I’m sad – but also greatly relieved – to say that I’m one of the many English teachers quitting the profession this summer (“Trying to find a maths or science teacher is like looking for a unicorn”, News). On leaving, I will have completed 12 years of teaching across secondary schools in London and North Yorkshire. In happier times, I would tell everyone how privileged I felt to spend my day in the company of young people and their amazing energy, especially as I could do so with a Shakespeare play in my hand. Yes, there were always a lot of stresses, but I was certain that I smiled and laughed each workday more than the huge majority of the population.
Well, for the last year those smiles have all but dried up. The stress has become too much. Burnout has ravaged me. There are many reasons: worsening student behaviour since Covid; the workload; Ofsted pressures; tedious obsessions with targets and data; growing class sizes; a lack of funding and resources; a lack of pay and appreciation.
