How teachers and principals can bounce back from burnout

“The latest report into the health and wellbeing of Australia’s school leaders found that principals and their deputies work on average at least 55 hours a week, while a quarter of those report working more than 60 hours a week.

The survey, which studied the responses of 2,590 school leaders across all states and territories, also found 29% of school leaders received a “red flag” alert email, which are generated and sent to the report’s author when a principal answers ‘yes’ to a statement like ‘In the past week I’ve felt like harming myself’.

With the Easter holidays approaching, teachers, principals and support staff are looking forward to some downtime, but for many, such a thing doesn’t exist, and the holidays only mean that their place of work shifts from the staff room to the living room.

However committed to their work an educator is, the fact remains that one cannot pour from an empty cup, and to help others – the core responsibility of an educator – one’s own health and wellbeing must be put first.

Below, The Educator shares the insights of a peak performance coach, a senior lecturer of educational leadership and a school principal with more than 50 years of experience in the profession.