Headteachers are being left feeling “emotionally crushed” because budget pressures and staff shortages mean they “cannot meet the needs of all the young people in their care”, a support service has warned.
In its latest annual report, the Headrest charity warns that school leaders are now being asked to do an “impossible job”, causing “moral injury” to headteachers trying to make it work.
The findings are based on calls that Headrest has received from school leaders seeking support in 2022.
The group was set up to provide counselling to heads during the height of the pandemic but warns that some of its most “distressing” calls from school leaders came in the second half of last year.
Its annual report warns that, in 2022, school leaders faced the erosion of school budgets through inflation, excessive energy costs, unfunded pay rises and difficulties in retaining and recruiting staff.
It also highlights that those leading schools have faced difficulties in accessing mental health support for young people whose wellbeing has been worsened “by the toxic combination of a global pandemic and a cost-of-living crisis”.
‘Our callers often feel emotionally crushed’
The report says: “It is our view that the nation’s school leaders, who steadfastly led their schools through the stressful vicissitudes of a global pandemic, are now being asked to deliver the impossible.
“They increasingly carry the moral injury of knowing that however hard they work as an individual; however dedicated their staff teams; and however innovative they strive to be, they cannot meet the needs of all the young people in their care to the standard they desire.
“Our callers often feel emotionally crushed by the guilt that comes with this, but we do not accept it is school leaders who should bear this heavy burden of culpability. We believe that those who hold prominent positions at national level need to urgently acknowledge and address the severity of the current crisis.”
The annual report charts the types of call Headrest has received from school leaders seeking support since it started work in the autumn of 2020.
As Tes reported in 2021, the group has previously highlighted concerns about Ofsted inspections during the pandemic and called for them to be stopped.
Its new report says that from December 2021 to Autumn 2022, heads raised concerns that key stakeholders expected “an instant return to pre-Covid normality that was undeliverable with staff absences still being significant in number”.
The charity said that callers had also felt physically and mentally exhausted from leading schools through a global pandemic, “with little time to rest, reflect or review”.
But rather than the pressure easing, the report goes on to say that some of its most “distressing” calls from heads seeking support came between May and December last year.
It adds: “We have had an abundance of calls from school leaders who faced an abyss of self-doubt in their capabilities. Invariably this was triggered not by their lack of professional competence, but because they did not have the staffing, funding, external support or personal energy reserves to face the demands being placed upon them.”
Headrest also notes that, in small schools, heads often had fewer, or no other, senior leaders to work with. It said leaders in this position facing these challenges feel particularly isolated.
Other problems highlighted in the report include “occasional rogue governors”. The report said that the overwhelming majority of callers acknowledge that their school governors have supported them “with a commitment and compassion that goes well beyond what could be reasonably expected of volunteers”.
However, it adds that it has received calls from a small number of school leaders who have been faced with individual governors who they feel have undermined, micromanaged or intimidated them.
The Headrest report makes a series of recommendations, including:
- Ensure a fully funded induction and mentoring programme for all new headteachers and for those appointed from September 2019.
- Funding to develop key specialist services that support families and young people, including those for mental health.
- Provide all headteachers with access to independent fully-funded support for their wellbeing and encourage school governors to ensure this is accessed.
- Initiate an immediate review of the wellbeing of school leaders in small schools.
The report concludes: “The time for national educational policymakers to act is now. Unless meaningful action is taken, the wellbeing of school leaders and their workforce will worsen.”
Headrest was co-founded in October 2020 by Ros McMullen and Andrew Morrish, two former headteachers and multi-academy trust chief executives.
The Department for Education has been contacted for comment.
