‘The way schools are run is inhumane’

Our schools system has too big a cost for mental health – we can’t allow teachers and pupils to slip through the cracks
17th June 2018, 6:03pm

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‘The way schools are run is inhumane’

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/way-schools-are-run-inhumane
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It’s definitely a step in the right direction that mindfulness is being brought into schools. It’s a step towards an acknowledgement that most students need something more than a torrent of academia to succeed.

But it’s not just pupils who need to have dedicated mindfulness time, but their teachers, too. 

Humans need many things to be their happiest selves, and the process of recognising and understanding emotion, both in themselves and others, is a vital part of that. “Why do I want to throw a book across the room?”, “Arif looks upset…what would I want if I were upset?” or even “Am I thirsty? When did I last drink?’

These sorts of questions involve a self-awareness you could call mindfulness. It’s important, but there is currently very little room being made for emotional development in schools. It won’t surprise you to know that not being able to recognise - or not having the time to recognise - basic emotions in oneself and others leads to all sorts of emotional unhappiness, and even more physical problems, such as poor behaviour.

Thankfully, schools are starting to recognise that staff aren’t machines. Some schools offer the option of a wellbeing course. Others offer half an hour’s worth of leisure time per week to do an activity you enjoy, such as tennis, running or drawing. Just like for the students, there is a recognition that staff need something else to make them successful - or at least to be mentally well enough to keep teaching.

I was looking for more information on staff wellness and absence, and found this guide to dealing with staff absence.

If you don’t have time for a read, tip 10 is: “Ensure that staff hitting short-term triggers understand that his/her absence is causing concern and that he/she could be given a warning at any stage, should their attendance not improve over that set period of time. Give them a target and monitor his/her attendance over a set period of time, ie, no more than two days over a 12-week period.”

While I don’t disagree that a member of staff who takes days off to go shopping deserves a warning, I do feel that somebody suffering from depression and anxiety needs a different approach than “You’re taking too many days off and if it continues, you will receive a warning.’”

It seems less supportive and more…crushing, doesn’t it? 

‘Too many of you are having babies…’

Tip 11 is baffling: “Carry out regular analyses of absences across absence types (sickness, unpaid leave, paid leave, maternity/paternity etc), departments (teachers, leadership, support staff), line managers, terms and academic years to assess trends and find ways to improve absence.”

Imagine that conversation: “Hello maths department. We’ve noticed too many of you are having babies, resulting in maternity and paternity leave. Here are some condoms. New school policy: one child per department member.” Or even, being less ridiculous for the moment, “many of the humanities department have a vomiting bug, which leaves them laid low for days after”. What to do? Drag each member into a return-to-work meeting the moment they come back, and warn them that they’ve had five days off and any other absence this year may result in a warning? (I use five days, as a school at which I worked used that as the trigger for a return-to-work meeting.)

Not once in the article does it mention that the wellbeing and happiness of the staff might be, at least in part, the responsibility of the school and the culture it creates. There is a mention that staff could be given the opportunity to discuss wellbeing or stress awareness, but that seems about as useful as a 20-minute mindfulness session every Thursday.

Let’s say I attend the stress awareness briefing and identify myself as hitting many of the stress criteria. What do I do? I can go to my line manager, yes, but she’s more likely to be stressed than I am and what can she do? Tell me I only need 90 per cent of my mixed-ability class to get Grade 5 or above in their GCSEs, instead of the school target of 95 per cent? That won’t fly with senior leaders. Take a class away from me? Nobody wants to disrupt a class like that, and besides, there’s nobody with the capacity to take on more. Advise me that I should try having a lunch break, instead of giving detentions for missed homework? That’s a great idea, but if I want to make a dent in the number of students not bringing in homework, the detentions need to be run.

School leaders are not inherently inhumane: they are lovely people (on the whole) who set out to make the world a better place. But the way schools are run is inhumane, because it costs too much in terms of mental health. The idea of accepting casualties along the way - students who fall through the cracks, staff who quit the career they love - is repellent.

The writer left secondary mainstream teaching last year

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