New Ofsted research has found that teachers are highly stressed and anxious.
Those working in primary schools are more stressed than those working in secondary schools, according to the watchdog.
The findings were outlined by Daniel Muijs, the inspectorate’s head of research, at today’s ResearchED national conference in London.
He described the initial findings of the survey as “a little bit not so great”.
He said: “Over half of our teachers record low to medium wellbeing. Relatively high levels of stress and anxiety as well, compared to other professions.
“Interestingly, wellbeing was lower in the primary schools than the secondary schools. We don’t know why that is. We will do some further analysis on some of the other variables that we collected.
“Stress is higher among managers which is maybe less surprising but we find nevertheless that three-quarters are satisfied with their jobs as teachers.”
He said the next phase of the project will “unpack” some of the issues raised.
Mr Muijs said survey was carried out at randomly selected schools and colleges.
The first part of this was completed in the summer term, with a second phase due to take place around November.
Ofsted will then carry out qualitative work in some schools and colleges that scored particularly well or badly in the survey to see what they do.
Mr Muijs said the work came about after Ofsted asked teachers what they would like it to do research on, and they answered stress, workload and wellbeing.
