‘Burnt out’ school staff at breaking point, report claims

A new report from the charity Education Support claims that teachers are suffering from more severe psychological problems than at any point this century, and that the situation is likely to escalate if the government does not act.

The charity’s teacher wellbeing index indicates that stress levels amongst teachers and school leaders have climbed for the third year in a row and are now the highest ever. 84% of school teachers and three-quarters of teachers describe themselves as ‘stressed’, and more than a third of school staff report experiencing a mental health issue in the past academic year. 49% think that their workplace is having a detrimental affect on their health and wellbeing.

“Overwork has become normalised. Education professionals don’t feel trusted,” said Education Support’s chief executive, Sinéad McBrearty. “We are beyond ‘crisis’. We are in a state of distress.”

The report also found that two out of five teachers are having difficulty concentrating, and around half are having trouble sleeping. Headteachers seem to be suffering, with the charity claiming that they field up to 40 calls to its helpline for support from headteachers every day.

“Teachers shrug their shoulders and think: this is what a job in education requires. And it’s not,” McBrearty concluded. “It is not healthy, not for teachers, not for their family and not for the children they teach.”

Record levels of stress ‘put teachers at breaking point’ (The Guardian) Huge rise in teachers welling up at work (TES) 'Urgent action' needed to stem headteacher burnout (TES) Three-quarters of teachers stressed out, study finds (Schools Week)

Why should this matter to me? Calls for teaching reform for the sake of educators’ mental health certainly aren’t new, but the scale of the problem seems to have escalated, if this report is to be believed. As Education Support points out, this isn’t just a problem in terms of teacher recruitment and retention: it sets a terrible example for children to see their teachers and role models buckling under stress. Given all this, it may be an appropriate time to pitch time and energy-saving tools to schools, as well as offering training to senior leadership to promote resilience and the introduction of stress-reducing policies for staff. Enrichment products for children may also be timely, as the importance of teaching psychological resilience techniques at a young age has never been more evident.