Alice Scholz, an Australian teacher who has lived in the UK for eight years, is moving back to Australia after experiencing verbal and physical abuse from students and parents, which led to burnout. The 31-year-old, based in Windsor, gained viral fame for her Instagram reels depicting life on a UK high street, but behind the humour lies a painful decision to leave the teaching profession.
Why she quit teaching
Ms Scholz told The Daily Mirror that the abuse was a major factor. “I’ve been punched, scratched, and left bruised by students. More recently, while supporting a child who was trying to hurt his peers, I followed his recommended calming strategy by getting down to his level and gently holding his hands, at which point he grabbed my breast so hard it caused bruising,” she said.
She also described incidents involving parents. “In one incident, a father much larger than me stood over me, pointed in my face, and shouted that I wasn’t working hard enough because his child had a plastic block thrown at her. In another case, a father was furious that I had to report their child hitting a peer. He swore in my face, insulted other pupils in the class standing behind me, and then both parents spent the next month holding smartphones up, recording me at pick-up time.”
Comparison between Australia and UK teaching
Ms Scholz began her career teaching in Australia for two and a half years before moving to the UK, where she taught for more than seven years. “I’ve taught in both Australia and the UK and the differences were pretty clear. Australia had a much better work-life balance and better pay, and although I haven’t taught there for about seven and a half years, when I did, there was far less pressure to constantly prove yourself as a teacher,” she said.
Despite spending over $32,000 on UK visas and enjoying the country’s history and travel, she said the teaching system broke her. “While I’ve had plenty of moments I’ve really loved working in the UK, the system itself has been exhausting and ultimately led me to burnout, so overall I preferred the Australian system.”
Impact on mental health
Ms Scholz shared that the stress turned her into someone she didn’t recognise. “I left for many reasons, one of them was because it was turning me into someone that I wasn’t. It was the constant stress, it was the lack of support and it was the abuse. I, like many other teachers, experienced verbal abuse from parents and from students. And like many other teachers as well, I experienced physical abuse,” she said.
She added, “I literally gave this profession everything, I gave it my time, my energy, and my mental health, and for the longest time I kind of convinced myself that the struggle was because I just wasn’t trying hard enough.”
Moving forward
Since quitting teaching, Ms Scholz has been documenting her journey online as she prepares to return to Australia. Her viral reels show the reality of UK high street life, including wild nights out, arrests, and surprise snowfall, but the underlying story is one of a teacher driven out by a system she says failed her.
