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Are We Trapped in the Burnout Loop?

Teacher experiencing stress and burnout while managing competing workplace demands.

I've been thinking a lot about why burnout continues to affect so many teachers, nursery leaders and school leaders.


Every time someone leaves because they're exhausted or overwhelmed, the work doesn't disappear. It simply gets shared amongst the people who stay. They take on a little more, work a little longer and keep everything going because they care. That's what people in education do.


For a while, it feels manageable. Then another person leaves, another colleague is absent or another demand is added. Slowly, what once felt like a busy week becomes the way we work every day. Without realising it, we're caught in a cycle where one person's burnout increases the pressure on everyone else.


I know that cycle because I lived it myself. For years, I believed that if I worked harder, things would eventually get easier. Looking back, I can see I wasn't solving the problem. I had simply become part of the burnout loop.


Perhaps that's why burnout is so difficult to tackle. It isn't just about individual resilience. It's also about recognising when the way we're working is no longer sustainable, for ourselves or for the people around us.


I describe it as being trapped because I didn’t see it coming, I was so locked in the rushing, the constant doing, and maybe striving, that when my children expressed concern, it just bounced off me. I didn't notice, listen, pause.


Maybe the question isn't, "How do we become more resilient?"


Perhaps it's, "How do we or can we interrupt this cycle?”


I'd love to know your thoughts. Have you seen this burnout loop in your own school or nursery?



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