Covid-19: Assessing the Toll on our Education Professions

As a recruiter within education, I speak to Senior Leaders and teachers within education every day. My mum is also a teacher, which gives me real insight into the amount of hard work and pressure that goes with the job. I’ve always had a lot of admiration for the work that they do but since the pandemic, this has increased further. 

As with so many jobs since the pandemic, the pressure on teachers, headteachers and everyone working within schools has only increased. With the sudden need to carry out teaching remotely (but also keeping the school open for some students) and low staff numbers due to isolation, there have been so many extra things to think about, and this is just in their work life. A lot of people will have been impacted on a personal level too.

In a study carried out by Education Support, it was found that 50% of education professions believed that their mental health had declined. An article by the Guardian last year also highlighted how many teachers felt ‘exhausted, anxious and demoralised’. The National Foundation for Educational Research’s annual report on teachers in England also highlighted the impact of the pandemic on the teaching profession, showing that the first lockdown resulted in a decrease in the wellbeing of teachers.

There is a lot of content out there discussing the impact of COVID-19 and lockdowns on education professions, referenced here https://www.educationsupport.org.uk/, and I have no doubt that I don’t know the half of the stress, exhaustion and hardship that everyone has been through this year. One thing that has certainly been highlighted to me and the rest of my team in the recruitment sector is that teachers, senior leaders and all education professionals are truly selfless people and have put the students that they support first.

For example, I have been working with Interim Headteachers, Interim Deputy Head Teachers etc who throughout the pandemic have stayed in hotels at the other side of the country, away from their families and loved ones to support schools in need of an extra pair of hands, or even to cover for others who are off work with Covid-19. Staying away from home must be hard in ‘normal times’, but during a pandemic must be even harder.

This is by no means an academic paper or a formal piece of research but simply a way to highlight the impact of the pandemic on education professions and to say thank you for your dedication to your profession.