I feel like a failure

[Lilllypad11]

I’m currently a mentor and juggling a tlr that I feel I’m not doing well enough in and spinning other plates at work with additional responsibilities.

a large proportion of my students didn’t perform well in mocks. I’m so upset, it’s much higher than the number that failed last year and I’m feeling really critical of myself. I got the spreadsheet of the students that failed and I’m shocked, I really feel like it’s my fault and that’s upsetting me and just making fe feel like I’m a complete failure as a teacher.

Firstly, I am so sorry you are having a tough time. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves as teachers and we take our pupils results very personally.

However, you are absolutely not a failure.

Consider: how much revision/work did the students do? If you taught the course to the best of your abilities and gave them everything they needed, you cannot do more. Some onus has to be on the student.

What is your relationship like with your line manager? Can you speak to him/her, explain that you are feeling overwhelmed and ask for some support? Can someone else take the mentoring for example? Or share some of the additional responsibility?

Have you compared your classes results to others? Perhaps everyone's are lower this year? Or look at how the students did in other subjects- maybe they have done poorly across the board?

Look carefully at the results/papers- it may be specific things they have done poorly on so target those in lessons.

What subjects are you supporting your students with?

If you support learning maths or computer science, I'd be happy to provide you with some direction on learning techniques to make these subjects easier.