Financial impact - further reading
The picture in the West Midlands
- In the West Midlands more than 110,000 teaching days were lost to stress-related illness in the past 12 months
- In Solihul stress-related absences in schools cost over £1.3 million over 5 years
- In Coventry 25% of staff have taken time off work due to mental health-related illness
- In Walsall, the figure is 35%
NASUWT Survey
- In a 2013 survey, 69% of teachers reported work-related stress. 31% of these teachers had to take time off work as a result of stress
- Only 9% of staff were offered access to Occupational Health professionals, and a similar amount were signposted to helplines or employee assistance programmes. NASUWT suggest that this may constitute a breach of regulations regarding safety and wellbeing in the workplace (Health and Safety at Work Act 1974)
http://www.nasuwt.org.uk/MemberSupport/MemberGroups/Stress/
- In a 2015 survey, two-thirds of respondents considered quitting the profession in the past year, citing:
- workload (89%)
- pay and remuneration (45%)
- pupil behaviour (42%)
- 83% reported workplace stress
- 67% said that their mental or physical health had been adversely affected by their job
- almost 50% had seen a doctor because of this ill-health
- 5% had been hospitalised
- 2% had self-harmed
'Samaritans for Teachers'
The Education Support Helpline have conducted research into the calls they receive@
- Most calls are made between 3pm and 4pm, suggesting that these teachers feel there is not an immediate support within their school
- Call volumes have increased 29% in the last year
- 88% of callers suffer from stress
- 72% have experienced anxiety
- 45% have suffered from depression
- Only 8% of schools have a published wellbeing policy for staff
- Reserach indicates a link between teachers' health and students' outcomes
- In addition to the loss of quality first teaching, money spent on supply staff has risen to an average of £59,000 per school.
- Even when they are in school, teachers who are suffering from stress and are under-performing represent a greater drain on resources. Teaching with Heart nurtures a greater degree of self-understanding and resilience, enabling the valuable time of senior and middle-leaders to be focused where it needs to be focused: on school development and raising standards.
- It is getting harder and harder to recruit teachers. On average, it costs schools around £3,000 to recruit teachers. Recruiting senior and middle leaders is even harder, and if a recruitment agency is used, costs can rise to £10,000.
While Teaching with Heart cannot promise to save your school all of this money, investing in staff resilience and wellbeing has been shown to reduce overall expenditure.