The silent reasons female teachers are experiencing burnout

The Teacher Wellbeing Index reports that 76% of the education workforce are stressed, 77% experience symptoms of poor mental health and a huge 36% are at risk of probable clinical depression. 36%. More than a third.

Of course, if you are or have been a teacher, these stats probably come as no surprise. Add to this the fact that almost half say their school culture negatively affects their health (think unannounced learning walks, the language of book ‘scrutiny’, the ever-changing goalposts and behaviour that becomes your sole responsibility), and you have the perfect recipe for burnout.

Although these are issues that are often talked about at a government level, in the press, and of course in staff rooms up and down the country (when you have time for a quick break), some of the more subtle but insidious causes of burnout are often overlooked.

As a former teacher myself who now works with women educators experiencing burnout, I've seen factors unique to many women that seem to lock us into even deeper overwhelm – an instinct to nurture, the ups and downs in our energy, and the tendency to take to heart any perceived shortcomings in our ability.

The identity piece

For most teachers, there’s a huge sense of pride in what they do. It’s what you become known for. It impresses people. There’s always some hilarious or wild story to tell, and a lesson with a tricky class that goes well can leave you buzzing for days. And at first, this pride can keep you going. Even at 9 pm on a Wednesday night when you’re preparing that extra resource for the kid in your class you know won’t get by without it. For some women, our maternal instincts might kick in as we tell ourselves we're nurturing great futures for these kids.

But when the workload bleeds over into your home life, not just from time to time, but consistently, and you find yourself struggling for other things to talk about at a dinner party, that’s when you realise this isn’t simply a job, or even a vocation. It’s become your identity.

And this is something you don’t see in the headlines – the fact that many teachers wouldn’t know who they are without the job. It’s become so intertwined that there is no way to switch off or recover from a challenging day. It’s just there. Always. Exhausting, right?

Our ups and downs in capacity

The school week, terms and years are, of course, scheduled according to exams, curriculum demands and deadlines. A teacher's day is mapped out for them, parents' evenings are booked in, and marking policies are set in stone.

And while burnout can affect any teacher, many women may face additional challenges. For example, women teachers are expected to bring their full energy every day, but for many women, that's not always how it feels. Hormonal changes throughout the menstrual cycle can mean that energy levels fluctuate during parts of the month. But the school system doesn't change depending on what phase of your menstrual cycle you're in when there are extra hours of exam revision classes to put on. You just have to keep going.

And when we do show up with limited capacity, a short fuse and a mediocre lesson? We beat ourselves up for it. Tell ourselves we're not good enough. Lose sleep over letting the kids down.

The physical effects of burnout

The only time breathing is really talked about in teaching is about projecting your voice – perhaps using diaphragmatic breathing to support your command of a lively class. But just the fact that teachers talk pretty much all day means that they’re likely breathing through the mouth, which can be a really inefficient way of breathing.

Humans are generally designed to predominantly breathe through our noses. Nasal breathing filters out impurities, humidifies the air you breathe in, may be more efficient for breathing at rest, and some research suggests it can support relaxation and help the body manage stress and anxiety.

In the short-term, breathing through the mouth is fine. Take the example of someone delivering a presentation or leading a workshop for 2 hours, then going back to their desk to work quietly for the afternoon, no problem. But a teacher with 6 back-to-back lessons and an afterschool club to run? No wonder you’re physically and mentally depleted at the end of the day.

The impact of the changing goalposts

I recently sent out a survey to women working in schools, and so many reported changing goalposts as one of the key issues contributing to their feeling of burnout. But it’s not just the impact on workload that hits hard – it’s what it does to your self-confidence.

If you’re an English teacher who’s taught the same Shakespeare play for the past 3 years, becoming the expert teacher, creating the resources, refining how to deliver complex themes, and suddenly it’s swapped out for something else, what does this do for your confidence in your teaching abilities? Suddenly you’re in unfamiliar territory, learning the ropes from scratch.

Multiply this by a change in a behaviour system that you’d just got to grips with firmly applying, a marking policy that means you now have to rework your PPA priorities, or a new responsibility that would normally carry a TLR you never signed up for; it can be the final straw for burnout.

So what can be done?

Firstly, teachers must be heard. Government and the press talk about workload, stress, retention, but how often do teachers at the chalkface have their feelings and experiences truly heard and acknowledged?

But on an individual level, there is work to be done on disentangling the person from the job. Where does the job end and the personal life begin? When does good enough become OK? And how do fantastic, caring, conscientious teachers distance themselves from the weight of responsibility for their students?

This is where coaching comes in. Many of the clients I work with feel they've lost a sense of who they really are and, as a result, are unable to articulate what values they hold dear, where their self-worth lies, or how to set and hold boundaries. Values work might sound simple, but its power in supporting women to reconnect with who they really are is incredible, and becomes the catalyst for rediscovering who they are.

From here, clients can begin to give themselves permission to set boundaries, and build the confidence to hold them. We challenge the stories the brain has told them about what a 'good' teacher is, and work together to explore what it feels like to be good enough.

Of course, for all of this to happen, capacity for the work must be created, so self-care must become an active priority. Many teachers spend their working lives ignoring the most basic of needs – the need to use the bathroom, to eat, to breathe properly, to take a sick day – so starting small is key. It’s about retraining the body to understand that you are there to listen to it and to give it what it needs.

It’s about keeping promises to yourself. The promise to have that bath tonight, to go on a 10-minute walk after work instead of scrolling, to spend the day in bed when you’re poorly. Coaching offers gentle accountability while new habits of self-care are formed and embedded, so that the headspace and nervous system capacity for the deeper work can be created.

For many women working in schools, a point comes when they question whether the job is sustainable. And it’s heartbreaking, because they love what they do. But the answer to that question can be found rather than forced with some careful work on untangling the self from the job, learning where boundaries lie and how they’re held, and putting in place self-care that really counts.