Teachers face burnout

A lack of support from schools and managers has caused some teachers suffering from stress, burnout and depression to consider suicide, according to a survey for the NASUWT teaching union.

The research was carried out by Compass — the Centre for Mental Health Research and Policy — and was based on interviews with teachers and school leaders. The findings were published as teachers at the union’s annual conference in Birmingham prepared to debate a motion on workplace stress and teacher well being.

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, said the hard-hitting report “is designed to put the spotlight on the issue of mental health which is often swept under the carpet”.

The research highlighted the need for access to support and counseling and said that the root causes of stress in schools, including “the high-stakes accountability regime”, needed to be tackled.

Meanwhile, delegates at the NUT teaching union’s annual conference in Liverpool heard how excessive workloads are driving many teachers from the profession.

General secretary Christine Blower said: “The endless national initiatives ... alongside the pressures of school performance tables have led to many feeling under constant pressure.”

She added that since the implementation of a workload agreement things have actually got worse.