I’m in my last term of my career as a teacher.  I will officially cease to be employed by a school on 2nd June 2024, my 46th birthday.  My last day in the classroom will be Friday 24th May and the last week of my contract will be half term. I’m leaving because of burnout – it was impossible to recover from the work-related stress I suffered over a year ago while still working in that environment, so I’m no longer a school leader, and only teach two days a week.  I’m leaving to work full time on Carnelias.

How do I feel about this?  I feel elated in many ways – I have a fabulous new business to run, and gaining back the two days a week I’m spending teaching will liberate me to really focus on that.  I’ll see far more of my long-suffering husband and my wonderful children, and get to spend more time on yoga, hiking, swimming, cycling and running.

However, I’m also very sad.

Being a teacher has been an enormous part of my identity since 2005 when I began my PGCE.  Being a senior leader in a high performing academy in a well respected Trust has been a source of pride and has encouraged me to get out there every day and be the very best I can be, aware that my position made me a role model for nearly a thousand young people and a hundred staff.  I’m going from doing a job where I have a wealth of experience and a good level of mastery over the skills and knowledge I need to be really good at my work, to setting up businesses which involve some level of prior experience but where I’m having to start at the bottom in many ways.  

Teaching has taught me so much about self-control, how to hold an audience, how to work with young people, how to be a line manager, how the brain works and how we learn, and how to structure long term schemes so that students can learn, review and progress over five years towards mastery of skills and subject knowledge.  However, it has taught me nothing about website design, hiring and managing contractors, marketing, financial management, social media advertising or search engine optimisation, all of which are my daily bread and butter in my new venture.

A lot of people have said they admire my “bravery” in stepping away from a long term, familiar career which I have invested so much of myself into, in order to go out on a limb and set up Carnelias.  I suspect a lot of my colleagues feel sorry for me “not having been able to cope”; others have expressed frustration that someone with my experience feels she has no choice but to leave education rather than being supported to get fully well again and stay in the profession.

All I can say is it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks – what I want to do now is work towards the future I have created in my mind’s eye – a future where I work flexibly around the needs of my family rather than the rigid timetable and the school bell; where I can take a longer route on my morning run if the dawn light is too good to leave behind at 7am; where I can go to my children’s school assemblies and performances; where I can take a long weekend off in term time to go and visit a friend, or see my parents, or go to the allotment when the jobs there are piling up.  So thank you, teaching, for all the good times and all the skills and experience you have given me, but now it’s over between us.  Here’s to future freedom, flexibility and family time.