The world of education is a difficult and complex one. You learn, you lead, and you never give up.But here’s the question no one asks in the job description: How do you connect to others and keep going when the role itself isolates you?

The Paradox of Presence

Hundreds of children. Dozens of staff. Parents at the gate, governors in the meeting room, emails pinging at all hours. You are never alone.

And yet.

The role matters. The expectation weighs heavy. And somewhere between the safeguarding concern at 8am and the budget meeting at 4pm, you realise: this is profoundly lonely work.

Leadership in education demands you be present for everyone whilst simultaneously creating distance between you and almost everyone. The decisions that keep you awake don’t get shared in the staffroom. The weight of accountability doesn’t lighten through casual conversation. The person you were – the one with time, with lightness, with connections that felt easy – recedes further each term.

What We Don’t Say

We talk about resilience. We attend conferences on wellbeing. We implement strategies for staff retention and pupil voice and community engagement.

But do we talk about the loneliness? The life we had before and the connections we don’t have now?

The role changes you. It has to. But what do we lose in the transformation? And who notices when the person carrying the vision for everyone else is running on empty?

The Question That Remains

How do you keep going?

Not with platitudes about self-care or empty reassurances that “it gets easier”. But truly – how do you sustain yourself when the work matters this much and the isolation feels this real?

Perhaps the answer lies not in having all the answers, but in being brave enough to ask the question aloud. To name the loneliness. To admit that learning and leading and never giving up is extraordinary work – and that it shouldn’t require us to lose ourselves entirely in the process.

The role matters. But so do you.