Teachers say their mental health and wellbeing are suffering as a result of an “alarming” rise in challenging behaviour, including verbal and physical abuse from parents and pupils.
A survey of more than 3,000 teachers and school staff by Education Support has revealed that 82 per cent of respondents reported that challenging behaviour by pupils and students had increased and that this had negatively affected their mental health and wellbeing.
And 70 per cent said they faced an increase in challenging interactions with parents.
The charity’s findings, published today, also show that 84 per cent of staff who said that verbal or physical abuse by pupils or students had increased believe it is because of a lack of provision for pupils’ physical, emotional and mental health needs.
In its 2024 Wellbeing Index, Education Support is calling for the government to take action on staff retention, stress and burnout rates, and do more to raise awareness of suicide risk and prevention.
It says dedicated retention strategies updated to account for the widening responsibilities that now come with a career in education following the Covid-19 pandemic “must be urgently prioritised”.
School and college leader stress requires significant intervention to disrupt the cycle: “Government must prioritise the provision of targeted, high-quality support to leaders if we are to retain talent at all levels across the sector,” the report says.
It also calls for the “social contract” between families, schools and colleges to be renewed “helping parents, educators and children themselves to align around agreed aspirations for young lives and learning”.
It calls for suicides to be included in the Health and Safety Executive’s annual reporting or its inspection and protection regimes.
The charity also says that special educational needs and disabilities provision - including additional or learning support needs, children’s mental health and social services and poverty reduction programmes - urgently require proper funding.
Now in its eighth year, the Wellbeing Index does include positive news with a slight improvement in some of the wellbeing data and in perceptions of workplace culture.
“The good work of school and college leaders” has seen a 5 per cent decrease in the number of staff saying their organisations’ culture has a negative effect on their mental health (from 55 per cent in 2023 to 50 per cent this year).
However, teachers still report “disturbingly high” rates of stress, anxiety, depression and burnout across the education workforce.
’Disturbingly high rates’ of stress and burnout
Some 77 per cent of the workforce continue to report mental health symptoms linked to their work, with high levels of anxiety, depression, stress and burnout persisting.
More than one-third of school staff score below 40 on the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale, a measure of mental wellbeing focusing entirely on positive aspects of mental health, indicating serious mental health concerns.
The most common symptoms reported are insomnia (46 per cent), irritability (44 per cent) and difficulty concentrating (38 per cent).
Sinéad Mc Brearty, CEO of Education Support, said: “Disturbingly high rates of stress, anxiety and burnout continue to affect education staff, exacerbated by pupil and parent behaviour, and a lack of support outside school for children and young people.
“The impact on teachers’ mental health is significant, and partly explains why so many are leaving the profession. These issues point to societal challenges beyond education that require deep thinking and creativity to address.”
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union said: “This report shows that there continues to be a real crisis when it comes to wellbeing of teachers and leaders.
“The fact that rates of anxiety, depression, burnout and acute stress remain at high levels this year for school leaders is a deep source of concern.
“It also serves as a stark reminder of the scale of the task the new government faces when it comes to making teaching an attractive profession once again.”
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