Early Career Insights: Education Quarterly, Issue 10 2024
All teachers enter the profession wanting to be the best teacher they can be, to ensure their students achieve the highest educational outcomes and to be an active and engaged member of staff and the broader school community.
With an eager to please attitude, beginning teachers can often find themselves overloaded with additional workplace duties that fall outside of their classroom teaching responsibilities and load.
Teachers volunteering or agreeing to take on additional group or whole school sporting, arts and wellbeing programs outside of core teaching responsibilities can detract from developing classroom practice and increase the risk of burnout in the early years of teaching and beyond.
Given additional responsibilities can detract from core teaching and learning, why is it so hard to say ‘no’? It could simply be the willingness to be a team player, not knowing if you have the right to focus on teaching and learning in the classroom or not knowing how to say no.
But more often than not, it’s because early career teachers employed in a casual or temporary capacity feel obliged to take on extra-curricular duties to secure future employment (even in the midst of a teacher shortage).
Here’s some tips to consider, if you find yourself in this situation:
- Understand that it’s not just okay but it’s your job to focus first and foremost on the educational outcomes of students in the class(es) you teach.
- Set firm goals and boundaries for yourself at the beginning of the school year or when starting in a new workplace.
- Tell your mentor and/or supervisor at the beginning of the year that, although you have the capabilities and desire to support extra-curricular programs, you will be focusing on your classroom practice as an early career teacher to ensure you provide the best educational outcomes for students in your care.
- If asked to take on additional duties, remember that you have the right to focus on your core teaching and learning responsibilities and re-iterate that as an early career teacher, you will be focusing on the teaching and learning within your class(es).
- Take solace in knowing that your focus on providing the best educational outcomes for your students may be noted and should be considered for future employment opportunities.
Finally, remember that teaching today is more complex and challenging than ever before. Although you may have the required skill set to successfully carry out extra-curricular activities within the school and the willingness to do it, this can detract from your core role and responsibilities in the classroom by significantly increasing your workload.
Focusing on your core teaching responsibilities is more than enough. In fact, it should be championed and prioritised to support and keep early career teachers in the profession.