There is no doubt in my mind that emotional demands of a career in education are significant. My own experience taught me this, but it’s an opinion which is only confirmed every year as I witness the impact of the rigours of the job on trainees.
Any colleague working as an ITT provider will be familiar with the experience of supporting overwhelmed trainees who, for one reason or another, are not coping with the experience. Sometimes, the pressure comes from workload in all its various forms, giving that feeling that there are simply not enough hours in the day. Given the media attention this issue has received, trainees are often aware of this before they embark on the application process.
However, often the most demanding part of the job for trainees – and indeed the experienced teacher – is the sheer emotional burden it brings to bear. Of course, this ‘emotional rollercoaster’ is very much that: it delivers its highs and lows minute by minute and the experiences come thick and fast. Teaching is a profession which offers the most incredible positive and life-defining moments for us and the children in our care, just as it challenges us with scenarios which are more difficult to deal with. Then there is the almost constant scrutiny and feedback which trainees are expected to manage as part of their development journey.
As providers, we hope that our mentor training ensures this is a supportive process – even so, it is an emotionally challenging one. When taken together, it is unlikely that many trainees will have ever shouldered anything similar before, and it is not something that can be adequately explained to them in advance. They simply have to experience it first-hand and if they’re going to cope and ideally thrive in the sector; as providers we need to be preparing them for this.
In my years leading ITT provision, delivering training sessions and mentoring trainees, I’ve often used the phrase ‘teaching is emotionally demanding work’ to open discussions on this often-overlooked challenge of the job. I begin these conversations from day one in September, not to put trainees off, but in the interests of openness and honesty. I hope that by talking about these challenges in this way it will help normalise them and ensure that when trainees inevitably come face-to-face with this reality, they are not overwhelmed by it or taken by surprise. I hope that by recognising it for what it is, they are prepared for it and accept that whilst it is part of the job, it can be managed successfully.
Not only that, but I go on to tell trainees that far from being something to be avoided and dreaded, I think that the emotional work of teaching is something the best teachers actively engage with and welcome as a real opportunity. The best teachers accept that without their engagement in this emotional work, their pupils will be worse off – not as well served, not was well seen, not as well heard nor understood. In this way, they can face it not only with a degree of confidence and agency to do something about it, but with the skills to take advantage of the opportunities it opens up. The first step in achieving this is to take on the challenge of training trainees to understand and manage their own minds and emotions.
As Holly Bowman recently wrote in her Member Voice article, ‘Emotionally resilient teaching develops when trainees are taught to understand the emotional dimensions of their work, supported to reflect on them, and empowered to set sustainable boundaries’. She talks about equipping trainees with ‘psychological tools’ and creating ‘reflective spaces that honour their values’, and these themes resonate strongly with my own views.
So, this year Ripley ITT decided to trial a new series of training sessions – three spread over the year – which aimed to tackle this work. Teaming up with Chimp Management, we have devised sessions which ‘open the box’ for trainees, giving them knowledge of their own psychological makeup (and that of their pupils and colleagues) so that they can develop their own toolkit. We hope that this means they can not only manage themselves better but actively engage in understanding and working with the emotional landscape they are immersed in every day to the betterment of all their colleagues and pupils.
Below, our partner in this delivery – Chimp Management mentor and trainer Adam Wright – and Ripley ITT SCITT trainee Hollie Gibson provide a picture of how this has been done and the impact it has had.
Chimp Management – Adam Wright, Psychological Skills Mentor
When people are able to manage their mind effectively, they are more likely to work well with the demands they experience in their roles. For trainee teachers, this means being able to work with what school life brings day to day, engage constructively with colleagues, and remain present and effective to get the best out of their students.
At Chimp Management, the focus is on helping people understand how their mind works and why they respond as they do under pressure. Using The Chimp Model, developed by Professor Steve Peters, this understanding is grounded in neuroscience and presented in a clear, practical way that can be applied in everyday working life.
As everyone is unique, the focus of the work was to help trainee teachers understand what is happening in their own mind, so they could develop the skills needed to manage it more effectively. Working closely with the Ripley ITT team, the programme was shaped around the pressures trainees commonly experience and the situations that can trigger unhelpful thoughts, emotions, or behaviours.
The starting point was to introduce trainees to The Chimp Model as a practical tool for understanding how their mind works, its structure, and the rules it operates by. From there, the focus moved to application: managing expectations, responding more helpfully under pressure, and turning stress into action.
The final session will focus on resilience as an existing capacity of the mind, with attention given to how it can be maintained through perspective, values, and working with the realities of day-to-day school life.
Trainee perspective – Hollie Gibson, secondary D&T trainee
Coming into teacher training with experience as a primary school teaching assistant, I believed I had a reasonable grasp of the emotional landscape I was about to enter. In truth, nothing fully prepared me for the intensity of the experience. I can vividly recall the first moment it overwhelmed me. While taking the register, a misplaced click caused the screen to go blank.
My mind emptied, and self‑doubt rushed in to fill the space. Any sense of credibility I had begun to build felt as though it had vanished in an instant. How could I confidently do complex things like checking for understanding when I suddenly struggled to do simple things like recalling my own name?
This pattern repeated itself in my early lessons. If anything deviated from the plan, a wave of panic would rise and shatter my confidence. It was as though the smallest disruption could unravel everything.Our first Chimp Management session proved to be a turning point. I began to understand that these moments of self-doubt were not personal failings but the result of my “chimp brain” hijacking my rational thinking. Recognising this gave me the agency to respond differently. By consciously managing my chimp and reframing the automatic messages my brain produced, I started to regain control. Simple grounding phrases – What’s the worst that could happen? and experienced teachers get it wrong sometimes too – became powerful tools. They allowed me to pause, take better control of my emotional response, and show up as my authentic self in front of my pupils.This shift has not eliminated the emotional demands of teacher training, but it has equipped me to meet them in an informed way, improving my resilience and self-awareness.
Dr Nick Walmsley is Deputy SCITT Director – Secondary at Ripley ITT.
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