Jenny Cole was working as a principal at a Perth public school when she received a phone call that finally tipped her over the edge – she handed in her resignation and never went back.
It was the middle of the day on a Wednesday and even though it is now 15 years ago, Cole remembers the moment clearly.
“I was at an Education Department event, where the minister was announcing a new behaviour management policy. During one of the speeches, my phone buzzed. There had been a critical incident at my school,” she said.
“A nine-year-old boy had seriously injured one of my staff. The teacher was on her way to hospital.
“I didn’t stay for the scones. I drove straight back and gathered the classroom team.”
Cole, who was the leader at a specialist education support school, was in the middle of a case conference with her staff regarding the incident when she announced she was going to quit.
At that time, she was also the head of the WA Education Support Principals and Administrators Association.
“I thought ‘if I’m not getting any support, then who is?’,” Cole said.
“I just looked at my staff in that meeting and thought ‘I can’t make this better. I just cannot make it better, and if I make a decision, then somebody is going to be really adversely affected’.”
She said the situation has become “significantly worse” with more teachers and principals burning out and leaving the profession than ever before.
The build-up to Cole handing in her resignation had been years in the making.
At one stage, 11 of the 28 teachers at the school were out on workers’ compensation.
“It’s always devastating. No one comes to work to get hurt, and as a leader in a school you have compassion for the child, you have compassion for the staff who work for them, you have compassion for the parents, and so you’re holding a lot of people’s emotions,” she said.
“What has improved is there are now systems and processes for entering data, and there’s a lot more support for when things get to the very pointy end.
“But as a leader, you’re carrying everybody’s feelings, everybody’s emotions, and you’re just trying to follow the rules and policies and procedures at the same time.”
Cole said the pressure on schools and teachers “has become astronomical” since she left.
“I talk about how it’s like a frog in boiling water. Most teachers got into teaching and they loved it, and most people still do love it, but bit by bit, the pressure has risen to the point where teachers are drowning in boiling water,” she said.
“I work now as a leadership coach in the education space and I work with teachers and leaders who are all just teetering on the edge of burnout.
“That’s the difference. There was one or two of us 15 years ago, and now teachers and leaders are working an average of 50 hours a week, which is completely unsustainable, and my DMs on Instagram are full every day of people who’ve said ‘I’ve just had enough’.”
She said recent changes to NDIS funding would make the situation worse.
“That pressure to be the support for parents and the community and therapists is now going to all fall back onto schools, just raising the pressure even more,” she said.
“We need to rethink what schools look like.
“A lot of the responsibility for everything to do with kids is being pushed back onto schools.”
In her work as a coach, Cole tries to help teachers and leaders create management strategies to keep them in the workforce.
“When you’re overwhelmed and burnt out, you can’t see options – you just know that you’ve had enough, so while I have coached people to leave education, I have coached just as many to stay, but perhaps do it differently,” she said.
“I want to say to every teacher drowning right now, your exhaustion is real, your overwhelm is justified.
“The system is broken. Things need to change. Isn’t it time we listened to teachers?”
West Australian Education Minister Sabine Winton said the state’s teachers and school leaders worked “incredibly hard to support and nurture every student, including those with complex needs”.
“As a former teacher of 27 years, I know firsthand that teaching is a rewarding profession, but it can also be challenging,” she said.
“That’s why the government is committed to supporting school leaders, teachers, and education support staff to reduce their workloads and ensure they have the resources they need to help children thrive.”
Winton says the Workload Intensification Taskforce was progressing efforts to ease workload pressures for teachers and school leaders.
“This includes implementing complex behaviour support co-ordinators in 192 WA public schools, and small group tuition in 350 WA public schools, to provide targeted support for the students who need it most and reduce teachers’ workloads,” she said.
“Last November, I also announced a $1.6 million funding injection to strengthen wellbeing supports for school leaders, providing targeted funding to give principals more choice to access wellbeing supports tailored to their needs.
“This work is never done, and our government will continue to prioritise ways to support teachers to do what they do best – connecting with their students and helping them to reach their potential.”
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