If You’re Feeling Like You’ve Lost Your Teaching Spark…

It can sometimes feel like wading through treacle, this job and you end up left feeling deflated and defeated. If you’re feeling like you’ve lost your spark, read the advice below and see how you feel.

1. Assess the reality! If you’re feeling like you’ve lost your spark in teaching, it’s always worth having a truthful reflection with yourself, assessing all the elements of the job and understanding where that feeling may be coming from: poor behaviour in a class, lack of support with planning, marking, toxic colleagues, school with an ethos that doesn’t match what you believe in etc. Discovering exactly what it is that’s causing you to feel this way is VITAL to knowing what next steps to take. 

2. Switch it up! If you’ve been teaching for a long time, it might be that the loss of spark you’re feeling is boredom! Could you do some research into new topics you could deliver in the classroom, or new texts your school could add to the curriculum perhaps? Switch it up in the classroom, trial a bunch of new strategies and see what kind of an impact that has on how you feel.

3. Challenge! It might be that you’re ready for the next challenge – perhaps a step up the ladder in terms of responsibility. It might be worth having a chat with your Headteacher to see what opportunities are available/may become available and express your interest in progression so that they are aware. If no positions are available at that time, you could always look at other schools or perhaps start up a project to start demonstrating leaderships skills in your school for experience for when the time comes. 

4. Balance! Lack of work/life balance can sometimes leave you feeling like you’ve lost your spark. If you plough every ounce of yourself into your job, you may start to feel resentful that your life feels like it’s all about school, even though that’s a choice you’ve made (consciously or subconsciously). Always make time for you and for family and for doing things that are absolutely nothing to do with school, so the balance allows you to feel less stuck. 

5. Exhausted! It might be that you’re just absolutely, utterly, incomprehensibly tired! Get some shut eye and set clear and healthy boundaries so that work isn’t being prioritised over your health. 

6. Review! Acknowledge the feeling and come back to it in a month. If you’re still feeling the same way, you’ll know action, in some form, needs to take place. Honour your feelings and listen to yourself, you know best. 

You got this!