Blogs

I’m a recovering teacher

Staff wellbeing
The toll that life as a teacher can take on us is well evidenced and we all know the figures about retention and drop-out rates, especially among young teachers. Claire Stewart-Hall is one of many who walked away from the profession she loved

I met a friend with whom I trained to be an English teacher the other day. We started our PGCE 17 years ago. She saw me on the street with my new baby and hugged me.

“I heard you’d got out,” she said. “When they told me I was so pleased for you. The great news is that I’m out too. I feel as though I’ve been in some kind of cult. I tell people: I’m a recovering teacher.”

This made me laugh aloud, but being a new parent, now on the outside of schools, it feels quite like this.

As a vice-principal and later as a head in busy, needy city secondary schools, I felt so empowered and charged with energy about education and how to help students achieve.

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