Formiris

“How can we support our teachers in approaching the final ten years of their careers differently, in a context of profound changes that can make this last chapter harder to navigate?”

Formiris is the training body for teachers in the French Catholic education network. Its Pays de la Loire regional branch sought to set up a group-based support program in response to a shared observation among school principals and training officers: in a context of significant change in the teaching profession (curriculum reform, evolving relationships with students and families, growing administrative workload), the final stage of teachers’ careers is not always a peaceful one. Apprehension, doubts and questions tend to take over a daily reality perceived as increasingly demanding, and the adjustments required by the evolution of the profession can seem insurmountable.

The challenge was therefore to offer these teachers a space to revisit their professional journey, identify what is meaningful to them, and actively project themselves into the final decade of their working life, rather than enduring it passively.

A meaning-at-work and life-story approach

The “Career Checkpoint” program was designed as a three-day journey, spread over six months, to support teachers in genuinely projecting themselves into the final stage of their careers. The format alternates individual moments of introspection with collective activities (paired presentations, group debriefings, small-group workshops), so that each participant can focus on their own trajectory while also benefiting from the perspective and experience of the group.

The six-month interval between the second and third day is central to the approach: it allows participants to experiment on the ground with new ways of inhabiting their profession, before returning to training to analyze these attempts and consolidate their professional project for the decade ahead.

A research-based reading framework on meaning at work

The content draws on a reading framework rooted in foundational research on meaning at work. This framework is complemented by practical tools and by an experimentation framework based on job crafting research (its three forms of work reshaping, namely tasks, relationships, and perception; and its three job-crafter profiles), inviting each participant to become the craftsperson of their own enjoyment at work.

Stages of the engagement

The engagement unfolded in four stages, articulated around the long-term timeline that is specific to this program:

Framing: co-designing with Formiris Pays de la Loire the content and format of the program, based on field-identified needs and on a shared ethical charter (commitment, focus, kindness, confidentiality), which ensures a safe space for participants.

Revisiting: supporting teachers in revisiting their professional journey and their relationship to the profession (life line, identification of purposes, values, achievements and obstacles, experience of and at work), to bring to light the strengths and tensions of their trajectory.

Illuminating: presenting participants with reading frameworks drawn from research on meaning at work, and applying them to their own situation in order to identify which components are sources of meaning and which erode it, and to open new perspectives.

Experimenting and consolidating: after six months of on-the-ground experimentation between the second and third day, collectively reflecting on the attempts made, analyzing their effects, and consolidating, with the help of job crafting and a vision board, a professional project for the final decade.

Why a research-based consulting approach was relevant

Faced with the often diffuse malaise of late-career teachers, it would have been tempting to respond with practical advice on administrative preparation for retirement, or with one-off wellbeing initiatives. The contribution of research made it possible to offer a sharper diagnosis: to distinguish what stems from the work environment from what stems from the teaching activity itself, and to link the difficulties experienced to specific components of meaning. Teachers thus left with a shared understanding of what they were going through, and with concrete levers for action, rather than generic prescriptions.

The interplay between individual and collective time, combined with the long timeline of the program (three days over six months), enables each participant to act as a responsible agent of their own project, rather than a passive recipient of advice. The group plays a driving role: paired presentations and small-group workshops surface solutions that no one would have found alone, and restore a sense of professional belonging that often weakens at the end of a career.