Hungry, unwashed kids, challenging behaviour & working until 10pm – why female teachers are quitting the classroom

Walking out of the classroom after quitting her teaching job, Lorna Saunders felt an overwhelming mix of emotions.

“A weight had lifted from me, but there was also sadness,” she says.

“Teaching used to be all I wanted to do. But that had been taken away from me by the circumstances in which I’d been expected to work. I just couldn’t go on any longer.”

After an 18-year career, Lorna, 44, made the decision to walk away from the profession in July 2019, after her mental health had plunged to such a low point that she’d weep on her way to work at the thought of another day in the classroom.

“Since childhood, I’d wanted to be a teacher, and after studying for four years at university for my teaching degree, and qualifying in 2001, I couldn’t wait to get started,” says Lorna, who lives in Grimsby with her husband Stuart, 40, and their two daughters, aged 13 and 10.

“But over the course of my career, the teaching landscape changed drastically.”

The impact of austerity and chronic staffing issues means that services ranging from speech and language therapy, social services and Special Educational Needs (SEN) assessment and support are so overstretched that teachers say it’s falling to them to manage serious issues like child poverty, mental health and developmental delays, alongside their jobs.

The result? An unsustainable level of stress and burnout.

Last year, the Teacher Wellbeing Index, a survey commissioned by the Education Support charity, found that 72% of teachers reported being stressed and overworked.

Lorna isn’t unique in walking away from the job she once loved.

Strikes this year by school staff in England, Wales and Scotland may have been called off after the respective governments agreed to pay rises, but an exodus is still happening.

Data from the Department for Education (DfE) has shown that roughly 6,000 female teachers a year quit their jobs between the ages of 30 and 39 – which is when the majority of women in the UK have children.

Plus, women are more likely than men to be carers, according to the Office for National Statistics, with female teachers among them.

According to figures released by the DfE, 8% of teachers quit in 2020/21, while a poll by the National Education Union last year found that 22% of teachers plan to quit by 2024, and 44% by 2027.

In the same poll, 52% of participants said their workload was “unmanageable”, and two-thirds reported feeling stressed at least 60% of the time. 

This all resonates deeply with Lorna.

“Over the years I was a primary school teacher, the demands became increasingly unmanageable,” she says.

“On top of teaching my class – which I loved – and the marking and planning that comes with it, the more senior I became, the more responsibility I was handed, often with no extra time in the working day to complete the tasks, or any additional pay.

“I was expected to take on after-school duties, run school events, as well as do the paperwork that comes with data collection on class progress, inspections, performance management and reporting concerns about pupils.

“It wasn’t unusual for me to be working until past 10pm, or on weekends, and after I went part-time when my children were born, it only got worse in terms of the unpaid hours I was doing.”

Working in various schools in one of the most deprived areas in England, Lorna says she regularly faced children who were hungry and unwashed, or who had challenging behaviour.

“When I first started teaching, there was support from outside agencies, but over time that lessened, as budgets were cut and waiting lists grew.

“As teachers, it often fell to us to manage serious and complex issues, despite the fact we weren’t trained,” she recalls.

“I used to bring in snacks to hand out, as well as toothbrushes and hairbrushes, and I know other teachers did, too.

“It’s hard to get a child who is hungry or ashamed of their dirty uniform to concentrate and learn.

“I knew children were going home to families who were struggling, and I found carrying the emotional baggage of worrying about them draining.”

Once a child who was on a long waiting list for an SEN assessment kicked Lorna so hard, her shins bled.

“Trying to teach a child like that and make time for the other children was hard,” says Lorna.

“There were days in those years before I left when I’d cry on the way to school. My mental health was so low, and my husband was concerned.”

For Lorna, the tipping point came one evening in early 2019, when her youngest daughter asked her for a second bedtime story.

“I lost my temper. I knew I was already going to be up until midnight working, and I was tired and stressed from a difficult day.

As I walked out of her bedroom, wiping away tears, I knew enough was enough. Soon after that, with Stuart’s support, I handed in my notice,” she says.

Kate Oliver, a chartered occupational psychologist, is unsurprised women like Lorna are quitting teaching.

“The psychological impact of the type of unrelenting pressure that teachers are experiencing is significant and leads to exhaustion and burnout,” she says.

“Once you become this depleted, you can’t continue to offer the level of service and care that is required,” says Kate, who is also the author of Rise And Shine: How To Transform Your Life, Morning By Morning. 

So brutal is the current teaching landscape that, according to the DfE, around one-third of teachers leave the classroom within five years of qualifying. Jennie Hughes is one of them. 

Jennie, 38, from Manchester, became a primary school teacher in 2018, having previously worked as a teaching assistant and taught English abroad.

She hasn’t been back in the classroom since June 2022, after the stresses in both her job and personal life left her so ill she was bedbound.

Jennie worked in a number of primary schools during her career and says that, while she loved teaching and supporting pupils, her workload was extremely heavy. 

“Like most teachers, I was working a lot out of school hours, but never getting to the bottom of my to-do list, and never wanting to let the children down.

“For someone who was newly qualified, it was a lot to contend with, plus I was caring for my mum, so had a lot going on in my personal life, too.”

Like Lorna, Jennie was faced with myriad challenging issues affecting her pupils.

“I worked in deprived areas and children would come in looking pale with a stomach ache, then reveal they hadn’t eaten since the day before, or didn’t have warm clothes in winter.

At one point, I was earning less than £1,000 per month, and still ended up buying gloves and socks to give to kids who needed them,” she says.

“I taught children suffering from anxiety and depression, and anger management issues, who were on long waiting lists for therapy.

Some came from homes where there was domestic violence and social services were involved, but they themselves were at breaking point,” she says.

In November 2019, after months of struggling, Jennie was signed off sick.

“The strain of my personal life and work caused me to collapse one day, which was frightening,” she recalls. 

In March 2020, Jennie resigned and, after living off of her savings, didn’t return to teaching until November 2021, when she joined a supply agency.

“I didn’t feel strong enough to return for a long time,” she says.

“And when I did, it was as a supply teacher, so I would only work for a few days here and there, and not have long-term responsibility for a class.

“Post-pandemic, I could see how things had only got worse.

“Teachers were under even more pressure trying to help the children catch up after the lockdowns.”

Jennie now runs a Community Interest Company (CIC) called Recreate-U, which provides wellbeing and education services for children, families and schools. 

“I still get to work with children, but without the same pressure and stress. My mum is in a care home, and that, plus my career change, has helped my own health improve greatly,” Jennie says.

Emily Armstrong is a primary school headteacher and Education Coach, and says there is hope in the profession.

“Despite the challenges teachers are facing, it can still be an incredibly rewarding career,” says Emily.

“Watching children learn and knowing you are laying the foundations for their future is amazing.

“We need the best people to be teachers and it remains a job that can bring a lot of fulfilment.

“I support teachers who are desperate to stay in their roles but are finding it increasingly difficult to do so, as they’re being expected to wear so many hats,” she says.

“I work with them on how to manage their workload and productivity, how to cope with the stresses they’re experiencing while protecting their own wellbeing, and how to progress to positions of leadership.”

For Lorna, that support could have been invaluable in helping her stay in her teaching role.

However, after a period working as a childminder, she now runs an award-winning letterbox gift company, Baba Roo, which promotes positive mental health.

“Ironically, I regularly get orders for stressed-out teachers,” she says.

“I hear from friends who are still in education how worn down they are by the often negative public perceptions that teachers are ‘lazy’ and ‘have it easy’.” 

Emily says that as well as private services like hers, which are available to teachers at their own expense, there are also school- and government-funded initiatives being developed, in recognition of what teachers are contending with, in a bid to retain staff.

“Schools are developing staff wellbeing policies, as well as training to help teachers best support and educate children with SEN and those who’ve experienced trauma and challenging home situations. 

“There are also initiatives such as grants to train a ‘senior mental health lead’, and money being made available for teachers who wish to achieve a NPQ (National Professional Qualification) to further develop their expertise.

“Charities like Education Support, which cares for the mental health of education staff, are also doing important work,” she explains.

“There’s a long way to go in stemming the flow of teachers leaving, but there are roots of hope.”