State of Education: Teacher Stress and Wellbeing

From the National Education Union:

In the latest survey of National Education Union members, conducted ahead of Annual Conference in Harrogate, over 14,000 teachers in English state schools told us about their personal experiences with stress in the workplace and their ability, or otherwise, to balance the demands of work with their personal lives.

The NEU is calling for action to tackle workload, increase funding for schools and improve pay to help turn the page on a recruitment and retention crisis that has dragged on for years to the detriment of the education system as a whole. There is also a clear need for flexible working to address making teaching more compatible with having a family.

We found that:

• Teachers feel stressed at work a majority of the time. Almost two thirds (62 per cent) believe that stress affects them more than 60 per cent of the time.
• This higher level of stress is more common among female respondents to the survey (65 per cent compared to 54 per cent among males) and is particularly strongly felt by teachers working in primary schools and nurseries (65 per cent).
• Although stress significantly affects all age groups, younger teachers feel the pressure most of all. 65 per cent of those aged in their twenties or thirties reported feeling stressed at work more than 60 per cent of the time.
• Three quarters (75 per cent) of teacher respondents told us they frequently find themselves ‘unable’ to switch-off from work-related thoughts and tasks when at home. 41 per cent told us this was ‘always’ the case.
• Teachers told us it is commonplace for them to work evenings (62 per cent), weekends (55 per cent), and a third of respondents frequently cancel plans with family and friends in order to get on top of their workload (36 per cent).

Stress

Across the key demographics, the teacher workforce in England told us in great numbers that stress is a major factor in the workplace. Very few – around 1.5 per cent – consider themselves so unaffected by stress that they ‘haven’t thought about’ it at any point, or ‘never’ experience it. Around nine in ten teachers in our survey experience stress at work 20 per cent or more of the time.

The rate of those suffering the highest level of stress – 80 per cent or more of the time – varies significantly according to personal characteristics. Male teachers (27 per cent) and those teachers aged fifty or over (29 per cent) are slightly less likely to experience this level of stress, with the most extreme cases being amongst female teachers (34 per cent), teachers in their thirties (34 per cent) and those working in primary schools or nurseries (also 34 per cent).

Work-life Balance

We then asked members to tell us about their work-life balance, and to what extent work intrudes on their personal lives. It is clear from the following findings that stress is not just confined to working hours, and that work pervades their home life too.

It is striking that three quarters of respondents (75 per cent) are regularly unable to switch off from work when at home. For two in five (41 per cent) this is ‘always’ the case.

Working at home in the evenings is typical for 62 per cent of respondents, and at weekends for 55 per cent. Around a quarter (27 per cent) are ‘always’ or ‘often’ contacted by their employer, either by phone or email, outside working hours.

The myth of long school holidays for teachers is sharply undermined by the findings of this survey. One in three (31 per cent) are ‘always’ dealing with work during this time, with a further 60 per cent ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’ doing so. Just 9 per cent have a complete break.

Teachers regularly exceed the 1,265 hours of ‘directed time’ prescribed by the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document. According to the government’s own research for 2024, full-time teachers typically work 51.2 hours per week and leaders 57.6 hours per week. (1) The TUC’s annual survey for Work Your Proper Hours Day finds that 38 per cent of teachers are doing unpaid overtime, and that it is the profession most likely to do so. (2)

One experienced teacher observed a pressure to take on additional duties, with many of their younger colleagues unable “to say no” in a culture of “arrive early/stay late. I am frowned upon for only staying in school nine hours a day!”

Another told us that at their school “All staff have to go home and do work to be able to work the next day. Three hours PPA a week is enough time to plan perhaps one lesson […] therefore planning is done every single night. It’s relentless.”

One respondent added that in terms of work-life balance, “You feel exhausted all the time and guilty for sacrificing your own family time. It is not a profession which allows you to have a life outside of work and it is mentally draining and detrimental to your mental and physical health.”

Others identified the causes of this intense workload: “If we had the right staff, the workload would be better. If we had enough staff, workload would be better. Recruitment is the issue.” Another, who is less affected by stress, told us, “My school is good at looking after staff but the wider picture of long-term underfunding and increasingly unsustainable demand to deal with wider societal issues in school means they are fighting a losing battle.”

Staff Levels

To illuminate the lived experience of teachers working in England’s state schools, we asked what they have observed in the past year in their workplace with regards to staffing levels.

The most significant findings include increased staff absence due to sickness (71 per cent). The rates of staff leaving has worsened in the past year for 56 per cent of respondents at their workplace. This has an inevitable effect on workload for the staff who remain at the school and who are able to work on a given day.

Around half of respondents have seen the number of teaching posts unfilled or temporarily filled getting worse (48 per cent). A corresponding 61 per cent report saw an increase in ‘doubling up’ of teaching roles and leadership responsibilities in order to make ends meet. Two thirds (67 per cent) are also concerned about the lack of specialist staff to support, for example, SEND pupils.

The low levels of ‘improvement’ reported in these areas of recruitment and retention tell their own story, of a profession under enormous pressure to deliver with diminished resources.

Commenting on the findings of the survey, Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said:

“Teachers have no hesitation in doing their utmost for pupils. It is a vocation and a profession that takes pride in delivering the best for young people. But we have to face up to the immense toll this takes on teachers every day.

It cannot be right that we have a working culture which invades every aspect of a teacher’s life. The government’s own figures show that working hours are out of hand and they are getting worse.

Leaders are forced to stretch staff ever more and the persistent problems with recruitment and retention compound the problem. Our members are working long hours in the knowledge there is no army of new colleagues riding to the rescue.

Underfunding of schools and colleges is at the heart of the problem, but so is the undervaluing of teachers and support staff. We need to see a major pay correction not only to attract more into the profession, but also to keep them. It is short-sighted of any government to continue to ignore the root-and-branch solutions that are so obviously needed.”