Why I’ve quit teaching

For the past four years I have worked at an academy in Hackney. I was deputy head of maths for three of those years, and head of maths for the final term, managing 16 staff. After nearly a decade teaching in the state sector, I’d finally worked my way up to a well paid and respected position. But this summer I walked away from it.

I’m not alone. The profession is haemorrhaging talent: data from the National Education Union published earlier this year revealed that 44 per cent of teachers intend to leave the profession by 2027. Retention in London schools is particularly poor.

The reasons why teachers quit are complex, but there are a few common themes. One is exhaustion. When I told a friend that, during the peak of term, I was working 12-hour days, and that a standard day is about ten hours, they responded: ‘Isn’t that pretty normal for most jobs?’ Well, no, for these ten or 12 hours contain barely a single moment to yourself. There’s no hour-long lunch break. No popping out for a coffee or cigarette. It’s non-stop and frantic. Things are constantly going wrong, whether it’s dealing with a fight on the staircase when you thought you finally had time to go to the loo or manically running round to find a photocopier that isn’t jammed three minutes before your class arrives. And you are pestered. Constantly. Children are needy. Staff can be even worse.

The exhaustion is cumulative. I am an energetic teacher. Yet a few weeks into term, my feet would get sore. I’d get skinny, dehydrated, with itchy hands from irritating board pen ink, bruised thighs from knocking into desks, bad skin, a hoarse throat, a sore jaw, and colds that I couldn’t shift. Even Sundays were filled with lesson planning and marking. Half-terms were for sleeping and life admin. Then it would start all over again.

The second big issue is the pupils themselves. I would be lying if I said that they aren’t the reason I left, but it’s also true that they were the reason I stayed for as long as I did. During my first term at the Hackney school, I had to earn the respect of my pupils. Behaviour was challenging and there were days when I thought I had made a terrible mistake by taking up a position there. In time, many of the naughty children became favourites, and I knew I could get through to pupils whom others couldn’t. It takes a lot of patience to develop strong relationships. A good teacher is relentless in maintaining high standards. This, too, is exhausting.

Another strain of the profession is the class sizes. In my first school as a newly qualified teacher I taught a mixed-ability year 7 class of 32 children. There weren’t even enough desks. At the same school, a friend currently teaches a GCSE history class of 33. Many children have learning difficulties but rarely a teaching assistant. To deliver consistently engaging and dynamic lessons, and to provide for such an enormous range of personalities and learning styles, is unsustainable.

Financial mismanagement and cuts have left many state schools with one option: to over-enrol. Each secondary school pupil is worth around £6,000 in funding, so over-enrolment provides a much-needed boost to a school’s coffers. The cost, however, is an unreasonable level of responsibility for teachers. There are days when you feel you are being driven mad, packed into the classroom like sardines. Things go wrong and when they do there are no obvious solutions.

If you have a particularly naughty class, you might be advised by senior staff to kick the worst behaved children out. But what if that’s the majority of the class? Do you perpetuate the culture of pupils missing hours of lessons all in the name of maintaining high behavioural standards? Or do you persevere, let them off and keep them in the classroom, because they’re better off in a learning environment than in the ‘reflection room’ (again)? There are no easy answers.

Then there’s all the follow-up admin: detention paperwork, duties, restorative meetings. The next step is to get their parents in. It’s never-ending. Parental engagement has suffered greatly due to Covid. Good schools will strive to improve this, while the problem will deteriorate in less good ones.

Though, to be candid, I won’t miss having to deal with the parents. Every so often you get some who couldn’t care less about their child misbehaving. They’re rude and entitled, and it makes perfect sense that their child is the way they are. But the worst parents are the ones who act as if they have done you a huge favour by sending their lovely, bright child to the school, and cannot comprehend the notion that their darling offspring has either misbehaved or under-achieved.

Another big issue for me as a head of department was dealing with a significant minority of incompetent, lazy staff. There is a noticeable trend, post-Covid, of long-term absenteeism. A proportion of the profession seems to be suffering from terrible anxiety, or they claim they have tested positive and are too ill even to provide cover work. Some have taken months off, meaning their classes have been merged into other classes in order to prevent the kids missing out on huge chunks of education with cover staff. Again, this further balloons class sizes.

To compound matters, there is a new generation of ECTs (early career teachers) who have spent barely any time in the classroom. They are two years behind where they need to be as they haven’t been able to make mistakes in a supportive environment. They are often lacking in a strong work ethic: when I started teaching, I was still in school at 8 p.m but friends of mine have told me that their ECTs waltz out of the building at 3.45 p.m.

Recruitment is also in trouble. It is not uncommon for school leaders to send every candidate home without an interview because their lessons were so bad. Interview lessons often lack creativity and vigour. And these were the ones given a chance. Many are blocked before this stage because their applications are so dire. Indeed, I was constantly amazed at the shocking standard of applications we received from teachers unable to write cover letters properly or adequately complete application forms.

Fundamentally, it is hard to teach maths well when a school places high demands on its teachers to prepare for a dreaded Ofsted inspection. The focus on delivering specific lesson structures, on the quality of work in exercise books, on training and data and targets, prevents teachers from being experimental and innovative. If the motivation behind raising the quality of teaching in a school is based solely on being graded as ‘good with outstanding features’, or of pupils attaining ‘higher than expected levels of progress’, then the joy of learning is undermined.

This year I took a step back and realised that I might get to 38 and be on a great wage in an intense managerial role, but with no partner and no children. I learned that the demands of such a role are hard to meet if you care about family. During the winter terms I would prioritise my job over everything. It cost me my relationship, and time being with my mum while she was undergoing chemotherapy. No job is worth that.

The saddest part of all is that teaching should be about one thing: engaging and exciting children with your subject. When I left, my pupils clubbed together to get me a box of Ferrero Rocher and a card that dozens of them signed. One wrote: ‘Thanks to you maths has become my favourite subject. You’ve taught me to constantly put my best efforts forward and advance in maths.’ It was from a child who I thought detested my lessons and couldn’t be bothered.

In every school, the impact that teachers have on the lives of their pupils is immeasurable. The ongoing exchange of ideas between staff members affects the children’s lives in ways that should never be underestimated. There were days when I thrived on the fast-paced nature of the job, when every lesson gave me a buzz, when I laughed so hard I cried. That’s why I’d be lying if I said I won’t miss it.