to write these up in articles and talk to as many teachers as I can via any platform to share these. 

I am speaking at the forthcoming Music and Drama Teacher Expo in London in February on how to survive the secondary classroom. Hopefully I will see some of you there. 







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