A woman has shared how she left her eight-year-long career as a maths teacher after becoming “exhausted, burnt out” and “missing” her own children’s lives.
Charlotte Webborn is dead set against ever returning to the classroom after struggling through long, stressful days, “relentless” workloads, and arguments with teens amid “rising classroom disruption”.
The 33-year-old’s workday started before her children – names not shared for privacy reasons – were even awake, and even when she got home in the evening she found herself glued to her laptop.
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It was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“You’re giving everything to other people’s children and then you’ve got nothing left for your own,” Charlotte, from Swansea, told Need To Know.
With a 40 minutes commute each way to the secondary school she taught at, family life was squeezed to the margins of an already exhausting job.
Charlotte added: “I was leaving the house at 7am, and sometimes I wouldn’t even see them in the morning.
“You miss the small things like breakfast together or school drop offs.
“It was all rushed, or left to my husband, Sam.”
In the classroom, the job had become increasingly difficult.
Charlotte said: “Behaviour has definitely got worse since Covid, there was just constant low level disruption.
“This had a knock-on effect on teaching, as more time was spent managing behaviour than actually teaching, which added to the overall pressure and workload.
“I was arguing with pupils over basic things such as going to the toilet, drinking water.
“You’re firefighting all day – it stops being about teaching.”
Similarly, she found that the role itself – and the pressures put upon it – has fundamentally changed the profession she trained for.
She said: “It’s not even about teaching anymore – it’s paperwork, inspections, and constant scrutiny.
“There’s a lack of trust.
“Even your planning time, you’re expected to sit in school to do it.
“You’re not treated like a professional.”
And by the time she got home, the day was still far from over.
Charlotte added: “I’d walk through the door completely drained.
“I’d still be on my laptop in the evenings, planning, marking, catching up.
“It never really stopped.
“I was exhausted and burnt out, and then I’d come home and didn’t have the energy for my own children.
“I hated that.”
After years in the system, the strain became impossible to ignore.
Charlotte said: “I got to January last year and just thought, ‘I can’t do this anymore.
“I just knew I didn’t want to feel that exhausted anymore.
“It was a build-up, especially after having my own children.
“The role felt increasingly inflexible, and I found that I was bringing the stress home with me, which pushed me to make a change.
“I wanted something where I could still teach, but also have a life.”
For the mum-of-two, that came when she found online school Minerva Virtual Academy and joined in 2025 as a maths teacher and mentor.
The role involves working from home, and having far more flexibility in her day – as well as being a more present parent.
Charlotte said: “I can go to a gym class before my children wake up, come home to give them breakfast, walk them to school, and still be ready to start teaching by 9am.”
She also gets to choose how she structures her day with her teaching duties, meaning she can also do school pickups and spend more time with her family.
Charlotte said: “I would never go back to a classroom now.
“The role has given me a much better balance between my career and family life, which just wasn’t possible before.”
A huge perk has been the change in herself.
She added: “I’m not exhausted anymore, I‘ve got energy and I haven’t felt overly stressed for a year now.
“My husband says it’s changed all of our lives.
“I’m more present [at home], and I’m not snapping at the kids because I’m drained.
“They’ve got a mum who is actually there.”
A recent study commissioned by Minerva Virtual Academy – an independent online school for 11-18 year olds in the UK – found that almost three quarters (74%) of teachers say they have considered leaving the profession due to burnout.
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