A Christmas gift wrapped in time: Why long leave matters

Just in time for Christmas, teachers have been given something many of them have not had in years. Not a hamper. Not a plaque. Not another round of applause that fades by January. Time.

The announcement that long leave will be reinstated for teachers from 2026 has landed softly in the public space, but its significance is anything but small. It is a decision that acknowledges, perhaps for the first time in a long while, that teaching is not just work. It is labour. Emotional labour. Cognitive labour. Care labour. And that labour takes a toll.

From the outside, teaching can look deceptively comfortable. The school bell rings, the term ends, and the assumption follows that teachers are permanently on vacation. Christmas holidays. Easter break. Summer break. The narrative is familiar and persistent.

What that narrative conveniently forgets is that school breaks are not the same thing as teacher leave.

Teachers are regularly called out during student breaks for training, planning, workshops, curriculum reform meetings, grading, reporting, supervision, and administrative duties. Christmas break often includes professional development sessions. Summer break frequently becomes the longest uninterrupted stretch of work, just without students physically present. Leave, in the true sense of rest and recovery, is rare.

Long leave was never a luxury. It was a pressure valve.

Teaching is a profession that asks people to give constantly. Attention. Patience. Emotional regulation. Stability. Compassion. Teachers manage classrooms, but they also manage crises. They spot hunger before lunch time. They notice bruises that no one explains. They recognise when a child is not themselves long before anyone else does.

They fill gaps that society quietly leaves open.

Some teachers become counsellors by default. Others become advocates, social workers, mentors, emergency contacts and, in some heartbreaking cases, guardians. There are teachers in this country who have taken students into their homes because home was not safe. Teachers who have spent their own money on food, uniforms, transport, and supplies. Teachers who know more about a child’s fears than that child’s parents ever will, simply because they spend more waking hours with them during the school term.

This is not just teaching children. This is holding lives together.

And it is exhausting.

Not the kind of tired that a weekend fixes, but the kind that settles into your bones. Emotional fatigue. Decision fatigue. Compassion fatigue. The kind that slowly erodes joy and creativity if it is not interrupted with rest.

Of course, as with any profession, there are individuals who fall short of the standard. No sector is immune to that reality. But it is neither fair nor rational to design policy around the exception rather than the majority. Most teachers work diligently, ethically, and far beyond what their job descriptions demand. They should not be punished or denied necessary rest because of fears that a few might take advantage of the system.

If accountability is the concern, then the answer is not to remove long leave, but to strengthen the mechanisms that ensure it is used responsibly. Systems can hold people accountable without stripping away their humanity.

Long leave offered something deeper than time off. It offered dignity. It acknowledged that when a society cannot compensate its educators in ways that are fully commensurate with the scope, intensity and importance of their work, there is a moral responsibility to compensate them in other ways. Time becomes part of that compensation. Rest becomes part of the wage.

Burnout is not a personal failure. It is a systemic consequence.

So yes, this announcement is a Christmas gift to teachers. A rare one. Not wrapped in paper, but in policy.

Not shiny, but deeply needed.

But it is also a gift to Barbados.

Because rested teachers teach better. Reflective teachers innovate. Supported teachers stay. When we protect the wellbeing of educators, we protect the learning of children. We protect the stability of schools. We protect the future workforce of this country.

A teacher who has had time to recover returns with more than lesson plans. They return with clarity. With patience. With perspective. With the emotional capacity to continue showing up for other people’s children.

At Christmas, we talk a lot about gratitude. Perhaps this decision is one way of showing it, not just in words, but in action.

As the nation unwraps gifts this season, it is worth sitting with this one. Long leave is not about doing less. It is about recognising what has already been given, and ensuring that those we rely on to shape minds and nurture futures are still whole enough to do the work well.

And that is a gift worth giving.

Dr Zhane Bridgeman-Maxwell is a science educator, researcher, writer and disruptor of outdated education systems in Barbados. Focused on redesigning learning through policy shifts, change management and pedagogical innovation, she amplifies the voices of students, teachers, and parents, while reimagining what school can and should be.