How recent surveys and statistics back up the anecdotes and shared stories of stress in the teaching population
Is teaching inherently stressful? And are teachers overworked? Talk to a teacher at random and you might get that impression; everyone seems to know a colleague who is struggling. I can vouch for that; I was the struggling colleague and never completed teaching training due to stress. Nor can I call to mind a single qualified teacher with whom I worked while training who did not mention some kind of significant personal challenge during their career.
Such troubles are not new. There have been support organisations for teachers in difficulty almost as long as there has been a modern profession. The Teachers’ Benevolent Fund, today known as Education Support, was first founded in 1877, and by the early 20th century named nervous breakdowns as one of the main reasons that teachers got in touch. Today, the organisation describes itself as ‘dedicated to improving the health and well-being of staff throughout the education sector’, suggesting this is still very much a current need.
Of course, good scientists avoid relying on anecdotal evidence to form judgements. And although objectively measuring stress, burnout and their counterparts, well-being and job satisfaction, is not straightforward, there have been several such studies in recent years. What can they tell us that stories of struggling colleagues cannot?
Looking for evidence
Over the past decade, technology has helped, allowing organisations like Teacher Tapp to conduct surveys of teachers’ attitudes en masse via phone-based polls. Although such studies are still fundamentally based on subjective self-assessment, the large numbers of respondents involved can lend the findings statistical validity. To quote two recent polls: in 2019, 57% of teachers surveyed on Teacher Tapp felt that their stress levels were unacceptably high. And over 69% of more than 6000 teachers polled in October 2021 felt that they were suffering from burnout to some extent.
Arguably, traditional survey-based reports are more reliable. Education Support publishes one of the most useful. In 2017 it commissioned its first mental health and well-being survey, obtaining responses from 1250 education professionals. A third said their job had made them feel stressed all or most of the time, 75% said they had experienced work-related physical and mental health issues in the previous two years, and more than half (53%) had considered leaving teaching in the previous two years as a result of health problems. Now known as the Teacher Wellbeing Index (pdf), the most recent edition was compiled following responses from in excess of 3000 UK teachers. Three-quarters of respondents now described themselves as stressed, 78% had experienced mental health symptoms, and 55% had sought to change or leave their current jobs. The report concludes: ‘Over the lifetime of the Teacher Wellbeing Index, these figures have not meaningfully improved, painting a bleak picture of the workforce’s long-term mental health.’
Three further survey-based reports into teacher well-being showed broadly similar findings. Ofsted’s 2019 offering (pdf) was prompted by research from the UK’s Health and Safety Executive, which stated that teaching staff and education professionals reported the highest rates of work-related stress, depression and anxiety in Britain. Ofsted identified the main drivers as high workload, and the lack of work-life balance, resources and support from leaders. These findings were echoed in education magazine TES’s School Wellbeing Report 2023 (pdf), which featured the views of almost 6000 school staff from across the world.
Arguably, traditional survey-based reports are more reliable. Education Support publishes one of the most useful. In 2017 it commissioned its first mental health and well-being survey, obtaining responses from 1250 education professionals. A third said their job had made them feel stressed all or most of the time, 75% said they had experienced work-related physical and mental health issues in the previous two years, and more than half (53%) had considered leaving teaching in the previous two years as a result of health problems. Now known as the Teacher Wellbeing Index (pdf: bit.ly/3GURD3Y), the most recent edition was compiled following responses from in excess of 3000 UK teachers. Three-quarters of respondents now described themselves as stressed, 78% had experienced mental health symptoms, and 55% had sought to change or leave their current jobs. The report concludes: ‘Over the lifetime of the Teacher Wellbeing Index, these figures have not meaningfully improved, painting a bleak picture of the workforce’s long-term mental health.’
Three further survey-based reports into teacher well-being showed broadly similar findings. Ofsted’s 2019 offering (pdf: bit.ly/3V717Pq) was prompted by research from the UK’s Health and Safety Executive, which stated that teaching staff and education professionals reported the highest rates of work-related stress, depression and anxiety in Britain. Ofsted identified the main drivers as high workload, and the lack of work-life balance, resources and support from leaders. These findings were echoed in education magazine TES’s School Wellbeing Report 2023 (pdf: bit.ly/3L8Z0ax), which featured the views of almost 6000 school staff.
The reality for science teachers
The RSC’s 2022 Science Teaching Survey found that more than a quarter of UK science teachers were planning to leave the profession within five years as a result of high workload (30%), and stress and exhaustion (35%), often as a result of teaching something other than their core subject. As RSC programme manager for education, Delwen McCallum, puts it: ‘We have teachers with a workload that’s too high, teaching out of specialism, which is increasing their workload. This means they are leaving their jobs, exacerbating the pressure on the remaining staff.’
The RSC’s 2022 Science Teaching Survey (rsc.li/40hbaCM) found that more than a quarter of UK science teachers were planning to leave the profession within five years as a result of high workload (30%), and stress and exhaustion (35%), often as a result of teaching something other than their core subject. As RSC programme manager for education, Delwen McCallum, puts it: ‘We have teachers with a workload that’s too high, teaching out of specialism, which is increasing their workload. This means they are leaving their jobs, exacerbating the pressure on the remaining staff.’
The recent statistically valid reporting on this subject suggests that teachers describe themselves in surveys as overworked and stressed – just as they do anecdotally. So, what, if anything, is being done about this?
Well, the RSC is using the evidence from the survey to inform its work, from direct support through Teach Chemistry, PD sessions and this website to its policy work, making recommendations to government. For example, in a recent written submission to the Education select committee about teacher recruitment, training and retention, the RSC used data from the survey to back up calls for improved support and conditions.
Meanwhile concerned by research showing that retention of school science teachers was becoming a problem, Andy Chandler-Grevatt of the Association for Science Education created a draft questionnaire designed to support individual teachers who were thinking about leaving the profession. The ASE’s 11–19 committee then developed this into a publicly available SOS document, which has been downloaded thousands of times. The association then obtained funding from the Gatsby Foundation to evaluate how the document was being used in school science departments, which culminated in the creation of the ASE’s RISE (Retention Initiative for Science Educators).
Well, the RSC is using the evidence from the survey to inform its work, from direct support through Teach Chemistry, PD sessions and this magazine to its policy work, making recommendations to government. For example, in a recent written submission to the Education select committee about teacher recruitment, training and retention, the RSC used data from the survey to back up calls for improved support and conditions.
Concerned by research showing that retention of school science teachers was becoming a problem, Andy Chandler-Grevatt of the Association for Science Education created a draft questionnaire designed to support individual teachers who were thinking about leaving the profession. The ASE’s 11–19 committee then developed this into a publicly available SOS document (bit.ly/41HzsXH), which has been downloaded thousands of times. The association then obtained funding from the Gatsby Foundation to evaluate how the document was being used in school science departments, which culminated in the creation of the ASE’s Retention Initiative for Science Educators (RISE).
Rising from the ashes
‘RISE is a proactive platform that assesses the needs of a science department at the start of the academic year based on a questionnaire targeting staff well-being, job satisfaction and career intentions,’ explains Andy. ‘The power of RISE is that the head of department receives an anonymised summary of the responses and is able to compare that data to the whole cohort of science teachers taking part, using support videos and documents on the RISE hub, to see if their department is scoring high or low in a given area. The departmental head can then select resources and strategies to best support their department over the rest of the year.’
Now in its fourth year, RISE has a growing number of participating ASE member schools. The success of the ASE’s initiative shows that science teachers needn’t be left to face mounting stress and burnout alone.
Next steps
You’re not alone. You can find support at the individual, department and school level from:
- Education Support
- ASE’s SOS
- ASE RISE for science departments
- EiC’s teacher well-being hub
- Teach Chemistry’s teacher well-being toolkit for science leaders
- Education Support: educationsupport.org.uk
- Association for Science Education (ASE) for the SOS document and RISE for science departments: ase.org.uk
- Teach chemistry: edu.rsc.org/teach-chemistry
- EiC’s teacher well-being hub: rsc.li/3MUbYKO
- Teach Chemistry’s teacher well-being toolkit for science leaders: rsc.li/40iDRPy
Matt Bell was a writer and PR consultant before training to be a languages teacher. Since that unhappy experience, he’s writing and working as a postman
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