Happy New Year 2026!

The holidays have come to an end, and the term starts again. Spring term provides a chance for a new year, new beginnings, and a chance for a reset. But how ready and rested are teachers feeling after the break? Teachers without children at home found the Christmas break a little more relaxing than teachers with children: 43% of teachers without children at home reported the Christmas holidays were ‘relaxing’ compared to 35% of teachers with children at home.

A Tapper won an iPad!

Congratulations to the winner of December’s prize draw 🥳 Mrs T is now the proud owner of an Apple iPad!

“I’ve used Teacher Tapp for a few years now and never expected to win anything. To find out I’d won an iPad – and on the last day of term before Christmas – was an amazing feeling! Thank you so much!”

New January Prize Draw

With a New Year comes a new prize draw! You are the most important part of Teacher Tapp, and we want to continue saying “thank you” for making such a valuable contribution!

From the 5th January until the 31st January, for every 15 questions you answer on Teacher Tapp you’ll receive a ticket for the Teacher Tapp Prize Draw.

Five Tappers will win a £100 gift card, and the prize draw will happen on 2nd February. Full Ts&Cs are here. Good luck!

Christmas Dinner Preferences

Every year we ask Christmas questions – but has the Christmas dinner plate changed much over time? And are teachers in the North of England sitting down to dramatically different dishes to teachers in the South?

Here are three findings about Christmas dinners…

🍽️ No big changes to Christmas Dinner contents over time

Christmas dinners haven’t changed much since we first asked in 2023 – and that’s probably to be expected! It’s one to watch for the future. Our predictions based on the figures so far are: meats other than turkey will grow in popularity (in 2023, 43% of teachers had a meat other than Turkey on their plate, in 2025 that had nudged up to 45%); Yorkshire puddings will become a staple of the Christmas dinner (52% of plates contained them in 2023, but in 2025 that went up to 54%).

🦃 Londoners are the least likely to eat turkey

Turkey is considered the traditional choice for Christmas dinner, but in London, only 60% of Tappers ate it on Christmas Day, whereas in the South East, 70% of plates had turkey on them. The South West were the most likely to have the controversial option of cauliflower cheese (39%), and Londoners were the least likely to have the dish (26%).

🥬 Younger teachers aren’t keen on Brussel sprouts

Teachers in their 20s aren’t as keen on the green veg as their older counterparts: 66% had sprouts on their plate, compared to 79% of teachers aged 50 or over. However, younger teachers are more likely to have had pigs in blankets on their plate compared to older teachers (81% vs 76%).

Emails over the Christmas holiday

41% of school leaders were still checking their emails over the holiday, and the same was true for 26% of classroom teachers.

However, those who are checking their email are slightly more likely to report feeling not at all rested after the break, compared to teachers who didn’t check their emails (8% vs 6%).

Whether or not teachers felt rested also changed depending on how they replied to the question about activities over the first weekend of the New Year.

We asked if teachers had exercised, socialised with friends, visited a place, spent time outside, spent time pottering, or if they didn’t do any of those things.

Teachers who exercised were the most likely to report they felt ‘totally rested’ (11%) compared to teachers who did none of the activities on our list (6%). 9% of teachers who socialised with friends, spent time outside or pottered reported feeling fully rested, and the same was true for 10% of those who visited a place.

New Year resolutions

Just over a quarter (26%) of Tappers made New Year’s Resolutions this year, and the targets you have set yourselves for 2026 offer a fascinating snapshot of what matters most to teachers, and many are about taking back control 💪.

We asked those of you making resolutions what they were, and more than 1,200 of you wrote in to share your resolutions. These were the top responses:

Health-related resolutions were the most common among Teacher Tappers, with around half of all the resolutions pertaining in some way to health or fitness. Teachers want to move more, run, lose weight, and build healthier routines. Alongside this are simple but important goals: drinking water, eating lunch, and listening to their bodies during the school day. These resolutions reflect a growing awareness that well-being matters.

The next most common resolutions to make were related to reconnecting with interests beyond work. Reading is popular, with 125 Tappers specifically citing ‘reading’ as part of their resolution. Both fiction and non-educational books were mentioned, often with clear goals like one book a month. Others want to learn an instrument, take up a craft, or study a language; all ways to stretch their minds and enjoy something just for themselves.

Work-life balance resolutions feature strongly too. Teachers are setting clear boundaries: leaving school earlier, protecting weekends, and switching off digitally in the evenings. These are practical, achievable steps that show confidence in managing workload more intentionally.

There’s also a noticeable shift towards self-advocacy. Teachers talk about prioritising themselves, letting go of guilt, and learning to say no when needed. Many Tappers told us they were imposing set “clocking off” times, and taking practical steps like removing emails from personal phones, or leaving work laptops at school.

And of course, this makes sense. Because setting a resolution to start a new sport, or learn a new skill, needs time to happen! If you’ve set yourself a resolution, good luck! We’ll be checking in with how they’re going in a few weeks…

Daily Reads

Over the Christmas period, you might have noticed we counted down our most popular blogs of 2025. Here they all are, the most read blogs for secondary teachers, and the most read blogs for primary teachers!