Staff wellbeing ‘crisis’ forcing teachers out of schools, charity says

Teacher welfare across the UK is at its lowest level since 2019, according to charity Education Support.

Its latest report says the education workforce is in “crisis” and warns that unless more is done to keep teachers in work, “young people’s education will be negatively affected”.

Teachers’ unions in England said schools were facing a “tsunami of stress and pressure” and teachers were being “pushed out of the classroom at a time when children need them most”.

A spokesman for the Department for Education (DfE) said the government was “making teaching the highly valued profession it should be”, adding that last year saw one of the lowest rates of teachers leaving the profession since 2010.

Education Support’s annual Teacher Wellbeing Index measures the stress, mental health and wellbeing issues reported by teachers and school leaders across the UK.

More than 3,000 education staff registered with the YouGov survey service answered questions about their mental health and wellbeing between June and July this year.

charity’s findings recommend:

• 76% of education staff who responded reported feeling stressed
• 77% say they experience poor mental health symptoms because of their job
• 86% of senior leaders said they felt stressed, and many reported symptoms of burnout and burnout

The report also used the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Health Scale (WEMWBS), which scores a person’s well-being based on, for example, how often they report feeling optimistic, relaxed or connected to other people. These scores are then combined to give an overall picture of the participant’s mental health; higher scores indicate a more positive mental outlook.

Compared to the general population, teachers and school administrators who responded to the survey had lower well-being scores. The report’s education staff wellbeing score was 43, compared to general population scores of 51 in England and Northern Ireland, 49 in Wales and 48 in Scotland.

Responses from more than a third (36%) of teaching staff produced a WEMWBS score below 41, indicating possible clinical depression.

Sinéad McBrearty, chief executive of Education Support, said: “We urgently need a national retention strategy that puts staff wellbeing at its core.

“Without this, more teachers will leave the profession and the education of more children and young people will suffer.”

Former headteacher Hilary Mitchell left the profession over Easter this year after 32 years of teaching, including five years as a primary school headteacher in Walsall.

“It got to the point where that was it,” he said.

“I was so exhausted when I got home. I couldn’t sleep. It made me so angry because of the constant demands and never feeling like you were doing a good enough job.”

He said it was a decision that made him “extremely sad” and was not part of his career plan.

“In my mind, I’m a young person at 56. I had energy to give, but I feel like that energy is being taken away from me,” he said.

“I really enjoyed my job and it was the best school in the world. But there was more and more demand, more pressure, but less resources and funding.”

Simon Hart, principal of Springwest Academy in west London, said his school introduced a “culture of kindness” that encouraged staff feelings of belonging, trust and self-esteem.

His school has classes from 9am to 4pm Monday to Thursday, meaning the school may close for staff and students at 1.40pm every Friday.

The school also offers online parent evenings for staff and parents; it’s “a huge health offering that’s very popular,” he says.

The school encourages staff to get to know each other with regular coffee and cake breaks, and the system for enforcing rules of behavior is run by the school’s leadership team rather than teachers.

“Many teachers in education leave because of their behaviour; this situation cannot be managed,” says Simon.

Taking detentions and other behavior issues out of teachers’ hands means they can “just go ahead and teach.”

He says the approach has had a positive impact on achievement, school culture and staff retention.

Teacher welfare is an issue the government is trying to improve as part of its manifesto commitment. Recruitment of 6,500 new teachers.

However earlier this yearAnalysis by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) said unfilled vacancies are at a record high and recruitment into teacher education remains “persistently low.”

Teachers’ unions are calling for welfare, workload and support to be a priority for the government.

The National Education Union (NEU) said it was a “system in crisis”, while the NASUWT added that teachers were being “pushed out of classrooms”.

The Association of School and College Leaders said the “many positive aspects” of teaching were “increasingly undermined by the tsunami of stress and pressure”.

And the National Association of Head Teachers said “real action is needed to undo some of the huge burdens our dedicated teachers and leaders carry, show them they are valued and re-establish teaching as a truly rewarding career.”

The DfE said it had already met its manifesto commitment to recruit and retain teachers and that the government had “taken action to tackle poor student behaviour, high workloads and poor wellbeing among staff”.