Teachers burned out? Drowning in workload and abused by pupils?

[noblegiraffe]

Never fear, the DfE have a solution:

A panel to investigate and give a report as early as next year.

And how many classroom teachers are on the panel might you ask? I think you can guess!

schoolsweek.co.uk/revealed-the-expert-panel-members-tasked-with-improving-teacher-wellbeing/

Here’s my solution: more non-contact time, Ofsted outstanding grading to be scrapped, centralised detention systems to be mandatory, increase the number of PRUs and make heads and SLT personally responsible for teacher turnover at their school.

Not my solution: cakes in the staff room. Yoga and mindfulness sessions during INSET. Headteacher saying ‘Good job everyone’.

I suspect there will be a wellbeing committee.

And regular beatings until morale improves.

Yes, and a ‘wellbeing’ ambassador in each school.

They will get double beatings if anyone is sad, stressed or cries as it’ll all be their fault for not making things wellbeingy enough.

And the ambassador and all those on the committee will take on even more work for no money or extra time away from the classroom.

Yep. No doubt they will have to fill in lengthy well-being audits to prove they are ticking all the boxes.

If they fill in a really really long form, they will probably get the ‘Wellbeing’ mark and will get to (pay £100 and) put a special logo on the top of their headed school paper.

We had a wellbeing committee. It met once. They didn't seem to like what we said very much.

We had a wellbeing committee which met after school on a Friday. Once.

I did mention, in a previous incarnation, that I felt my well-being would improve once the troops to teachers initiative took off.
The promise of hordes of fit squaddies stomping their manly way into schools and enforcing discipline and showing us how all problems would be solvedby a stiff upper lip and an obstacle course.
But alas, the promises of eye candy were as insubstantial as all other government claims.

I actually would like to see each school provided with sufficient medically trained mental health support workers (nurses, counsellors, charity volunteers?) whose only job is to assess, support and quickly provide adequate mental health care to students. Like a school nurse but for mental health.

At the moment I can mostly deal with my workload and yes, there are pinch points in the year which exhaust me, but I use my regular holidays to recharge. What I find almost impossible to balance is when I have a full teaching day, with break duties and several students who want to discuss complex mental health issues with me because I'm their tutor and have a good relationship BUT THERE'S NO FUNDING TO SEND THEM ANYWHERE FOR REAL HELP. So I chat, send them to pastoral when they're having a shit day, who sit them in a room with loads of others who are all having shit days, or send them back to me as their form tutor. Camhs has been cut, local authorities have washed their hands, nhs waiting lists are laughably long and I only recently found out that in my area if you are 17 and a half years old there is literally NO state funded mental health support for you until you turn 18 and can access adult support. Oh, you can attempt suicide and then someone might pay attention. I have a suicidal student who uses me and two others are her main source of support because she has literally been rejected from everywhere else. I am constantly thinking about her and worried for her.