Is it over? Can we say that we’re past it now? Writing this from the vantage point of mid-February 2022, as one COVID restriction after another falls away, it certainly feels like it is. Or as if someone, somewhere wants us to feel like it is …
In any case, good luck trying to convince the nation’s schools of that. The pandemic has already wrought enormous harm on the education of countless children and teenagers, and with the continuing spikes in absence among both staff and students extending well into the New Year and beyond, the damage
just keeps on coming.
Consequently, while there are many staff who have managed to-just about -hang on and contend with the challenges of the past two years, there’s also a substantial number who will have felt deeply the kind of burnout symptoms discussed by Emma Kell on page 49 and need help in addressing them.
At a time of such punishing stress, then, it could ,seem almost crass in some ways to talk about the need for teachers to step up their CPD game, as one of this issue’s themed sections would seem to suggest. Isn’t there enough for you and your colleagues to be dealing with already?
But the thing is, effective CPD should never be yet another work burden to bear .. It can certainly wait, if the day-to-day situation demands it.
But as and when time allows, professional development can, and indeed ought to play a part in making your working life easier. Done right, it can help to encourage exactly the kind of collaborative, mutually beneficial connections between colleagues, and even between different schools, that many desperately need right now.
And hey, if a large-scale attempt at providing tailored CPD across multiple sites (page 32) or arranging a fact-finding mission to another school (page 28) aren’t going to do much for you or your colleagues, there are alternatives. Like acquainting yourself with Bhamika Bhudia’s time­saving approach to marking (page 40), or throwing caution to the wind and seeing whether the oft-maligned -with some justification – TikTok can offer anything of practical use for teachers (page 68).
With things continuing to be as tough as they are, now perhaps isn’t the time to say ‘Let’s work on you.’ Instead, why not try ‘Let’s work on each other, together’ …
Enjoy the issue,
Callum Fauser
[email protected]

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• Women’s Fitness UK – March 2022
• New Scientist – February 26, 2022