When I played Beyoncé in the village pantomime last year, the biggest challenge was not the learning of tight dance routines, nor the fishnet tights, nor the short shorts, nor the singing of “Put a ring on it”.

The hardest thing - as a significant proportion of the readership here will already know - was the relentless physical commitment needed to live in high-heeled shoes for three hours each evening. 

The other five variously bald, bearded and burly Beyoncés all readily concurred with me on this in the pub afterwards - our nodding of heads probably being the only time we were ever remotely synchronised. 

So, while still largely ignorant on the nuanced world of heeled shoes, I can now to some extent empathise with the many returning colleagues this term who have been blaming their heels (even those with the gentlest of gradients) for almost unprecedented levels of strain and pain.

A holiday for feet

For many, the start of term has meant putting on formal shoes for the first sustained period since the March lockdown. We were not on holiday during those lockdown months, but our feet generally were.

We may have kept fit in other ways, but nothing in the Joe Wicks and jogging routines at home could begin to compare with standing and delivering in a classroom. This was always going to be a uniquely demanding term; the resumption of life in formal footwear has made it even more so. 

Just before lockdown, I bought a smart new shiny pair of leather-uppers, which then rested unused in their box until this term. Breaking them in at school has been a merciless, brutal initiation. My feet suddenly feel manacled, after months of barefooted freedom. They have both had a taste of the good life these past few months - and, after more than a week now, they are still screaming to be set free again. 

One normally unflappable teacher tells me that he lay down flat in his team-room at the end of last week, unfastened his shoes and wildly kicked them off in weary exasperation, with colleagues ducking. 

It had struck him that his overall sense of overheated exhaustion was not entirely a result of his spraying every desk before each class entered, nor his constantly reminding children about wearing masks in corridors, nor the collecting of his classes from the new outdoor muster point before then starting his lessons. It was because of his feet being shackled again in his stiff old pair of Oxfords. 

Kicking off the habit of a lifetime

The problem has been exacerbated by there being no summer weddings, birthday parties or clubs for us to keep our feet familiar with the idea of captivity, nowhere for us to stay resilient down there and keep the relevant muscles in trim. 

Obviously not all colleagues are feeling sore. Some have always dismissed the need for smart shoes and yet somehow manage to look far cooler and more professional than we do, however casual their footwear. 

The problem is that, whenever the rest of us try to emulate them, and maybe turn up to school in trainers or in some kind of canvas, it just looks as if something has gone badly wrong at home. “You OK?” colleagues ask, concerned that we are perhaps now sleeping overnight in the school bikesheds. 

Alternatively, we think of the mild derision we sometimes get from our pupils when we try dressing down on non-uniform days. (“Nice Hi-Tec trainers, Sir. Very retro.”) 

Yes, there are much weightier matters out there at the moment. But that’s the whole point. Maybe this is the perfect time for those of us suffering needlessly in formal shoes to reflect on what really matters in life - and in teaching - and on what really doesn’t matter. 

Let’s now kick them off and kick the habit of a lifetime. To hell with dress codes and what people might think of us. In this highly discomforting, life-readjusting time, let’s at least feel free to be as comfortable as possible.

In other occupations, people are now increasingly choosing to work where they like. We obviously can’t do that, but we should at least feel free to wear what we like. On our feet, at the very least.  

Stephen Petty is head of humanities at Lord Williams’s School in Thame, Oxfordshire