To understand the profound and potentially damaging impact of isolation on a teacher - and for the wellbeing of our teachers it’s crucial that we do - we first need to understand how a teacher usually works.

And to understand how a teacher usually works we must, regrettably, use a mechanistic analogy (of course, as a teacher you already think you know how you work, but much of it will be subconscious, so bear with me …).

Think of a teacher as a social processor. From the moment they walk into a school, they begin to crunch data. From that first hello to the caretaker, to the last goodbye to a colleague, there is a cacophony of speech, a constant din of chaotic utterances that must be sifted for relevance and danger. As that happens, contextual information must be inputted, too: that physical shift, that glance, the unsaid and the unseen, the historic, the nuance of a thousand past moments.

This all needs to happen quickly. Because if it doesn’t, learning doesn’t happen, incidents escalate, relationships flounder and a school stops functioning - education is fundamentally a social endeavour.

So teachers, even the introverted ones, tend to be social as a result. They enjoy being with people. And they are good at it. They spend the majority of their lives in this state of high-functioning sociability.

Now put that teacher in a situation where the noise of communication is reduced to the comparative silence of just their own household, a place where their finely tuned data processing machine is starved of data, and where the tools of socialisation are largely absent.

That’s not going to go well. You can’t pluck a person out of a hypersocial environment into a hyperisolated environment and expect no consequences.

But how bad could it be? And what can we do about it?

Perhaps you don’t buy the above. Perhaps you have welcomed the quiet of home working and the simpler world of remote communication. Well, you’d be in a minority. And if it hasn’t hit you yet, it’s likely it soon will.

“Depriving an individual [teacher] of face-to-face contact with colleagues and students removes what for many is the most rewarding part of the job,” explains Frank McAndrew, the Cornelia H Dudley professor of psychology at Knox College in Illinois, US.

That’s because teachers - in all parts of the world - are “inherently social in nature,” according to Lisa Kim, assistant professor in psychology in education at the University of York.

Of course, not every teacher will have the same level of sociability, but even those who consider themselves introverted, or who enjoy being alone, would be hard pressed to disagree with the idea that a big part of a teacher’s skill set is, essentially, an ability to get on with people.

“Teaching requires assertiveness and social interaction, for which gregariousness and sociability may be an advantage,” reads a research paper by Kim, who explains that social skills are second nature to most teachers.

Furthermore, of the “six personality types” identified by sociologist John Holland that are used to try to determine potential career routes, teachers are listed under the social bracket because they “like to do things to help people” and see value in helping people and solving problems.

Such broad personality frameworks never fit everyone, but it would be a strange teacher who entered the profession not expecting to have to spend a lot of time with other human beings.

“Most teachers are probably sociable people,” sums up McAndrew. “They enjoy interacting with others and depend upon social stimulation for satisfaction with everyday life.”

When schools were closed in mid March, most of a teacher’s everyday socialising time was taken from them - not just in their daily occupation but more broadly in their out-of-work existence, too. They were hit with the double loss of being denied a hypersocial working environment, where they had become highly skilled social readers, at the same time as their social life was being limited to digital formats.

This is partly why the argument that the current period is no different to a summer holiday break is a non-starter. Teachers typically seek out-of-work socialisation during those holidays to take the place of their in-school “hit”. In addition, teachers are currently still being expected to do their job - managing relationships with students, with parents and with colleagues - without almost all of the subconscious data they depended upon that arose from physical social interaction. In the summer holidays, there is no such expectation.

So, how are they coping? “I would say that I have introvert tendencies,” admits primary headteacher Ruth Luzmore. “I am usually very happy to be at home alone. However, even I am missing interacting in person with the pupils.”

Susan Ward, a primary depute head in the Scottish Borders, is also struggling: “We are missing the conversations at the school gate and in the staffroom, the myriad tiny connections we make with people throughout our normal working days.”

And Karen Knight, a secondary history teacher at Malet Lambert in Hull, feels a real sense of loss.

“The main thing I’ve missed is the daily interaction with so many different people,” she says. “The humour of the pupils who laugh at my terrible jokes and their curiosity in the subject I teach, the camaraderie of my colleagues, who support each other through thick and thin, the buzz of a lively school community in full swing. It’s at challenging times like this when you realise that teaching is all about the relationships.”

How far was this impact acknowledged in those first few weeks of lockdown? Likely not enough: the research suggests a period of adaptation would have been required for every teacher.

Sarita Robinson, from the school of psychology at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) and an expert in isolation, says the shock caused by the events of March will have taken teachers a while to adjust to.

“It was [always] going to be a bigger adjustment for people who were very used to working in social settings, those who were used to having interactions daily with people - we were asking them to completely change their life, completely change their routine, and that is really difficult,” she explains. “We know that changes in routines, schedules, and social interactions - they can take a period of time for people to adapt.”

This isn’t about teachers lacking grit to make do and carry on, she stresses: it is simply a matter of a teacher’s routines and habits - things all humans rely on - being swept away in an instant.

“This isn’t that they are showing a lack of resilience or not able to cope,” she reiterates. “But their brains need time to readjust to process and think about what is happening.”

How long would that period of adaptation last? It will be different for each teacher, but those that would have found it hardest might surprise you.

McAndrew suggests it could be the case that the teachers who didn’t realise how much they enjoyed or needed the social structures around them will have struggled - and will continue to struggle - the most, rather than those who knew they would miss it and so were more emotionally prepared.

“It may very well be that the ones who are actually more sociable than they thought will suffer the most; it may take them longer to figure out what the problem is, and they probably did not prepare strategies in advance to help themselves cope,” he says.

Another factor in how well a teacher may cope will be how far the school has switched to digital forms of communication beyond email. At the outset of the lockdown, some schools jumped into online platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams that enabled video conferencing with colleagues and pupils alike, while others maintained an email approach for staff and printed booklet approach for pupils. As the lockdown progressed, fears over the security of some of those video apps and tech issues curtailed some video conferencing use, while those schools who had not embraced it at all realised limited use might be needed.

Those teachers in schools that did switch to video conferencing initially may have fared better in adjusting, according to Iram Siraj, professor of child development and education in the department of education at the University of Oxford.

“I don’t think [those] teachers will feel too much isolation because online is such a vehicle for interacting that everyone is used to,” she says.

Samantha Tassiker, a secondary year teacher in Scotland, certainly found that digital platforms made for a useful substitute for physical interaction with colleagues.

“Because of video calls, the adult interaction is working well,” she says. “Department meetings and pedagogical chats can happen as they would’ve in a meeting room - and there’s always WhatsApp for letting off steam.”

Luzmore also touts how technology has helped meaningful colleague interactions to continue during lockdown.

“Our teaching team have always had a casual WhatsApp group - it was set up to ensure we knew who was providing breakfast at our Friday meetings, but this has definitely become more lively as we share ideas. This is a daily source of support to one another.”

No man is an island

That feeling of collegiality is crucial to adapting to the less social context. Julianne Holt-Lunstad, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University, says interactions like this are essential: “Research demonstrates that the perception of availability of support and knowing you can count on others can help even if no support is received.”

If you relied, and continue to rely, only on email rather than more social digital platforms that have video capacity, then support - and interactions - could be less felt and less effective, or could even make things worse. In April, the Association of School and College Leaders warned that, in emails, teachers lack the “non-verbal cues” that pupils are accustomed to and, therefore, staff should be careful about the “volume and tone”.

The union’s guidance to headteachers on leading learning during school closures states: “What a teacher intends to be a well-meant motivational email expressing their concern about a pupil’s missing work submission might be viewed by the receiver as unsympathetic.”

When it comes to pupil interactions, those teachers more connected via video and more social online tools say they have also better managed the shift away from physical classrooms.

Informal chats alongside work topics have been a big boost for Blair Minchin, a primary teacher in Scotland: “We started doing 20-minute maths meetings just to revise any concepts that pupils were struggling with, but other times we chatted about what we are going to do during the Easter holidays for 20 minutes or so.”

Andy Leask, an English teacher at St George’s School for Girls in Edinburgh, says he, too, is trying to maintain a social element to his teaching where possible.

“I’m trying hard to ensure there’s a chance for a little bit of fun or banter in the virtual classroom, just as there would be in the real world,” he says.

And a third and final area that would impact a teacher’s ability to adapt will have been their perception of how in control they were of their responsibilities to fulfil their roles to pupils, particularly pastoral responsibilities, without physically seeing those pupils every day.

“With teachers you’ve got a double hit, because not only have they lost their social connections, but also that pastoral role with pupils,” says Robinson. “That inability to be able to sort things out for people is frustrating … teachers want to problem solve, want to help children if they have additional needs - to have that suddenly taken away from you is anxiety inducing as you have lost control.”

If schools did not put ways of managing this anxiety in place then teachers will have suffered, says McAndrew. “Because it was imposed by outside forces beyond our control, it makes us feel helpless and not in control and in charge - the way a teacher would like to feel in his or her usual classroom.”

So, what could have been done - and still can be done - to support teachers in this transition? And will further adaptation be required when teachers go back to school?

On the first point, school leaders clearly need to be mindful that teachers - and they themselves - may need extra support. Those teachers who have had access to social - as well as formal - colleague communication tools seem to have benefited, and those benefits appear greater where video conferencing elements have been included: being able to see and interpret all those non-verbal clues is crucial.

Facilitating mentor relationships, or a buddy system, whereby staff check in with someone simply to chat, not to monitor progress or look at other work-related issues, has also been appreciated by many teachers.

With pupils it is trickier. Video one-to-ones should never be used, for safeguarding reasons, and live lectures need to be very carefully handled. However, retired headteacher Timothy Hawkes - who delivered education remotely to children in the Australian outback - says that what his experience and the experience of those like Minchin above show is that teachers should be enabled to prioritise the relationships aspects of education.

“The social element of education can still exist when delivering distance education,” he explains. “However, it’ll only happen if teachers major on relationships and not just on content. Schools characteristically scramble to deliver content. However, in this scramble to serve our students academically, we’re in danger of forgetting them socially. It’s not so much content that’s required at such times, it’s connection, companionship and conversation.

“Making the class feel special can be done by little things such as knowing the preferred name of each student and by giving them a class identity, saying things like, ‘Hey to all you mavericks out there. Great to see you again’ or, ‘And happy birthday to Jamie. Have a great day, JD’.

“Occasionally, break the large class into small groups. Ensure the groups are made up of a mix of personality types and change the groups from time to time. These smaller groups can foster closer friendships than a whole-class session would.

“And fun activities should be included in online sessions with students such as formal Mondays (ties) and T-shirt Fridays, collegial singing online, cupcake and limerick competitions, photos of strange places to find a school hat, and so on.”

And Luzmore emphasises that the little things really do matter: “Teachers are extremely positive about the interactions they get to have through Google Classroom and email - even just a ‘hello’ is a positive. We really enjoy, too, watching the video clips they send us and the photos and emails of their work and daily lives.”

In both colleague and pupil interactions, Robinson says the research around isolation - looking at humans who spend time in extreme examples of isolation or low social contact, such as astronauts, Antarctic researchers and round-the-world sailors - suggests structure is key, too.

Routine thinking

What should that look like in an education context? A paper by Meg Maguire, a professor at King’s College London (KCL), detailed research into the experience of retired teachers. It found that, for many teachers, the school year timetable became so ingrained in them over the years that it became an embodied sense of who they are as people.

“School teaching is a highly structured and regulated occupation that is unlike many other jobs,” the paper, “End of term”: teacher identities in a post-work context, states. “The annual cycle from September to July, the daily routines and breaks, the half terms and annual holidays, define when things are done and produce a pattern that shapes the work experience. This structure becomes internalised and normalised. It has its own disciplinary effect.”

So trying to keep a sense of the school day and trying to do “normal” school things, be it in a different, remote context, is likely to be key.

While none of this can replicate the school environment - and adaptation will still be necessary - it can at least soften that process and make it easier for teachers.

What about when teachers eventually go back? There is a risk, say the researchers, of return-to-work anxiety. Teachers may fear their social skills will have waned and their teaching will suffer as a result. They may also worry that the first months will be mainly managing the huge difficulty in adjusting everyone back into a school routine.

Alex Manning, a lecturer in science education at KCL and former science teacher in two London schools for six years, suggests schools allocate extensive time for staff to reconnect with each other and prepare for the shift back into physical teaching. That might mean extra Inset days or reclaiming a week or two to help teachers reform relationships and share their worries. Ongoing support when students return will be needed, too.

Underpinning all of the above, of course, is the need to simply acknowledge that we are living in unusual times and that it is OK not to be OK about it. Teachers will be finding the shift to new ways of working markedly harder than other professions: where work is social for many professions, in teaching the social is work. They should not worry if they are finding things hard as a result, says Robinson, but we need to make sure the support for them is there now and remains there in the future.

“It’s so important teachers are kind to themselves,” she says. “This is a highly unusual situation, and they shouldn’t feel guilty about not being able to solve all the issues. It’s going to be a case of everyone doing the best and we pick up the pieces afterwards.”

Dan Worth is senior editor at Tes. He tweets @DanWorth

Next week: how has the lockdown affected our students?

This article originally appeared in the 1 May 2020 issue under the headline “The impact of isolation: part 1 - how it affects teachers”