Stressed, Depressed and Exhausted: Six Years as a Teacher in UK State Education

Abstract

This article foregrounds the experiences of a newly qualified teacher – ‘Daniel’ – in the state education sector in the United Kingdom. It provides an insight into the under-explored realities of teaching work and an empirical connection with a segment of the UK public sector that successive governments have positioned as central to economic and social prosperity. It centres on why nine out of ten teachers who participated in the 2017 National Skills and Employment Survey reported that they ‘often’ or ‘always’ come home from work exhausted. In doing so, it also helps to explain why 33% of newly qualified teachers leave within five years of qualifying. Through Daniel’s story, 40 years of neoliberal reform to the UK education system is contextualised and shown to have intensified latent contradictions by stripping teachers of time and the freedom to operate and innovate.