Arguments abound about whether the long school summer holiday is a good or a bad thing. English teacher Sammy McHugh argued for shorter terms with shorter, more frequent breaks in a recent online article for 91 Scotland (“We should have shorter holidays - but more of them”, 23 June). She was critical of the “boom and bust” nature of the school calendar, whereby teachers burn themselves out trying to make it to the next holiday.
But irrespective of whether a teacher believes that the long holiday is good for them, undoubtedly the return to school is something that everyone has to brace themselves for; what varies is the extent to which they have to do it.
For some, the main challenge after coming back this month will have been to remember all their passwords. But for others, going back to school, after the stresses and strains of the 2020-21 school year, will be much tougher. It was not uncommon to hear staff describing last year as the most challenging of their careers; some will have been pushed too far.
By now, that first hurdle of crossing the threshold will have been overcome, given that Scottish schools returned in the middle of this month, but teacher Jamie Thom’s advice this week about how to make small changes that could make life more manageable going forward - or as he puts it, “how we can do less, but better” - is timely.
Teacher wellbeing: Tackling the rising problem of stress
Figures from 24 of Scotland’s 32 local authorities, published in May, show that 2,284 teachers were signed off with stress in 2019-20, up 26 per cent on the 2016-17 total of 1,808.
The EIS teaching union says the rising trend in the figures matches the findings of its own health and wellbeing surveys, which show more and more teachers suffering from increased stress linked to excessive workload, leading to a poor work-life balance. This has been worsened by a lack of support in addressing additional support needs for students, it adds.
“The last year of coping with the impact of the pandemic is likely to have exacerbated the pressures,” said the union’s general secretary, Larry Flanagan, responding to the figures in May.
Even students realise this. A 13-year-old girl who took part in research looking at young people’s reflections on the lockdowns and the return to school, which was published on 29 July and supported by the office of the children’s commissioner, said: “I think [teachers] must be overwhelmed as well … there might be an issue where we need to understand what the teachers are going through, too.”
Ultimately, better support for teachers was one of the 34 demands of government made by the 25 “young consultants” aged 11-17 who took part in the project.
One of the issues that Thom, who teaches English, identifies in his essay is that teachers “often drive [themselves] to exhaustion in [their] noble efforts to ensure young people reach their full potential”.
Such lofty goals have also been identified as a problem for teachers by headteacher-turned-wellbeing-coach Claire Lavelle.
She runs the Hive of Wellbeing and previously told 91 Scotland that teachers almost always come into the job “to make a difference”, but that they start to find things tough when they work hard and fail to achieve their goals. One of her pieces of advice is: instead of focusing on what has not been done, also reflect on what has been achieved. In addition, she suggests that teachers should reduce their to-do lists to two or three items.
When under fire over increased teacher stress associated with the pandemic, the Scottish government has emphasised that £1.5 million has been invested in schemes to boost mental health and help manage Covid-related pressures. It says Barnardo’s Scotland and mental health charity Place2Be offered mental health support for staff from October onwards.
One-on-one sessions have also been offered via a joint scheme by Education Scotland and the General Teaching Council for Scotland.
The Scottish government-appointed Covid-19 Education Recovery Group also has a “workforce support” workstream established specifically to look at how to help teachers cope during the pandemic. The government support package was designed with that group, on the back of research carried at the start of the pandemic into the additional professional learning and wellbeing support staff would welcome.
That research - which involved over 2,000 Scottish education staff - found that, for teachers, the most important source of support was communication with colleagues; only 37 per cent of teachers said the education system had been supporting them adequately.
Would there be any significant shift in the proportion saying they felt supported if that same research were carried out now? It seems doubtful, given that much of the stress of the job - as the EIS points out - is about workload.
The SNP promise to reduce class contact time, therefore, is probably the surest way to release the pressure on school staff. In its 2021 parliamentary election manifesto, the party said it would reduce the time teachers spend in front of classes by one and a half hours per week.
However, a timetable for delivering the change has yet to be announced and, until then, teachers must box clever, as Thom and Lavelle advise - and take comfort in the knowledge that the October break is less than two months away.
Emma Seith is a reporter at 91 Scotland. She tweets
