People often think that teaching is hardest when you start, and then just gets easier from there. And for some teachers this may be the case. However, the long-serving teachers in our research experienced ups and downs at different points all through their careers.
Understanding that a teaching career may have multiple highs and lows can be helpful for leaders. It can help you to support teachers to develop a more sustainable pace and also help them to develop strategies for how to manage these lows and highs.
Strategies that might be helpful include:
- Supporting teachers to talk to each other and to you. It can help teachers to realise that they are not alone, and that having a ‘low’ with a particular class or particular time does not make someone a bad teacher.
- Recognising the likelihood of highs and lows within performance management, lesson observations and scrutiny of exam results. Consider what the teacher has done in their role, rather than making judgments based on outputs that they do not have complete control over.
- Encourage groups of teachers to talk about their strategies for dealing with difficult situations, as well as ideas that have been positive for them in different situations.
- Recognising that ‘high’ and ‘low’ points might coincide with certain times in the teaching year, and being mindful when asking for extra work at typical low points.
- Encouraging teachers to seek help, even when you think their difficulty is unexpected in their career stage. For example, sometimes very experienced teachers may be surprised when they experience challenging students when they have previously had good relationships with all their classes.
- Helping teachers to realise that the highs and lows will change and don’t last forever, and that experiencing the ups and downs of teaching is part of what helps them to navigate through the next set of highs and lows.
But what matters most is finding what works for the teachers and students in your school – what might help your teachers to ride out the highs and lows and have a long-lasting and happy career?
