Avoiding Teacher Burnout While Teaching a Full Curriculum

Estimated read time: 3 minutes

There's a particular kind of tiredness that sets in around week six of term. Marking piles up, reports need writing, and planning happens at 9pm. Whatever else is going on, pupils still need engaging lessons, and the curriculum still needs covering.

Teacher burnout is becoming an increasingly common challenge in schools. Burnout in teaching isn't a personal failing or a sign that someone can't cope. More often, it's the result of sustained workload pressures, making teacher wellbeing and workload reduction priorities for schools. Here's a practical look at what burnout actually looks like, why it happens in teaching specifically, and what can help. 

What Burnout Actually Looks Like

Burnout is often mistaken for simple tiredness, but it tends to show up in three distinct ways:

• Exhaustion - not just physical fatigue, but a sense of being drained before the day has even started.
• Detachment - feeling disconnected or increasingly negative about the job.
• Reduced sense of accomplishment - the feeling that however much gets done, it never feels like enough.

Recognising these as three separate signs of burnout - rather than one vague sense of ‘being tired’ - makes it easier to notice burnout early, both in yourself and in colleagues.

Potential Causes of Teacher Burnout

Burnout isn't typically caused by teaching itself, but by particular pressures that build up around it:

• Planning load - building lessons from scratch, year after year.
• Marking and admin creep - the quiet expansion of tasks that sit outside the timetabled day.
• Curriculum change - new specifications, new expectations.
• The emotional and mental load of teaching in the classroom - managing behaviour, relationships and thirty different needs at once.

None of these can be solved by simply ‘being more resilient.’ 

Reducing teacher workload is one of the most effective ways schools can support teacher wellbeing and improve staff retention.

Practical Ways to Reduce Teacher Burnout

• Protect planning time - complete it in focused blocks where possible, rather than fitting it around everything else each evening. Even one protected block a week makes upcoming lessons feel less like a scramble. 
• Use ready-made, sequenced resources instead of building lessons from scratch. Not every lesson needs to be created from a blank page - borrowing and adapting is not cheating, it's good practice.
• Lean on peer support - make use of a buddy system within a year team, where colleagues check in on each other and share the load. 
• Notice and celebrate small wins - a good lesson, a breakthrough with a tricky class, a piece of marking completed. These moments matter more than they get credit for.

How Developing Experts Can Help

One of the biggest and most avoidable drains on teacher time is rebuilding lessons that already exist elsewhere. Fully resourced, sequenced curricula can significantly reduce planning time while maintaining curriculum quality.

At Developing Experts, our Science, History and Geography curricula provide teachers with structured lessons, videos, assessments, differentiated handouts and progression built in, helping reduce workload without reducing ambition. This frees up more time and headspace for the parts of teaching that matter most: supporting pupils, adapting learning and building relationships.

Our Expert Films and Career Films can also help spark discussion and bring learning to life, reducing the need to source additional materials and lesson hooks.

If you’re new to Developing Experts, you can explore all our content - including lessons in Science, History and Geography, and our AI tools - with a free two-week trial. Simply visit www.developingexperts.com to sign up today - it’s quick, easy and free.

A Sustainable Approach to Teaching 

Teacher burnout isn't caused by a lack of commitment. In many cases, it's the result of dedicated professionals trying to do too much with too little time. By reducing unnecessary workload, protecting planning time and making use of high-quality curriculum resources, schools can help create a more sustainable approach to teaching that benefits both staff and pupils.