Wednesday, September 30, 2026
It’s the start of the school year and hopefully you’ve had time to rest and recover over the summer holidays. Now it’s time to turn your attention to the 10 months ahead, and think about how you are going to make the most of your time in and out of class. No matter how much we love our jobs and enjoy teaching, one of the biggest issues we experience is burnout. Being defined as ‘extreme tiredness or mental or physical illness caused by working too hard or trying to do too much[1]’, it is something that can negatively affect our lives in many ways. Whilst we never set out to give ourselves a hard time, there are some clear actions that we can take at the beginning of the year to avoid experiencing burnout later down the line.
In this blog post, we will give you ten ways to help avoid burnout and give yourself the best possible start to the school year!
A happy teacher is a well-organised one. Start the year with everything that you need to succeed in your teacher life. Organise all of your stationery, get yourself a good diary/calendar and make sure you have sufficient notebooks. You also need to organise all of your electronic resources so that you don’t waste time looking for them during the year and can access them quickly. Ensuring you organise yourself well will mean that you avoid dead time spent looking for everything you need on a daily basis, and can spend that time on something more productive.
Planning is an essential part of teaching, but one that can end up taking up a substantial amount of time each week. It is worthwhile spending time at the beginning of the year planning when you are going to plan. Once you have your teaching timetable, block out time in between or before classes to plan and correct work. Stick to these blocks of time throughout the year so that you always know when you are going to plan your lessons and you have everything ready to plan efficiently and effectively.
Whether it be with planning, marking or creating resources, it’s very easy to get carried away and not realise how long you are spending on a task. As well as planning your planning time (see point above), you should also set yourself time limits when carrying out tasks during the week. Only spend more time on a task if it is going to save you time later down the line- such as laminating resources or planning more than one lesson at a time.
In any job, breaks are essential, but for teachers they are crucial to maintain our mental and physical wellbeing. When you have any break, be it a weekend, bank holiday or longer break, you need to make those breaks count. Ensure you really disconnect from work and spend time filling your cup. This means avoiding checking emails and planning anything for your return to work. Spending time outside will also do you the world of good, especially as teachers spend so much time inside during the year.
Complete tasks today that your future self will thank you for. You know what you are going to have to do throughout the year and when you are going to need to get these tasks done by. Instead of doing these at the last minute, make sure you get going on these tasks ahead of time, so you are prepared and avoid unnecessary stress. Make notes on students to use in reports, print exams in advance and prepare material that you can use time and again. This is one of the actions that can make the biggest difference in a teacher’s life.
Your non-negotiables are things that you refuse to sacrifice in your daily life because they are activities that you need to stay healthy and happy. This could be spending time with your friends, going to the gym or having your daily coffee. Once you set them at the beginning of the year, you have to stick to them. Don’t stay a little bit later to finish something and skip one of your non-negotiables. Whilst it might not seem like much just the once, if you continue to miss out on the things that make you happy, this can end up making you feel frustrated, bitter and burnt out.
Coursebooks are there for a reason- to be used! When you are provided with a coursebook at the beginning of the year, consider how much you are going to get through each week and plan accordingly. What you don’t want to do, is go through material too quickly or slowly and end up having to over supplement your lessons with other material. If you plan well and know how to use the book, you only need to look for additional resources such as images, videos or freer practice activities in your lessons.
It goes without saying that to avoid teacher burnout, you need to leave your work at school. It’s so tempting to want to go home so much that you end up taking a pile of exams to mark or just quickly respond to an email at the weekend. Once you start doing this, it’s a very bad habit to break, as you end up filling your time at school with other tasks. Be strict with yourself and leave your work at work!
Feeling like you are not making any professional progress at work can be demotivating for even the happiest of teachers. If you have been teaching for a number of years, it’s easy to fall into the yearly cycle of teaching in the same way and you end up working on autopilot most of the time. This, over time, can lead to burnout as you struggle to find the motivation to keep doing your best. At the beginning of the year, set yourself professional goals to work on throughout the year, and make sure you have achieved them by the summer. These could be something as simple as refreshing your grammar knowledge, or learning how to use the interactive coursebook material better.
Positivity is something that is going to make you happier on a daily basis. Sometimes we are so stressed, that we forget to smile and just enjoy the students that we have in our classes. No matter how much work you have or what challenging situations present themselves during the year, it’s important to approach these in a positive way. It’s also essential that you avoid becoming part of a ‘community of complainers’ in the teachers’ room and think of solutions to issues rather than just blaming someone or something else.
The start of the school year is full of new challenges, new faces and new opportunities. Try to implement some of the ideas above in order to make sure you keep your glass full and avoid falling into the trap of pushing yourselves too hard. All that’s left for us to say is have a great school year and enjoy your time in the classroom!
[1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/burnout
