'Epidemic of stress' blamed for 3,750 teachers on longterm sick leave - article

Surely something needs to be done?

https://www.theguardian.com/educati...amed-for-3750-teachers-on-longterm-sick-leave

Teaching unions are warning of an “epidemic of stress” as research revealed that 3,750 teachers were signed off on longterm sick leave last year because of pressure of work, anxiety and mental illness.

Figures obtained through a mass freedom of information request show a 5% rise on the year before, revealing that one in 83 teachers spent more than a month off work in 2016-17.

Altogether 1.3 million days have been taken off by teachers for stress and mental health reasons in the last four years, including around 312,000 in 2016-17, the figures compiled by the Liberal Democrats show.

 

Hardly surprising considering how toxic schools are now. I don't think anybody goes into teaching to be micro-managed, spend their time 'evidencing' their work, 'volunteering' for after school sessions, waste time 'deep marking,' suffer the indignity of being judged against someone else's idea of what teaching looks like and so on ad nauseum.

With so much anti-teacher feeling from the public, government and SLTs I can't see it changing anytime soon.

 

The Guardian has a few more articles regarding teacher stress and workload on their education section: https://www.theguardian.com/education

Also, thanks for the link @FrankWolley

 

My GP once told me that of all the patients she treats for stress, anxiety, and depression, most of them are either teachers or nurses. In any staff room, if you went around shaking handbags and jacket pockets, from at least half of them you would hear the rattle of a pill bottle!.

 

I think that the unions should be much stronger about all of this, especially now that there is new united union. We need an all-out strike to address multiple issues,

I don't know enough about primary to comment, but I do know for sure that in the average secondary, especially the dreaded academies, but the job has become borderline unbearable - demoralising and stressful.

It was always fairly stressful, but at one time you got a level of respect for dealing with tough kids. Now you are likely to be told that the behaviour is due to a lack of "engagement" or "pace" or whatever other deliberately amorphous and unmeasurable word is now in vogue. I don't know what it is going to take to change a situation that is dire.

 

Yes the big leadership cop out. As if every jail cell in the land is filled with hard. core thugs committing crimes due to teachers teaching their subject ‘ineffectively’ ha ha ha ha ha ha..........

If anything, teachers are often left to ‘manage’ this lot and the unpleasant environment they create, on their own for hours and hours on end, not only having to face emotional abuse from such pupils everyday.......but are forced to phone home after the events by their managers and face further abuse from the parents. This is never followed up. The government need parental votes so the message to teachers reinforced over and over again is to accept it, it’s part of the job.

Then face abuse from managers demanding them to spend time ‘reflecting’ on how they could have deleivered huge amounts of compulsory content better or made it more ‘interesting’ after subjecting them to a lecture about being more understanding about the background of their abuser......

Same psychological hogwash as telling females that dressing up to please themselves is inviting unwanted attention........

 

They won't do jack **** just like the NHS which is screwed up as well.

 

Yep, pretty stressful in primary too, especially academies.

 

Thanks for letting me know - why I am not surprised that academies are the most toxic environment?