Ministers, school employers and inspectorates have been accused of “failing in their duty of care to teachers” by a major teaching union after its survey revealed that nine in 10 staff said their job has had a negative impact on their mental health in the past year.
A survey by the NASUWT teaching union also found that three-quarters (78 per cent) of teachers polled said their school does not provide staff with workspaces that promote wellbeing, and two-thirds of teachers say that their school does not have measures in place to monitor and manage stress and burnout.
The union has voiced concern about the impact of government policies and school inspection in light of the survey results.
It warned that more than four in five teachers (81 per cent) polled said they do not believe government policies support schools to respond to the mental health and wellbeing of teachers.
And the majority of teachers polled (76 per cent) said they do not believe the inspection system takes teachers’ mental health and wellbeing into account when assessing schools with just two per cent saying they believe it does.
The NASUWT Wellbeing at Work Survey 2021 ran from mid-December 2021 to early January 2022 and gathered responses from 11,857 teachers.
When asked what impact the increased stress was having on their lives, 82 per cent of the respondents said they had suffered loss of sleep, while 28 per cent had increased their use of alcohol and a further 10 per cent said they had experienced a relationship breakdown.
Teachers’ wellbeing can’t be ‘collateral damage’
Responding to the results, Dr Patrick Roach, NASUWT general secretary, said there were “numerous steps” that employers, governments and inspectorates could take that would “reduce the pressures on teachers without sacrificing educational standards or rigour in our schools”.
He said: “Cutting out unnecessary bureaucracy, trusting teachers to teach and giving them greater freedom and autonomy to help pupils learn and progress - this is the model followed by the best employers and the most successful education systems globally.
“Establishing working conditions that support the health and wellbeing of teachers will deliver a win-win in schools’ efforts to ensure the best outcomes for pupils.”
Dr Roach said that employers and governments were “fixated” on heaping ever more pressure on teachers on the “damaging assumption” that teachers’ dedication to their pupils is unbreakable. He said that the toll on teachers’ health and wellbeing could continue to be written off as “collateral damage”.
