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Tag: Burnout in Education

A quiet moment of stillness, representing rest and recovery from burnout

Is ‘changing lives’ contributing to your teacher burnout?

Written by Hannah Young on . Posted in Mindset and Patterns, Overwhelm and Burnout. No Comments on Is ‘changing lives’ contributing to your teacher burnout?

In the run up to the return to school, I saw so many posts reminding people working in schools that they were returning to kids who would be so excited to see them; who would have been thinking about them the whole summer. As someone who spent a decade in a school where we had plenty of those kids for whom school was a sanctuary, I can relate to seeing something like this and it motivating me – and I know that’s the intention behind the post.

And this kind of ‘changing lives’ language is so common in education. It’s common, because it’s true.

The hidden cost of “changing lives”

But let’s just pause for a moment and look at it without the emotional attachment we inevitably build as empathic women working inside or outside the classroom. Because you care, of course you care – deeply. But I do wonder whether being reminded of your impact on the kids you work with feeds into that sense you have of giving your ‘all’ to the job. And it may just be part of the reason you’re living on the edge of burnout and wondering whether you’ll make it through the year.

It’s what stops you from calling in sick even though you can hardly get out of bed – because you know that boy who’s new to Year 7 won’t settle without you. It’s the reason you’re checking CPOMS on a Saturday night because you’re second-guessing the conversation you logged on Friday afternoon. And it’s what’s making you zone-out of a chat with your best friend because you just can’t possibly take on any more emotional load.

Yes, you’re changing lives – but here’s the caveat

So yes, you really are ‘changing lives’ out there. You know it. But, let’s caveat that…

This is not your responsibility. It’s not in your job description to have all the kids you teach, support or safeguard rely solely on you. It’s a collective effort of the whole school community.

What your responsibility actually is

What IS your responsibility? To be the calm, measured, knowledgeable adult in the room – and that means taking care of yourself in order to be the best that you can, whatever your role.

Having a life and experiencing joy outside of the job
Caring for a nervous system that bounces back after stress
And knowing how to accept, ‘That’ll do,’ and switching off to protect your time.

So consider this your permission. Permission to go to work, do your job, and come home with the general sense that you didn’t really change anyone’s life today (though we know you really did – even on your worst days).

And if you’re running on empty, my wellbeing coaching for teachers and pastoral staff can help. Book a chat to find out more.

Burnout in women in education

Burnout in Education – The Cost of Competence

Written by Hannah Young on . Posted in Overwhelm and Burnout. No Comments on Burnout in Education – The Cost of Competence

Have you ever been tasked with some extra responsibility or project at work, and had a sneaking suspicion that it’s been landed on you because of your competence? Not because it falls under your remit; not because you’ve been twiddling your thumbs with nothing else to do; it could even be way above your pay grade.

This is something that seems to happen a lot in education. The brilliant teacher ends up with the trickiest classes year after year. The standout year manager gets assigned the year group with the most safeguarding needs. The TA who puts in her all gets the biggest caseload.

At first, it might read as flattery. It might even be packaged like that: “Oh you were just so good last year with taking on 9B – they made incredible progress…so this year, we wanted to give you 7C!”

But once the thought creeps in – that this might be the cost of competence – you can’t unsee it. Add to this any people-pleasing tendencies you have, or leaky boundaries, and you’ve got yourself a pretty fast-track to burnout. Because often it’s not only the burden of the extra work or responsibility – but it’s the fact you’ve been singled out: those at ‘the top’ have recognised your work. They’ve put you on a pedestal and you don’t want to let them down. That pressure – to hold yourself to an identity that somebody else created for you – is exhausting.

So what can be done?

Getting to the root of your need to protect that image of yourself over protecting your own boundaries needs to go hand-in-hand with practical tools that can be put into place straight away. You see, capacity needs to be created in order for you to have the headspace and energy to do the deeper work that will make lasting changes in the long run. It might be creating a pause when someone asks you (*tells you) to do something. So the immediate, smiley ‘Yes, sure!’ becomes, ‘Let me just check my other commitments and I’ll get back to you.’ It could be literally rehearsing a response you’ve going to give.

Once some capacity is created, the deeper work can really gain momentum. What’s underlying your need to have everyone think good of you? When did your people-pleasing begin? And what are your leaky boundaries costing you?

It’s time we were allowed to show up as incredibly capable women – without being punished for it.

Feeling Overwhelmed in Education? Learning to Listen to Your Nervous System

Written by Hannah Young on . Posted in Overwhelm and Burnout. No Comments on Feeling Overwhelmed in Education? Learning to Listen to Your Nervous System

How did it take me until my late 30s to really understand what my nervous system was trying to tell me in any given moment?

In the final couple of years of my role as an Attendance Officer in a busy, challenging inner-city school, I would tell my boss I was having a moment whenever I was feeling “fizzy”. This wasn’t a code word; I literally felt fizzy. My body would be sparking, my ears ringing, and my heart – not racing exactly – but certainly getting a bit of a gallop on.

This would often happen after a particularly busy, unpredictable morning. Perhaps there had been a safeguarding issue, a difficult parent conversation, a child in crisis, or maybe a student had told me to F*** off just to round things off nicely. Over time, I learned to recognise that feeling and, importantly, what it meant. I knew my nervous system was overloaded and that if I could take ten minutes in a quiet space, I stood a much better chance of getting through the rest of the day.

The thing is, this awareness didn’t arrive overnight. I’d spent the best part of eight years working in that same school without really being able to tune into what my body was telling me in real time. Instead, I would push through, keep going, and then wonder why I found myself asleep on the sofa at seven o’clock in the evening after inhaling a party pack of onion rings and a couple of iced buns.

Looking back, I can see that my response to stress was both delayed and unhelpful. At the time, though, I think I simply assumed that this was what working in education felt like. I thought it was normal to spend most of the term running on adrenaline and then limp my way towards the next school holiday hoping it would somehow be enough to recharge me.

It’s a pattern I now see in so many of the women I work with. They are often highly capable, deeply caring professionals who have become so used to carrying responsibility that they no longer notice the signs that their nervous system has been struggling for months, or even years. They tell themselves they’re tired because work is busy, overwhelmed because life is demanding, emotional because they’re not coping very well. What they don’t realise is that their bodies have been trying to get their attention all along.

When I eventually moved into a pastoral role, the work was still incredibly stressful, but I had a little more freedom to step away when I needed to. I could leave the office, find a quiet space and actually listen to what was happening internally rather than automatically overriding it. It was probably the first time I began to understand that stress wasn’t just something happening in my head. My body was involved in the conversation too.

That understanding has become one of the foundations of the coaching work I do today with overwhelmed and burnt-out women, particularly those working in education. Before we start talking about goals, confidence, boundaries or life changes, we spend time understanding the nervous system. We explore what overwhelm feels like in their body, how stress responses have shaped their behaviour over time, and why they may find themselves stuck in patterns that no longer serve them.

Because when you begin to understand your nervous system, so much starts to make sense. The exhaustion. The irritability. The emotional eating. The inability to switch off. The feeling that you’re constantly behind, even when you’re doing more than enough. What often looks like laziness, failure or a lack of resilience is, in reality, a nervous system that has been carrying too much for too long.

I’ve found that real change becomes possible when we stop judging those responses and start understanding them instead. Once we can recognise what our bodies have been trying to tell us, we can respond differently. We can begin to meet our needs earlier, create healthier boundaries, and move away from simply surviving each week.

For many women experiencing burnout in education, that shift is where recovery begins. Not by trying harder, becoming more productive or finding a better planner, but by learning how to listen.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, exhausted or stuck in survival mode, coaching can help you understand what’s really going on beneath the surface and reconnect with the version of yourself that feels calm, clear and capable. I offer life coaching for women in education both online and in Leeds, supporting clients to recover from burnout, rebuild trust in themselves and create a life that feels sustainable again.