Teacher burn-out: raging inferno or smouldering ashes

I'm going to share my experiences of burn-out and options for support. In 2012 I was about ten years into my career as a classroom teacher. For the first half of it I'd been an IB teacher in Vancouver, Canada, then my husband and I moved to Melbourne, Australia where I got a job in a local Prep-Year 8 school. I thought I'd beaten the stats about early career teachers who leave the profession in the first few years. I still enjoyed seeing students learn and grow from day-to-day and over the course of the year. I was team-teaching Year 6 in a newly renovated room that was 3 small classrooms bashed together into a large flexible learning space. It should have been a great year...

Then I started waking up in the middle of the night, getting migraines week-after-week, and having anxiety attacks on the way to school. When I couldn't sleep, I would wrap myself in a blanket, sit at the kitchen table and write fiction. The worlds I created on the page were my escape.

There were several broad stressors that, I think, smouldered over that year: staff morale was low, the principal was pushing through a vision for the school that parents didn't like, my teaching partner was openly racist and refused to teach Maths, and my husband was working interstate for months at a time. Then, in late October, we went on school camp and had a number of students get gastro while there. I got bronchitis, lost my voice and had to take the following week off, and when I came back I knew I couldn't do another year.

Recently, though, I've realised that burn-out doesn't necessarily take a long time to accumulate. I experienced many of the signs - anxiety, disengagement, demotivation, anger and self-doubt - after only a few months in a new job that came with a bad boss.

If you think you might be burning (or burnt) out, talk to people in your support network, see your doctor if you need professional mental health support, and trust yourself to know when you need a break. It can also be helpful to know you're not alone in what you're experiencing: that pull between wanting to help your students and having nothing left to give. See the articles below for more information about teacher burn-out and book a time to talk to us for one-on-one support.

Comment below if you have tips for managing or recognising burn-out.

Teacher burn-out:

• Teacher burnout profiles and proactive strategies | European Journal of Psychology and Education

• Teacher burnout explained: Teacher-, student-, and organisation-level variables | Teaching and Teacher Education

• Teacher burnout and how to avoid it | Education Support

General burn-out information:

• Burnout on Ladies, We Need to Talk podcast | ABC Listen

• Job burnout: How to spot it and take action | Mayo Clinic

• Recovering from Work Stress, According to Science | Harvard Business Review