One in three teachers nearly always stressed, finds survey

The NEU survey of over 14,000 teachers found a third of respondents feel stressed 80 per cent or more of the time, with women and teachers in primary schools or nurseries most likely to report this.

As well as feeling stressed at work, the survey found that work is also regularly bleeding into home, so that three quarters of respondents (75 per cent) say they are unable to switch off after work. For two in five (41 per cent) this is ‘always’ the case.

The highest stress was more commonly reported among female teachers (34 per cent) although men (at 27 per cent) were not far behind. Photograph: iStock

One experienced teacher observed a pressure to take on extra duties. Another respondent added that in terms of work-life balance: “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.”

Rising stress and overwork are set against a backdrop of high staff turnover, with around half of teachers reporting that they are increasingly seeing jobs left unfilled or temporarily filled.

Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, commented: “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.”

Kebede blamed underfunding of schools and colleges and an “undervaluing” of the work teachers do. “We need to see a major pay correction not only to attract more into the profession, but also to keep them,” he said. 

The survey ran between January and February, gaining responses from 14,159 teachers working in State schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

NEU stress survey here