Recent research indicates that:
- 72% of education professionals describe themselves as stressed
- 34% of education professionals have experienced a mental health issue in the past academic year
- 69% of education professionals consider that they don’t have enough guidance about mental health and wellbeing at work
- 43% of education professionals believe that their institutions didn’t properly support employees who experienced mental health and wellbeing problems
Mental health problems have a huge impact, not just on individuals, but on schools and the wider economy.
Work-related stress
Stress has a major impact on mental health and is often beyond the control of the individual who’s suffering.
Work-related stress is unlikely to be due to one isolated factor as there are usually a variety of influences and pressures.
The Health and Safety Executive has identified six main factors that contribute to work-related stress:
1. Demands
What demands are placed on you? Do you have to manage large volumes of marking or attend regular after-school meetings?
2. Control
How much control do you have over your role? Do you have an input into your timetable, and can you control requests for data and how quickly you need to respond?
3. Support
How much support do you get? Are the senior leadership team supportive in managing classroom behaviour, and do you feel able to ask your colleagues if you need help?
4. Relationships
How good are the relationships that you have at school? Do people share ideas and information, and are unacceptable behaviours such as bullying dealt with?
5. Role
How do you see your role and responsibilities? Are expectations made clear to you, and do you have opportunities to discuss concerns or uncertainties?
6. Change
Are you involved with changes that take place? Are you given information about policies and do you get the opportunity to influence decisions?
Managing your own wellbeing
There are some things you can do to look after your own mental health. Think about what causes you to feel stressed. What can you do to reduce that stress? And what can be done within your school? Our new course, Staff Wellbeing in Schools, can help.
Staff Wellbeing in Schools online training course
This course has been released to mirror Ofsted’s updated inspection framework.
It looks at the above six key areas in detail and provides examples of various scenarios that show the difference that SLT can make to support staff wellbeing across a school.
The course costs £18.50 to buy online, and is also included in our cost-effective online learning service – EduCare for Education.
