It is no secret that early-career teachers are leaving the profession at a depressing rate: 20 per cent quit by the end of their second year; 33 per cent by the end of their fifth year.
Workload is often cited as one of the biggest push factors.
And staff can make it worse for each other, with that odd competitive bragging about who has given up the largest part of their weekend for marking or planning.
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No wonder, then, that our profession is increasingly plagued by poor mental health and rising attrition.
It is our role, as more experienced members of staff, to model healthy practices; showing newcomers how to work smart, rather than running themselves into the ground. That way, we allow them to focus on the passion and vocation that has led them to teaching in the first place.
But how? Heads of department and mentors can be instrumental in creating sustainable cultures for their trainees.
Teacher workload: time management
Spend time sharing and modelling time-management strategies. This could be blocking out routine planning and marking slots within the trainee’s timetable or mapping marking out over a half term so that it doesn’t all build up.
Setting limits for tasks can provide evaluative opportunities when these limits aren’t met - what exactly is taking so long? What strategies can you share to speed things up? What patterns of procrastination or distraction need to be addressed?
Communicate clearly
Keep communication open so trainees can approach you without feeling as if they have failed. When they are struggling, analyse why. Ask them to show you their processes and the resources that they are using.
Co-plan and co-mark together so that you can better understand what is happening. If it simply comes down to a question of experience, remember that many trainees are perfectionists, and need someone that they admire and trust to remind them that sometimes “done” is good enough.
Push back against presenteeism
Discourage presenteeism by leaving loudly, and explicitly communicating your expectation that your mentee do the same. A simple, Pavlovian trick is to set 4.30pm alarms on both of your phones. When the alarm rings, log off, pack up and get out!
Even staffroom chat about weekend and evening plans can help to break the conspiracy of teaching being an all-consuming profession, and challenge the voices that demand that trainees work themselves into the ground.
The most powerful way that we can instil these sustainable working practices into trainees’ professional lifestyles is potentially the most challenging of all: we need to model them ourselves.
Emma Sheppard is founder of The MaternityTeacher/PaternityTeacher (MTPT) Project and a lead practitioner for English
