The reason I became a teacher was to help students achieve their best, and, obviously, part of that is to achieve the highest grade possible in the subject that you teach.

But if there is a time in your life when you feel you cannot help students, for whatever reason it may be, then the “guilt monster” comes calling.

Feeling guilty is an overwhelming part of being a teacher. The role makes you feel that you are never good enough. You feel guilty about whether you’ve set too much or too little homework, you feel guilty about how you’ve taught a lesson - did you engage them enough?

Did you check for understanding? Did everyone make progress? You feel guilty about having a day off sick, you feel guilty about telling a student that you need to eat and you can’t help them at lunchtime.

Taking 12 weeks off...in term time

The list could go on and on, but that guilt comes from a place of caring and wanting to help the students as much as possible. That’s why we do the job.

Now imagine that you are told you are going to have an operation that will keep you off school for up to 12 weeks and it might coincide with the build-up to GCSEs and A levels.

This is what happened to me in September, when I was told I would need heart surgery. As I spoke to the surgeon, the guilt monster was already on my shoulder, so I asked if I could delay the operation until the exam season started.

He told me in no uncertain terms that I needed the operation as soon as possible, and I was put on a six-month waiting list.

Coming up with a plan

I had already told my school that there was a high chance an operation was coming, and they were brilliant in terms of alleviating that guilt by telling me that things would be OK and that I should focus on looking after myself.

That’s easier said than done when you have the hopes and dreams of students on your shoulders, and I still wanted to do my best for them in the months that followed. So I came up with a plan.

Firstly, I communicated with the students and parents about the situation and what was likely to happen. I have always found that being upfront about these things works, and both groups were extremely supportive despite the impact on them.

Secondly, I guaranteed them that by the time I left, the course would be taught. This meant that they could revise and exam prep rather than learn new material from someone new.

This did mean turning down an operation slot in the February half-term, which might seem foolish but, again, the guilt monster was present and I knew I had two weeks of content left!

Thirdly, I tried to reassure the students that they had all the tools available to them to do well in the exam and that when I was home and in recovery, they could send me questions and I would respond.

Again, that might sound foolish but recovery from a heart operation is long and boring, and your mind isn’t impaired, so reading emails was a welcome distraction. I hoped it would show the students that I was still there for them.

Is this guilt normal?

All of these approaches helped me to tackle the guilt monster, but it’s interesting to consider where this guilt comes from in the first place.

Do other professions feel it as much? Teaching is often seen as a “vocation”, and a lot of that is to do with the fact that we go the extra mile for students in our care. But to the detriment of what?

And is it us or the system that makes us behave in this way? When you are off, the burden of work falls on to another colleague who is already overloaded, so not only do you feel guilty about your students but also your colleagues. For eight to 12 weeks, that’s a big ask, especially in the run-up to exams.

Is there anything schools can do to manage this kind of situation better, without overloading existing staff and compounding the guilt felt by the individual?

Education policy always feels like it is asking teachers to do more and more, and this makes it difficult to take time off to look after yourself. You feel there is more to catch up on when you come back.

Saying no to the guilt monster

Or have I got this wrong? Is it purely about the individual, and I am a unique case? I’m aware that many teachers might not have made the decisions I made about delaying operations or marking work post-op (please don’t judge me), but I started teaching through an era when you were given two days off for paternity leave, and after my father died, I was back in school the next day.

The landscape has certainly changed since then, and younger teachers might not be caught up in that kind of expectation of being in school whatever the weather. But that’s the way I feel.

Then again, I was recently told by a member of SLT that many staff come back early from sick leave but this just stores up trouble for a later date. So clearly others feel hounded by the guilt monster.

Therefore, it might not be the educational system that needs to change but the individual and their attitude to self-care. And on that, I feel I have made progress.

I am taking the full 12 weeks off to recover and I am respecting my body, so I can come back fully fit to look after future students in my care and be the best teacher I can be.

Having said that, I am already dreading the visit from the guilt monster when the exam results are published in August!!

Gavin Simpson is an economics teacher at Dame Alice Owen’s School in Hertfordshire