On my walk this morning, just at the outset of the summer holidays in Scotland, I was thinking about what has actually changed in teaching since the pandemic. These thoughts were perhaps prompted by my dress; I chose a dress that I last wore for one of the YouTube videos I made to support home learning a year ago.

I remember how the school year ended on a remote “high”, and how happy and fulfilled I felt following the successes of online learning and teaching, and all the IT skills I had developed and mastered. I also recall the joy from the level of pupil engagement and the fantastic work submitted online, which could be marked and returned in line with a time management and working-day pattern that suited me.

This was a real plus, as my menopause symptoms continued to include lack of confidence, fatigue and restless nights. 

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Now, sadly, a year on, I do not have the same feeling of professional achievement, and I feel not only that my new skills have regressed but I feel exhausted and depleted from a very challenging year in schools and education.

From the start of term in August, when the reality of returning to the classroom and pupil indiscipline set in, I developed increasing nervousness in front of large classes and worsening menopause symptoms that I couldn’t easily manage in the school environment. In addition to this, Covid health and safety became the ubiquitous priority, with restrictions leading to workplace isolation, which further eroded my fragile self-esteem.

In January, following a consensus from occupational health and my GP, I was diagnosed with severe workplace anxiety and I quit my post as a modern languages teacher.

Now, following counselling and support, I am gradually getting my confidence back, but I will never return to full-time teaching in a school. I currently work part-time teaching complex needs in Midlothian, and although I am delighted to have this privilege, I am not the person I was a year ago and I am a long way from the IT sage and funny online tutor I’d become during lockdown.

I find it interesting how lockdown brought to the fore the necessity for more flexible of ways of working in schools and education, particularly for menopausal women. The “by the bell” paradigm for more mature female teachers was long in need of review but it was never open for discussion. And not even the pandemic has managed to change things.

I have been frustrated, and actually hurt, for some time now by the fact that I am going through a perfectly natural ageing process yet my profession does not really support me in any practical way.

The menopause is undoubtedly the most complex and difficult part of my life thus far. The perimenopause phase, which probably started in my mid to late forties, was physically very tough, with heavy periods, breast pain, fatigue and bloating. However, the actual menopause, which is my current state of being, is mentally gruelling. I am still trying to understand it and settle with a new sense of self. 

My menopause symptoms include insomnia, chronic anxiety, fear and feelings of changing identity. I am going through all this yet I am still expected to function as usual in a static workplace environment, with little or no exploration of how my profession can propose ways of working flexibly to support me though this.

Surely this can’t be right? I find it incomprehensible. I am highly skilled and highly qualified with an excellent teaching record of 20 years - for what? To be silenced and left to suffer unrecognised? What kind of example is this for modern society where all manner of rights have a voice and have adjustments made for them?

It is even more incomprehensible and insulting in education, as not only should we be modelling inclusion but we should be teaching towards an appreciation of girls and women at all stages of their lives and careers.

If I were to make some suggestions to shape a new way of working for menopausal teaching professionals, they would include opportunities to deliver lessons from home; longer breaks to ensure adequate time for personal hygiene; a confidential, trained point of contact to help with anxieties; and the option for secondments away from the school and the classroom. 

It is now two years since I first started talking about my menopause - which incidentally also brings many benefits in terms of wisdom, creativity, new direction and, ultimately, personal growth - but even with the light shed on new ways of working by the pandemic, it feels like there is still no light at the end of the tunnel for mature and experienced female teachers who have so much to offer, yet continue to be afforded so little flexibility by schools.

Judy Murphy is a modern languages and additional support needs teacher based in Scotland