As I prepare to return to the classroom after my second maternity leave, my feelings are conflicted.

Looking after a small baby has been much easier this time around, and the bubble we have built together has been so special. I’ll miss my son terribly when I’m at school, especially his quirky little giggle.

But I’m looking forward to getting back into the swing of things, too. Motherhood has changed me, but my identity is plural and I love my job as a history teacher. The buzz of the classroom is never boring and I already have a list of projects to get started on.

I am nervous, though. When I returned after my first maternity leave, I found the experience mentally and physically exhausting. Teaching is such an intense job and it took me months to even begin to get to grips with it again.

There were days when I felt like a useless teacher and a useless mother, especially after a run of sleepless nights and toddler sickness.

I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. I work in Spain, in an international school, but I’ve had countless conversations with friends and colleagues in schools in the UK about the pressures we face when we return to work. All of us seem to be wrestling with the same impossible standards: trying to work as if we don’t have children and trying to parent like we don’t have a career.

And when we turn to the data, it’s clear that something is going very badly wrong indeed. In December last year, Tes drew attention to Maternity Attrition, a report by the charity the Maternity Teacher Paternity Teacher (MTPT) Project, which found that almost 40 per cent of UK teachers leave the profession within four years of returning from maternity leave. That equates to almost 4,000 teachers. It’s a statistic I find shocking.

So if leaving teaching is the outcome for so many mothers, what’s fuelling that exodus? And how can new mums - and their schools - avoid falling into some of the most common maternity return “traps”?

What’s driving mothers out of teaching?

I spoke to Emma Sheppard, founder of MTPT. She’s supported thousands of teachers to navigate parental leave and their returns to the classroom. Sheppard believes that one of the most common traps women fall into is that we come back to the classroom with unrealistic ideals of what it means to be a great teacher.

“We hold ourselves to outdated models of perfectionism and rarely stop to think about what ‘great’ actually looks like, whether that’s at home or at work, and it’s running us into the ground,” she says.

Another trap is over-committing. So many of us say yes to things we don’t really have the capacity to deliver on, convinced that it’s proof motherhood hasn’t slowed us down.

“The danger of [always] saying yes is that we spend too much of our energy letting those around us dictate our time - and time is probably our most precious resource,” says Sheppard. “Fearful of judgement, we lose sight of our own professional priorities and, over time, we lose our way.”

This pressure to live up to unrealistic expectations can seep into our home lives, too - and over time can take its toll, explains Mike Leaman, a former teacher and school leader who now runs Classroom Exit Coach, a service helping teachers and school leaders transition into new careers.

“The emotional labour of teaching combined with sleep deprivation, childcare logistics and guilt on both sides (work and home) often leads to burnout far more quickly than before children,” he says.

The problem is compounded by the fact that, in the UK, teaching is a job that regularly requires us to work in the evenings and at weekends. This means that even if women decide to go part-time after becoming mothers, they may find themselves working during their time off.

“Women are literally giving away free labour [by going part-time],” says Sheppard, “and they tell me they feel lucky to be able to do it.”

‘The emotional labour of teaching combined with sleep deprivation, childcare logistics and guilt on both sides often leads to burnout’

Leaman underlines this point further: “For some, returning part-time helps, but for others it simply compresses the same expectations into fewer hours.”

Indeed, whatever their working patterns, I know many of my peers feel there is a pressure to be constantly available, constantly “on”.

And whether mothers work full-time or part-time, the data is damning: in Missing Mothers, a 2024 report by MTPT and the New Britain Project, 76 per cent of mother-teachers surveyed cited workload as a principal reason for leaving teaching.

Women might be placing pressure on themselves to do more - yet this isn’t happening in a vacuum. In Leaman’s view, the root of the problem is that “school culture still assumes long hours, evening work and visibility as markers of commitment”.

“Most parents [tell me they] aren’t overwhelmed by the teaching, they love being in the classroom; it’s the unpaid evening and weekend labour that breaks them,” he says.

It’s not surprising, then, that teacher-mothers eventually feel like they have to choose between their families and their teaching careers. Perhaps they decide that their time and talent could be put to better use elsewhere. After all, women are significantly less likely to be promoted to senior leadership and headship. The message that sends is hard to ignore.

So where do we go from here? It’s easy to feel powerless; to consider that it might be simpler (and less traumatic) for mothers to quit before they even try.

But Sheppard is more optimistic. She is convinced that there are ways to reclaim our careers while still protecting that special family bubble we’ve nurtured at home.

The government has promised structural changes designed to help. The recent schools White Paper confirmed that full maternity pay for teachers will double to eight weeks from 2027-28 and that this will be backed by a new programme of support for women returning after leave and by efforts to expand flexible working across the profession.

Yet there are also steps that teachers returning from maternity leave can take to make the transition easier on themselves.

Tips for returning after maternity leave

Drawing on my personal experience, and the professional conversations I’ve had with others, these are my reflections on how we can move beyond “survival mode” and return to thriving in our roles after maternity leave.

1. Ask yourself what ‘great’ means to you

Sheppard says we must “re-examine” what it means to be a “great” teacher and mother, challenging the idea that “the only route to success in either of these roles is to just keep doing more until we drop”.

In the classroom, being a “great” teacher shouldn’t be measured by how many tasks we pack into a day, but by the impact we make over time.

How we define that is deeply personal, and quite a bit of self-interrogation is required. Charlotte Owen, an art teacher and colleague of mine, calls this “aligning with our values”.

Ask yourself: what are my core personal values and how do they translate to my teaching practice? Which parts of my pre-mother teacher identity do I need to leave behind because they fall outside of these values?

Perhaps, for instance, it’s not always necessary for you to take on additional time-consuming projects in order to be doing the best job for your students.

2. Build boundaries

When I returned to work after my first maternity leave, I expected to feel and perform in much the same way as I always had done. I therefore spent a lot of time after having my first child trying to prove to everyone around me that nothing had changed.

But, of course, everything had changed, and it came as a shock to realise that I couldn’t be all things to all people and still be great at my job.

What new teacher-mothers most desperately need, argues Sheppard, are boundaries. How to create them effectively is an important part of MTPT’s Back to Work workshop.

“Decide what’s on your plate”, says Sheppard, “and once that plate is full, anything else has to go. Stop doing quick favours. Stop being polite.”

Within this framework, it’s important that we define clearly what we will achieve, and then focus on making sure that we do these things well.

Part of this is building boundaries that we can defend against others, but we also need to set finite limits for ourselves. These serve as a safety net against the urge to appease; to keep “doing”; to try to be “Superteacher”.

By sticking to our boundaries, we will be able to work with greater focus, while also staying true to those core values we have identified.

3. Normalise the struggle

At school it’s easy to minimise the challenges of parenting. We apologise for the days we spend caring for toddlers with tummy bugs and silently accept the multiple nightly wake-ups. “Extra coffee today,” we joke with colleagues, when inside we’re almost at breaking point.

Instead, as Sheppard points out, “we need to normalise the struggles we face. We need to have honest conversations; we need to find our allies”.

Seeking out colleagues going through the same challenges prevents professional isolation. When I came back to work after my first child, I fretted over how I would be viewed by my (often younger) childless colleagues. I feared being dismissed as “just another mother”.

What I hadn’t realised was that becoming a mother would open up an entirely new world of connections to me. I was suddenly a member of this wonderful community of women (and men) who understood how I felt. I cannot overstate the enormity of this, because this community has the power to reshape the profession.

In a school environment, setting boundaries can be complicated. Individual teachers can’t just start saying “no” to whole-school policies. But Sheppard has seen first-hand the impact that mothers (and fathers) can have when they come together; for example, in pushing for more flexible-working policies.

Change takes time, but working together is how we build a supportive, sustainable school culture, from the inside.

4. Get a coach

Having an extended break from work to look after a child can knock your confidence. That’s why it can be really helpful to seek out the support of a mentor.

Becoming a parent is a big identity shift, so it makes sense that teachers returning from maternity leave might need a little help in building themselves back up again. A personal mentor or coach can offer support and hold us to account as we develop our professional goals, ensuring that we actually see them through.

When I return to work, I’ll be seeking out a mentor of my own. This support can come from within the school, in the form of a line manager or other colleague. But we might also cast our net a little wider.

For example, MTPT’s Cradle to Classroom programme is a package of coaching and workshops that is fully funded for teachers in state schools in England. Sheppard and her team of International Coaching Federation-accredited coaches have a wealth of experience, and their testimonials speak for themselves.

Support from senior leadership

I am incredibly lucky to work at a school where the leadership team has only ever supported me as a mother. My transition back into the classroom has been managed with care and completely with my input.

This feels like a luxury when so many of my peers are not as fortunate. That support has given me the headspace to write this article - and we must continue to talk openly in this way.

However, I am under no illusions. Retention of teachers returning from maternity leave is not a problem that new mothers can (or should have to) fix by themselves. We can redefine the terms of our labour, build our boundaries and find our village, but mothers will continue to leave unless things change fundamentally.

On the other hand, if the right people listen, we could reshape the profession so that teaching feels like a sustainable job. The results could be transformative for us as individuals, for our families and, just as importantly, for the young people who benefit the most when their teachers stay.

Evelyn Waite is a history teacher at an international school in Spain