As a challenging year comes to a close, teachers across the country are looking forward to one of the most well-earned breaks in living memory. The challenges of 2019-20 and 2020-21 have been well documented, and we are all hopeful that 2021-22 will give something like normality with restrictions relaxed, as more and more people become vaccinated.

However, although we can’t always be certain what the future holds in a Covid world, there does appear to be at least one challenge that may remain. With bubbles, self-isolation, moves to remote learning, last-minute changes to delivery models and even the adverse effects of the vaccine, teachers’ workload over the past 18 months has been more difficult to manage than ever before. More often than not, the consequence of this has been the impact on student, practitioner and leader wellbeing and mental health.

Thankfully, in the vast majority of cases, this has been recognised by all concerned, with strategies put in place throughout schools and colleges for staff and students. In some cases, parents and carers have even been given resources to help them deal with the impact of Covid, self-isolation and lockdown. However, with catch-up and intervention scheduled throughout 2021-22 and uncertainty around end-of-year assessment and the related schedules, timelines and deadlines, many are already discussing the possibility of teacher burnout.

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With British teachers working more unpaid overtime than any other profession, clearly a new approach to support mental health and wellbeing is needed. The Department for Education and the government have attempted to do this in the past, with a range of resources and blogs on reducing school workload. However, these resources are primarily aimed at schools and there no post-16 equivalent, with even less evidence to show the impact of these resources.

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This isn’t to say that the problem isn’t being addressed: schools and colleges are acutely aware of the need to support staff mental health and wellbeing, with those demonstrating best practice already implementing wellbeing days with a host of activities to support staff. But what if schools and colleges were able to extend this? To make wellbeing not just a core part of the teaching curriculum, but a key component to continual professional development in quality and in frequency? What if we were able to give staff as much to care for their wellbeing as we do for training and continual professional development?

Just as with teaching, training and continual professional development, flexibility and the tailoring of resources to the individual is key. However, just as with teaching, training and CPD, resources are not as plentiful as we would like - or need. With recent announcements about funding for student catch-up, and additional funding still desperately required after an 18-month spell in which nearly half of all colleges and sixth forms in England required some form of bailout (to the tune of £700 million), 2021-22 represents the perfect opportunity to invest and ringfence funding for wellbeing in post-16.

By funding dedicated time in all schools and colleges for wellbeing activity, even an hour a week could have a substantial impact. We know that one of the main reasons why teachers leave the profession is stress and the associated impact on wellbeing (in individual schools and colleges, and nationally), but if we can put solutions in place, we will be able to mitigate against this - and this is what the additional funding would support.

By using the expertise of practitioners and leaders currently within education, we can train and support more mental health first aiders, more counsellors, more mentors and coaches, as well as identifying the needs of each school or college to support wellbeing.

And this is the frustrating part: schools and colleges have the talent to combat the problems of stress and anxiety and the impact on wellbeing as a result of workload and Covid, they just don’t have the time or the resource to fully utilise it. Even without the expertise of our teachers and leaders, additional funding could help schools and colleges to make use of the outstanding digital solutions currently in use (such as the mental health app Fika).

Regardless, with the additional workload seen as part of the 2020 and 2021 assessment processes (and the related stress and anxiety for students, parents, practitioners, leaders and everyone associated with the process), 2021-22 is likely to be a massive year for teaching and teachers.

Jonny Kay is the head of teaching and learning at a college in the North East. He tweets at @jonnykayteacher