It's alright to be afraid

Be honest, do you ever get that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach as you travel to school, as you enter the building, as you enter your office or classroom, as you turn on your computer, when the phone rings or as pupils come through the door? Those who don't find something else to read, those who do keep going. It does not matter whether you are training to be a teacher or an experienced head, this applies to you. This is about personal courage, about accepting  and overcoming demons, and finding ways to improve your quality of life and in so doing becoming a more content teacher.

To begin with you need to realise you are not on your own, whether you are a trainee teacher or a headteacher it is likely that we have all experienced this at sometime in our career and that at this moment in time several of your colleagues share your experiences. Our profession is laden with expectations about conduct and professionalism, about leaving emotions at the school gate, about it being a "vocation", but all of these ignores one crucial point, we are sentient, emotional humans who will react to and reflect our experiences. We are all different and importantly have different perceptions (see an earlier article on 2+2=5!) of events and so our reactions are also unique. Events that cause fear in one person will not cause fear in another but it does not make it anymore real.

Our outward persona, which we maintain for our pupils and more often than not our own self-esteem, will rarely reflect inner turmoil and so we can all be forgiven for not knowing that someone else is going through difficulties. However this is the danger, internalising our fears will only make them worse and so we have to find ways of making fears and stresses manageable. Now I could write a book on the issue but here I only ever write a few hundred words, so I will keep it brief. Central to dealing with our fears is emotional literacy. Clause Steiner coined the term "Emotional Literacy" in 1997 and he breaks the idea down into 5 parts:

1. Knowing your feelings.
2. Having a sense of empathy.
3. Learning to manage our emotions.
4. Repairing emotional problems.
5. Putting it all together: emotional interactivity.

Many of the suggestions I am about to make are based on these 5 parts. Please note that these are simply my opinions and that I do not have an answer for how to make fears go away, all I can do is share with you some ideas I have, some of the coping strategies I have used over the years when I have experienced these demons.

1. Sharing. Do you have a trusted friend or colleague, someone who is not judgemental, someone who will listen? I know it is almost statin the bleeding obvious but the cathartic act of verbalising your fears is incredibly important. It helps you unburden yourself and importantly forces you to "name" your fears. You need to know what it is you are afraid of before you stand any chance of dealing with it.
2. Whether you've shared them with someone else or not, naming your fears is very important. You can have the conversation with yourself; the other participant in the dialogue is paper. Write down your fears, write down everything and see if they have a common root or whether they are all different. Either way it takes courage to do this but will help you in coming to terms with things that cause you distress.
3. Taking a break. At school you need down time, you need time to take stock and press a personal reset button. By all means go to the staffroom, have lunch with your colleagues, but you need to make for yourself. You need time on your own to take a breath and to be yourself (even if it means having a cry or a shout!); it is time for you to press the reset button.
4. Give yourself time. Whenever possible I like to walk to school, it gives me time to think through my issues, both before the school day starts and once it has finished. Clearly not everyone can walk to work but if you can find an equivalent activity it will help. It also means that by the time you get home you have already dealt with some issues and you don't transfer them to your partner, pet or whoever.
5. Work-life balance. This is often the hardest due to the pressures and demands of work, but if you can leave work behind then many of the fear triggers will stay there as well. Here are a few things I do (but I realise these are personal and impractical for many). I only work at work, if I need to do work at the weekend I do it in the office; home has become a sanctuary (when my children were young this was impossible but now it has become practical. I don't do work emails at home; emails are often the messengers of doom and I don't want doom in my personal sanctuary! In my house talk of school is banned after a certain time; that is unless I need an outburst. This returns normality to life.


Teaching is hard, leadership is hard, and both require tremendous courage. But remember you are not alone.

Leaving it all at the school gate

Back when I started teaching I received all sorts of warnings about professional conduct and school expectations. I remember once being told that we should, as professionals, leave our personal life at the school gates. Fair enough I thought I shouldn't be talking to your pupils about my marriage or how the decorating is going, but what was actually meant is that I should also leave by worries at the school gate and not let them interfere with school life.

Think of all the difficult and frankly bad things that happen in our lives, buying houses, illness, bereavement, relationships, divorce, money problems, children and so on. Who hasn't experienced at least a few of these? Inevitably they impact on our emotions and that determines our moods, how we see ourselves, how we think others see us, how we see others and how we see our lives. Essentially our experiences shape our entire emotional being and yet some people believe we should be able to separate these off for 8 or 9 hours a day. Quite honestly it is ridiculous to tell anyone to leave their troubles at the gate.

The key to this is about being emotionally self-aware, being honest with yourself and "giving a name" to these factors that shape your emotions. If you are conscious of your emotions, their causes and their impact on you, you do stand a better chance of being able to manage them rather than letting them control you. We all have bad days and I know I do not always practice what I preach though I like to think I'm getting better. Nevertheless none of us want our emotions to impact on a negative way on our pupils and our other school work.

I have various ways of dealing with bad days and bad spells in life. This may seem trivial but I am fortunate in being able to walk to work, and that work is neither too far nor too close. In the half an hour there and back I can address most of my personal issues; I am neither at home (which is the root of some problems) nor at school (which may also be the root of further problems) where they manifest themselves. I also have a few trusted colleagues with whom I can be honest. I used to bottle-up my worries and found that they became rather self-destructive. Now I can chat to a couple of people in the morning (or whenever) and it makes me feel a whole lot better.

Leaders have a part to play, not only should they not set unreasonable expectations on staff but they must also care for themselves. The ideal is that colleagues feel comfortable discussing issues with leaders and knowing that they won't be told to pull themselves together, rather that they will receive emotional support. However at a bare minimum they need to know that their emotions are not barred at the perimeter fence.

I mentioned leaders must also care for themselves; leadership can be very lonely and as a headteacher I know this all too well. The higher up you go the lonelier it gets. You have to be more guarded and your circle within the staff inevitably shrinks. Nevertheless you need to find someone. I have been fortunate in that I have always had another senior leader to talk to; my deputy comes into my office every morning and he asks how I am, and that makes such a difference.

Finally the opposite is not certainly untrue. Whilst some schools may expect you to leave negative emotions at the gate no-one expects you to leave being jolly and full of vigour behind when you cross the school threshold! Imagine turning up at school, full of life, on top of the world and then forcing yourself to be miserable just in time for lesson 1.

Bleak House: the impact of the physical environment on teacher well-being

On paper my last teaching post should have been one of the nicest. The school was good, the children were well-behaved and I had all the kit I needed but there were days when I simply hated doing my job. The reason was simple, it was my classroom. As a science teacher I had a lab but my school was a mid-seventies unit-built school and the labs were in the middle of the building. They protruded from the top of the building but they had no windows at eye-level, just at 8 feet off the ground. There were days when I could go into the lab at 8;50 with a blue sky and emerge 2 hours later to find snow on the ground. I felt trapped, the lack of light made me feel constantly miserable and not having anything else to look at except the walls and the pupils was challenging. I can honestly say that this had a significant impact on my well-being and I couldn't wait to swap my lab for an office. The knowledge of my lousy environment created pressure, and this pressure eventually piled up on top of all the other pressures to become stress.

I have also worked in some vile locations where schools felt like they were dumped either in the middle of high-rise estates or on the edge of nowhere. I've worked in some awful buildings with lousy decor, poor lighting, low ceilings and small windows. I was miserable before I went through the door.

On the other hand I spent 4 years working in a school in Cyprus. The panoramic windows at the back of my lab looked up to the Troodos mountains and the front of the school looked down onto the sea. The school was spacious and bright, well-designed and easy to move around; I can't remember a single day when I really didn't want to do the job. There was simply so much light, not from fluorescent tubes but natural light. I was happy, the children were happy! You may say that you're not surprised I was happy, I was in Cyprus, who wouldn't be. There were plenty of things I didn't like about being out there and many of these things were precisely because of where I was, but the school itself did not make me miserable.

I have no doubt that your physical environment is a key factor in causing stress. Schools with pleasant classrooms, plenty of facilities, well furnished and nicely decorated premises, have a positive impact of all of those who work or learn there. I believe that most pupils respond positively to pleasant environments but when their environments are unpleasant they may feel that this is a reflection on their worth as learners. We all know about teaching pupils who feel that schools do not invest in them, it is hard work, and there we have another pressure. Lousy environments rub off on the pupils, who  then react against the environment and make the lives of teachers even harder.

What can you do about it? There will be times when the answer is simply to leave that school. Schools are hard-up and you won't get a rebuild. However you can do some things to help yourself. Simply improving lighting can help, talk to your school leaders about this. Given that light can have such an impact on mood and the feeling of well-being it is important that you share your concerns. Brighten up your classrooms. Without getting into the issue of who puts up displays, have exciting and colourful walls. Also look at classroom layout. As a secondary teacher I was never too imaginative but I have seen some great uses of space in primary classrooms. Be imaginative with layouts (if the room allows it), make the room easier for you to move around (movement may help you feel happier and not trapped), and seek advice.

Almost everything I have written about has been about human interactions, but the physical environment can have an impact on your well-being. Make yourself heard!

If only we could stand and stare; the stress of constant change

"What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare."

So wrote W.H.Davies in 1911. When was the last time a teacher had the time to stand and stare? In fact I have found throughout my career that I am running at full pelt often just to stand still. Education has been in a state of constant change since I can remember and there are so signs that this will arrest soon. The problem is that this is on top of all of the other demands associated with this profession and that as soon as you feel confident with a certain aspect of the job it goes and changes.

We are the slaves of change but what keeps changing?:

• Technology
• Specifications and courses
• Communities and society
• Educational philosophies and trends (just think AfL, VAK, starters and plenaries)
• Inspection regulations
• National policy, league tables and so on.

And those were off the top of my head! There will be far more but these seem to be the things that have dogged my career. School procedures change but more often than not these are in response to external factors. But why do things change? Governments change and often the political philosophy changes, and schools find themselves squarely in the centre of the ideological battlefield. Technology changes, tablets appeared, social media sprung forth and so on. Our understanding of how children learn and the effectiveness of different approaches develops through practice and research. The curriculum develops to reflect the needs of an ever changing world. Communities change and their needs change. In short everything changes constantly around education and so education inevitably constantly changes.

Change is unsettling for many reasons. We lose our place in our understanding of the world. The things on which we relied or in which we believed move and we are required to make new meaning out of our professional world. Our beliefs and values may be challenged and leave us confused and uncertain. Change inevitably generates work and this is work in addition to our normal professional lives. New specifications, teaching philosophies and technologies all require a great deal of time to react to and to adapt to. Schemes to write, systems to learn and methodologies to adopt.

So change generates uncertainty and change generates work. I also believe the further we are into our careers the harder change becomes, not because of age but because we have suffered it so many times before and every time our enthusiasm is lower. The workload issue is well explored. The work load generated by change is often on top of the day-to-day workload of planning, teaching and assessment. This creates pressure and excessive pressure can cause stress.

I believe that the stress caused by change itself is significant. We lose our positions of certainty and comfort, we witness others deal better and we can end up doubting our own ability to do the job and handle the constant turmoil. I know how I feel every time I experience change with any IT-based area of my work; I realise that this change causes me stress, and this realisation causes more stress! I know that others will adapt more quickly and that my self-esteem may take a battering. I don't want to appear ignorant so there's another stressor. It could go on and on, but change can fill me with dread and I am sure I am not alone.

What can leadership do? Unfortunately very little. Change is imposed on schools and often the quantity of change experienced by school leaders is even greater. However a good place to start is at least with awareness. Change must be monitored and staff must be cared for during the process. Leaders must be aware of the sensitivity of individuals and that all periods of change generate additional stress. Maybe just talking about and sharing these concerns should be a good place to start.

Mental Health First Aid: get trained

I've just spent 2 days receiving some of the most valuable CPD of my career, the standard course in Mental Health First Aid. I attended the course in Swindon but courses are delivered regularly all over the country. The course is a practical introduction to managing mental health issues in the work place and providing you with a set of core skills to use with colleagues (and students) suffering from a mental health issue.

During my career I have dealt with numerous mental health incidents involving both pupils and staff but I was always operating on gut instinct. I now feel a lot more confident in dealing with such issues at work.

Please take a look at the website HERE and ask to attend a course. The courses are inexpensive and have the potential to provide priceless support in the workplace. 

Scary places: A culture of fear in the teaching profession

Are you afraid? That sounds a little menacing but I know I have been during my career. I've had those nights and mornings where I felt like I was 11 again and ready to feign sickness to avoid a French test or disguise the fact I hadn't done my English homework. But fear for a teacher is very different as what you are afraid of can be harder to define or can have far more devastating effects than when you were 14.

As with many other posts within this blog this will not apply to everybody, but it is vital to remember that whilst "teaching" is a single occupational group there will still be a full distribution of personalities within it and you will have colleagues (it may be you) that lives in fear of something at school.

Nearly 10% of the population suffer from mixed anxiety and depression, that translates to some 45000 teachers. That's a lot and if you are fortunate enough not to be in that "premier league stadium capacity" of your colleagues you are sure to have one nearby. This is a terrible burden for someone to handle and must be taken seriously by schools.

If I were to be a tad more scientific I would conduct a survey, but I'm not so here's a list of things that spring to mind that can cause fear and anxiety. They are in no particular order and may be very different, some will only apply to senior school teachers, some to school leaders, some to every one and so on. But if you are a truly reflective practitioner I am sure that you have experienced fear and sleepless nights and that you could add to this list. Please note though that anxiety is something far more substantial than the simple worry of getting a roasting from the menacing deputy over not having finished writing your reports. Anxiety is a condition which often requires medication and other interventions, but the following may exacerbate the condition. So here goes:

• coping with workload
• disruptive classes
• certain pupils
• staffroom (see earlier blog entry)
• other colleagues
• technology
• initiatives
• OFSTED
• exams and results
• monitoring and evaluation (observations, work scrutiny)
• emails and phone calls
• senior leaders
• parents
• governors
• the unpredictability of every school day
• exposure
• performance management / appraisal
• accountability

The point "exposure" is one felt by many primary colleagues (especially Y2 and Y6 teachers) and those teaching GCSE/A-levels. When results are disappointing you will often find that fingers are pointed. One of the roles I used to have as a school assessment manager was to analyse results to identify those teachers in whose class less progress was made. I would like to think that we used the data responsibly and gave teachers support (if needed) to ensure that more progress was made next year or to move a teacher to remove the heat. But I am not naïve, I know that it must have felt dreadful to have been "named and shamed". Careers can be made with good results and excellent observations, and careers curtailed by the opposite, but do we ever consider that the fear of "exposure" is actually a contributing factor in the results. Fear effects motivation, motivation effects performance, performance effects outcomes.


Can anything be done? I truthfully believe that the maintained school system is fundamentally broken. League tables, OFSTED, the threat of forced academisation, all contribute to an atmosphere of fear. Heads are under ludicrous pressure to ensure that their staff push their pupils to get results. Poor results could bring OFSTED through the door, put the school into special measures and make life truly miserable and put the head's career at stake. Fear, fear, fear.

Acknowledge it is real. Verbalise fears. Be open in conversations and share experiences. As long as teachers remain caring, emotionally-vulnerable individuals and the education system tacitly threads fear through all that it does, fear will always be present. But if you know it is there, if you feel you can talk about it, then at least we may be able to lessen the pain.



 

The myth of "That which does not kill us, makes us stronger": a call for resilience development

“That which does not kill us, makes us stronger” – attributed to Nietzsche. Really? I would argue that whatever it is that may not kill us may end up shattering our self-esteem, destroying our hopes and dreams, ruining our careers and changing our lives forever. I would like to suggest: that which does not kill us can leave us suffering a living hell. The unnamed event which we survive may have a raft of effects and very much depends on the individual and I would suggest that at the heart of this is an individual’s resilience.

I am writing this having had a chat with Jo Higgins-Cezza who runs a consultancy business specialising in resilience training (www.resiliencematters.eu). I spent the afternoon thinking about resilience and teachers and reflecting on my own experience. Some of what I write here may be nonsense as it reflects only my experience, some of you may think that I’m being ageist whilst others may completely reject what I say.

It is worth saying that stress is the product of the way in which an individual handles pressure. Two individuals may be exposed to identical pressures, one may breeze through whilst the other may experience stress. I must emphasise that stress is a product of an individual and that it is personalised and real. Just because dealing with irate parents causes you no problem does not mean that the same is true of a colleague. Now going back to my chat, I believe that a key element in all of this is personal resilience, having a mindset which aids an individual to deal with pressure. Being less resilient is not a failing, in just the same way as being wheat-intolerant is not a failing, it is what it is. Unlike wheat-intolereance I do believe that lack of resilience can be worked upon.

This bit may annoy some of you and I may be wrong regarding the population of younger teachers but I am simply writing from experience. Over the last 10 or 15 years I have noticed that the least experienced teachers and trainee teachers appear to be less resilience than those before them. I remember being thrown into the maelstrom of an inner-city comp along with a bunch of other novices and we all floated. As a school leader I have encountered younger teachers over the last 10 years struggling to cope with pressures that my contemporaries had taken in their stride. Here’s my theory (which may be rubbish). Since the birth of the National Curriculum, SATs, OFSTED and league towers the pressures on schools have grown to the extent that teachers place less pressure on children to succeed as a result of their own actions. What I mean is that 25 years ago if I messed up my A-levels it was my fault, plain and simply. Now however the pendulum has swung to a point where the fault is seen to lie with teachers and schools. Teachers have worked hard to insulate their children from failure, they constantly reinforce positives and have done their best to make sure children succeed. The responsibility for success has shifted from pupil to teacher since results have become such a high stakes game. The result is that young people have not experienced enough failure, they lack resilience, they have become porcelain tea-cups that if tapped, they crack.

This generation have now reached an age where they are themselves teachers and I routinely see them struggle coping with pressures that their predecessors handled more effectively. This is not the fault of these teachers and so must not be seen as a negative character trait, I believe that those entering teaching now are simply a product of an over-protective education system (and generation of parents) that discourage resilience.

We must protect these teachers. We must develop these teachers. Just because they may not possess the resilience that others do does not mean they are poor teachers or that they do not have the potential to be future school leaders. This is not a Darwinian nightmare in which only the fittest should be allowed to survive. But we can’t simply put sticking plasters over the problem. We can’t simply make every experience for them positive. As teachers they (we) need to fail, they need to struggle but they also need to learn how to cope. In short we must make our teachers more resilient.

So what should we do? We must start by recognising the issue. We must articulate the problem and recognise that doing nothing is not an option if we want to retain teachers, maintain standards and develop future leaders. There needs to be a change in mindset of teachers of my generation; just because I coped with rioting Year 10s 20-odd years ago (as a new teacher) doesn’t mean that my new teachers should be able to; their educational experience has failed them and they simply may not be resilient enough at the moment. We need to care for each other and act as mentors and counsellors for our colleagues. It is in the interest of all teachers to retain good teachers and not just school leadership so we should all help out. However those vulnerable teachers need to do something themselves. They must share their worries, they must reflect on their practice, they must be willing to learn. I have found that through adopting a reflective-practice approach throughout my career has allowed me to cope with lots of difficulties and ensure that they have been learning experiences.

Schools would be wise to recognise that resilience is a key issue in the emotional well-being of their staff. Maybe then Nietzsche has a chance of being right.

Hitting the wall - a piece worth reading in TES

Please take a look at this piece by Mike Stuchbery in the TES. It is so valuable to have open and honest accounts of the emotional damage that our profession can cause. Thank you.

A House Divided: Conflict between staff

Possibly the most challenging incidents I have had to deal with in leadership are those when conflict erupts between staff. Conflict arises for all sorts of reasons, teaching allocations, access to resources, taking time off someone, ways in which pupils are treated and even simple animosity. Whatever the cause of the conflict it is always something that must be taken seriously, it cannot be ignored.

Conflict can have a range of consequences but additional pressure and stress are almost always inevitable. What makes conflict particularly problematic is that the stress fallout envelops far more people than simply the protagonists. It is inevitable that those trying to manage the situations (school leaders, union reps) and those close to the central actors in the piece will be effected. Conflict is a large pebble thrown into the pond, it ripples outwards and the whole pond tends to experience it in some way, shape or form. I have seen staffrooms, departments and year teams polarised and divided by conflict.

Remember that to those on either side of the conflict their perception of the situation is real (this links to an article on my leadership blog about the reality of alternative perceptions).

Conflict resolution is a skill in itself. Negotiating with conflicting parties to reach a mutually acceptable solution (for both parties and the school) is a challenge and shouldn't be taken on lightly as getting it wrong can have dire consequences. It is for this reason that conflict causes such stress for mediators. In truth, throughout my career, I have lost more sleep (real sleepless nights, not just metaphor) over this than anything else I have dealt with.

Unfortunately it is rare that anyone is truly satisfied with compromise even though it is the best that can often be hoped for. The aggrieved parties will feel that their case has been watered down and someone else has not faced the wrath they deserve. A feeling of injustice is almost always inevitable in these cases.

Some tips for those handling conflict
When handling conflict it is important to do your homework beforehand. Establish facts and opinions, liaise with union reps, work out end goals . If you are a union rep, recognise that the outcome will probably need to be a compromise. Most importantly give your colleagues the opportunity to "save face". Personal and professional pride are at the heart of conflict and an affront to these can strike a mortal blow. You must ensure that all of those involved can walk the corridors with heads held high.

Don't forget yourself in all of this. Take time to think over the case before the meetings. Visualise the meetings you will have and play a game of chess in your head. Work out the openings, the middle game and the acceptable endings. Do not go into a meeting which you haven't planned out in this way. There is always the chance that things will take an unexpected turn but mentally you will be ready if you have played out a range of scenarios. Remember that you must resolve the issue in the best interests of the school as well as the individuals but always be conscious of the emotional impact on the protagonists. Be reassuring, be conciliatory, be a peacemaker, be a counsellor.

Some tips for those at the centre of the conflict
This can be the most stressful part of a teacher's career, that period of time when you are at loggerheads with a colleague. Seek guidance but do so wisely. Close friends are not always the best listeners, they may tell you what you want to hear but not necessarily what you need to hear. I have always made sure that I knew who I could trust and turn to at times of conflict in any school I've worked in. Even as a head I have made sure I had one person whose discretion was assured, who would listen, console and counsel but not judge. Often this will be a union rep. The best union reps have these attributes (and if they don't they shouldn't be reps!).

If you can abstract yourself from the situation. Attempt to see multiple perspectives even if you don't agree with them, and more importantly attempt to empathise with your colleague. After all emotional well-being is not about content, its about feelings.

Beyond school seek counsel and friendship, relax and take your mind off conflict. Put yourself first!

In conclusion I can say that there is no guaranteed approach to effective conflict management. Everyone is unique, every situation is different. But remember that tomorrow is a new day and that someone is out there ready to look out for you.

Data-related stress: how numbers can ruin lives

Data is everywhere in education, it seeps through every classroom, every piece of paperwork, every judgement, it is omnipresent and at times feels omnipotent. I have seen data push teachers too far and it can have a profound effect on their mental health.

An aside, but I think it is relevant. I recently watched a news report about the achievement of children receiving free school meals; a LEA and by association a group of schools had been lambasted over poor GCSE results. The article presented 5+ A*-C data for this group of disadvantaged pupils but this didn't tell the whole story I'm sure. I sat there and wondered how many of those pupils had had positive experiences in schools that had steer them in the right direction in life, how many would stay out of trouble and aspire to more? At times data just doesn't tell the full story. How devalued must those teachers now feel? Are they all bad teachers (and I'm not suggesting that any of them are)?

Now I need to come clean, I am a data fan and have been in charge of assessment, targets, reporting and tracking in several schools. I have used it imaginatively when required to ensure that inspectors have seen we were a good school but I have also had to use it in holding teachers to account. However I have also listened to the concerns of teachers about data, how it is used and why so many fear it.

So why does data create such problems for so many teachers and leave them in a vulnerable state. There are multiple reasons, many of which overlap. I've tried to break these down but please bear in mind that these are connected and shouldn't be seen in isolation. Here are some of my ideas:

1. Personal understanding. Let's not beat about the bush but data can be mathematically complex and for many teachers the last time they went near maths was when the were 16 years old. Confronting a teacher with reams of numerical information and analysis can be daunting and may leave them feeling threatened.

2. Singled out. We see this in our classes. How many children want to be see to not understand? How many children are brave enough to say "I don't get it" for fear of exposure. No teacher wants to look inadequate, the less experienced teacher doesn't want their lack of experience to show, and the experienced teacher doesn't want to look like they don't get it! Self-esteem is so important and school leaders must not dismiss this as a extravagance and vanity.

3. Being found out. School data wizards will get what they want out of data and some are very good at drilling down into data to an extent where they can say that "Mr So-and-so had a poor year with EAL boys in Year 8". Data exposes us to scrutiny at highly refined levels and leaves us naked in the rain.

4. Lack of faith in data. I have worked in some challenging schools where the progress data suggested we were a poor school. I have never worked in a poor school irrespective of the data. We know there is often so much more to the quality of education than numbers so how can you have faith in the numbers when you know they don't tell the whole tale.

5. Being judged. With the erosion of automatic pay progression, the tightening of budgets and the march of academisation, there are few teachers who would say they feel safer in the profession than they did 10 years ago. Data provides the measures used in appraisal mechanisms and also in the criteria used for making someone redundant.

6. Lack of control. Someone else tends to do data and you have little or no say in the process. Data is done to you and not with you. It is a process over which you have little or no control. It is well acknowledged that lack of control can result in increased anxiety.

7. Beliefs. Many teachers reject the assertion that data is the main way to measure the success of schools. Ask a teacher of many children with additional needs about how they judge success and it will not be on the number of GCSEs! If you are being judged by a system which is at odds with your own beliefs it is likely that you will discount it or resent it.

Nevertheless data is a reality of modern schooling and is not going away. School leaders must recognise the pressure that data paces on teachers and adapt practices to manage this. Support, empathy and CPD are at the heart of dealing with staff concerns over data. You must start from the point where you recognise that teachers' concerns are real and that data does create anxiety. Provide high quality CPD that is differentiated to meet the needs of staff. Identify confident and competent data user and have them work closely with colleagues; this way it doesn't look like SLT are always lecturing the staff. Show understanding and be prepared to coach and mentor colleagues who need extra help.

I saw the impact of my work with data on my colleagues. At times there were moments when bacon was saved due to cunning manipulation of numbers whilst at other times I saw stress and panic erupt across the school. So to any school leader reading this I would ask please remember that sticks and stones can break bones but data can cause breakdowns.

So who's looking out for the heads?

You will find that most of what I write is about the well-being of teachers but occasionally I will focus on senior leaders and especially headteachers as too often they are a group of teachers who are ignored due to their positions. A recent survey suggested that only 5% of teachers aspire to headship and I suspect that this is because most teachers recognise the workload of heads but do they also recognise the level of pressure and risk of stress. Just bear in mind that no-one is immune to the stresses of leadership. I would urge you all to click here to read the tragic report of the suicide of one of our colleagues.

You may be unsympathetic to the principal characters in this piece. They've made your life miserable and so good luck to them.You may think that they get paid enough and they chose the job so let them get on with it, but schools need heads and they need good heads. Have you experienced working for a poor head? How does that effect your experience in school? How does the presence of a poor head put you under increased pressure? Schools cannot function as Utopian collectives, schools must have leaders to weigh up the range of push-pull factors and plot the course which they believe to be right for the school and all those who sail within her!

Doing your best for your staff is demanding, physically and emotionally. Must of us want to please others, our friends and families, our colleagues, our pupils and so on, and heads are no different. Heads are human (yes, they really are), they want to do the right thing, they want to be liked and they want to be valued, but you can't please all the people all of the time. And so I've adopted the following mantra (which I openly share), I would like to maximise happiness of staff but in reality I have succeeded if I minimise discontent.

Headship is a lonely job with few opportunities for emotional sharing. Inevitability if you unload at work you are unloading on someone who is not your equal in the staffing structure, which can be very unwise.

I could list all the tasks I do which place pressure on me and will be experienced by fellow heads but I would be typing all day and you would be reading all night so I'll just pick a couple of examples. Experienced by me or heads I know.

Heads are responsible for budgets, and this isn't simply about textbooks and photocopying. You will all appreciate that they greatest draw on a budget is staffing and there are times when heads cannot set a budget whilst maintaining the number of teachers. Heads end up releasing staff, making them redundant. Before you stamp your feet in rage at me I know it is worse for the teacher being laid off but the emotional drain of making these decisions and telling the teachers is immense.

Heads spend a lot of time covering for colleagues. How many times have you done something wrong and thought that this will come back to bite me and nothing has happened? There's a good chance your head fell on a sword for you, soaked up the challenges of parents, inspectors or whoever and took the hit. You may have an inkling when they say "next time could you try to..." but you didn't see the furious parent or demonic inspector making the life of the head extremely difficult. I have fallen on swords protecting teachers from parental complaints, from authority officers, from inspectors and I am sure I am in the majority of heads who do that. It comes at a price.

Finally I'll mention the constant influx of new demands. There are few weeks that go by without something else coming into schools that need dealing with. A majority of these demands go no further than the senior leadership team. From time to time changes happen that impact everyone, but these are mainly curriculum and assessment demands. The quantity of other stuff is staggering. From safeguarding to food standards the list of demands seems endless.

With the exception of some independent schools where the proprietor is also the head every headteacher has an employer. They have a duty of care to ensure that their employees, including the head, work in an environment in which they are safe. I wonder how many boards of governors, LEAs, academy chains and so on take the time out to sit down with heads and ask "how are you? no really, how are you?".

I would also suggest you all read the article by Viv Grant which appeared in the Guardian in February 2015.

Exam season is here! Don't forget the teachers

And now we're entering the business end of the year. Next month we hit National Curriculum testing as well as GCSEs and A-levels, and we all know who is being judged!

Don't forget it's our fault if our children don't achieve, not the parents who have them for 85% of their lives and certainly not the children who are always beyond reproach. But have we really reached a point when parents and children are absolved of all responsibility? Now as a headteacher myself I believe it is the job of my staff to enable the children to succeed, and I know that I will be held to account by those who employ me. I have an obligation to do the best for my pupils and their parents, but I also have an obligation to do the best for my staff. Can we really square this circle?

We talk a great deal of the stress placed on children at exam time but when was the last time we heard about the pressure placed on the shoulders of teachers. A poor set of results can now see you not getting a pay rise but getting a poor reference, it can be the precipitating factor in the arrival of OFSTED and forced academisation, sliding down league tables and losing pupils. It can be the humiliation in school when your geography class got 45% A*-C when the history teacher got 65%. I remember at the end of my first year of being a head of science being distraught when the science results came in and they looked awful. I had spent the year working 12 hour days, my team had, but still our results were poor. I got a roasting from the head and that had an extremely negative impact on me and my well-being. All of these can have significant and lasting effects on teachers and school leaders. In defence of heads, I can promise you the impact of poor results on them is devastating and can be career ending.

At this time it is the job of every line manager, of every school leader to be looking out for the signs of excessive pressure on colleagues. Self-care is vital. Talk to each other, relax, exercise, don't drink too much, listen to music, read books, take up an instrument, meditate, walk, run, do whatever you need to help calm your mind. It has taken me 20 years to learn this and I'm still only just getting there.

I would recommend Frazzled by Ruby Wax (I'm not on commission either). Her take on mindfulness is not only helpful but also deeply rewarding. You will be around long after the children you teach have forgotten you and so look after yourself.

To finish this I have a wish, that just once a newspaper will run an article on how stressful SATs are for teachers.
 

Know the difference: Pressure and stress

We like to talk about stress when in fact we should be talking about pressure. This may seem pedantic but given the possible consequences of real stress we should be careful and accurate about our use of language.

A good place to start is to be found on the Health and Safety Executive website:

HSE's formal definition of work related stress is:

"The adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them at work."

Stress is not an illness – it is a state. However, if stress becomes too excessive and prolonged, mental and physical illness may develop.

Work related stress at the HSE


We all require pressure in life, hunger creates a pressure that results in us needing to eat and rummaging through the cupboards to find food. Without pressure we wouldn't get out of bed and go to work. Pressure is a motivator and not a dirty word. When we deal with pressure with experience success and with that satisfaction, pleasure, a sense of fulfilment and so on. We can handle multiple pressures without feeling overloaded and after all we do it all the time, both in our working lives and at home. However this can change and this is when we can start to experience stress.

Pressures can become excessive, too may books to mark, OFSTED and a parents' evening. Over  a short period of time most can handle increased pressure but it is when these extremes of pressure are sustained that it can start having a psychological and/or physiological effect, it is at this point that stress is being experienced.

Until a tipping point is reached I would suggest (as shown in the graph) that our response and effectiveness  increases as the pressures increases, however we reach a point where it all becomes too much. Rather than "maxing-out" we tend to lose effectiveness and find that we can't handle more and more tasks, this is when we are at risk of stress.

Self awareness is extremely important. If you don't do this already you need to try to analyse your own effectiveness as pressure increases. Listen to friends and family and be wary of the onset of stress. Know the signs and symptoms and be prepared to articulate your concerns to your line manager.

Again the HSE website is a valuable resource (from which the following is taken):

Signs of stress in individuals

If you are suffering from some of the following symptoms it may indicate that you are feeling the effects of stress. If you find that work or aspects of your work bring on or make these symptoms worse, speak to your line manager, trade union representative or your HR department. It may be that some action taken at an early stage will ease the stress and reduce or stop the symptoms.

Emotional symptoms

• Negative or depressive feeling
• Disappointment with yourself
• Increased emotional reactions - more tearful or sensitive or aggressive
• Loneliness, withdrawn
• Loss of motivation commitment and confidence
• Mood swings (not behavioural)

Mental

• Confusion, indecision
• Cant concentrate
• Poor memory

Changes from your normal behaviour

• Changes in eating habits
• Increased smoking, drinking or drug taking 'to cope'
• Mood swings effecting your behaviour
• Changes in sleep patterns
• Twitchy, nervous behaviour
• Changes in attendance such as arriving later or taking more time off.

Please note these are indicators of behaviour of those experiencing stress. They may also be indicative of other conditions. If you are concerned about yourself please seek advice from your GP. If you are concerned about a colleague try to convince them to see their GP.


Finally following my request for reader input the following was sent to me (thank you):

I saw you post about stress. I believe it is because it's an ever changing playing field, curriculum, health and safety, safeguarding, personnel, finance. It's hard to focus on one thing and do it well at times and schools are open long hours, my primary is open 7 am to 9pm and at weekends and just so much going on constantly.

Is it any wonder that colleagues go beyond pressure and into stress?

Spinning plates, swimming sharks and running down hills

There is a myth regarding sharks, they have to keep swimming or else they can't breathe. According to the American Museum of Natural History this isn't quite true but the myth has relevance here. In response to my post about stress I was sent a message which I will share with you:

I like to use the spinning plate analogy. I see each of those pressures as a spinning plate. As a teacher it is our responsibility to keep each one spinning and even though it is challenging it is achievable. However, if one of those pressures demands more time/emotion, say death of a parent, then the other plates start to wobble. This beginning is the stress because it is more difficult to keep them all spinning, indeed it becomes stressful. Then some might topple and fall. Now you get the feeling that it is impossible to get them all spinning again. This is stress. Now many of these pressures/plates are within our control, some are less so.  To avoid stress I guess we need to as teachers, managers, SLT be mindful and ensure that those plates that are under our control don't become unmanageable. Now there is a challenge.

I feel that keeping going in teaching has become an exercise in cracking perpetual motion. My experience is that of running down a hill. As you run you know that if you slow down or stop you're going over, and the only way to keep going is to keep moving faster and faster. The (mythical) shark constantly swimming just to keep breathing, the plate spinner or the down-hill runner, are you any of these?

If this is a shared experience then it is one that can be addressed. Discuss your feelings with your colleagues and I'm sure many of them will share your experience. Next step is the tricky one, how do we tackle it? I haven't got the answers, but I'm certainly going to think about it. There are however two clear lines of response, one coming from teachers and the other from leadership. However I need to do a lot more pondering first of all! Again, your ideas would be particularly welcome.

A big thank you for sharing your thoughts with us.
 

What stresses you at school?

I have just spent the last 10 minutes thinking about the factors that can cause stress to a classroom teacher. It is important to recognise that pressure and stress are related, we all need pressure or else we wouldn't get out of bed in the morning, but I take stress to be an adverse psychological and/or physiological reaction to excessive pressure. Given that I have only spent 10 minutes thinking about this I came up with a reasonable length list of factors that can cause stress and exacerbate other mental health conditions (and that's quite worrying). Here are my thoughts so far:

 



Most of these are in blue and these find their origin in the job itself, the two that aren't are beyond the scope of school. I would be very interested to hear what you think are the main stressors in the school life of a classroom teacher. So please consider this a first draft; together we should be able to explore every nook and cranny of school life that can have an adverse effect on emotional well-being.

Over the next few weeks and months I will be writing about many of these stressors but I would like your input.

Further thoughts

I only posted this a few hours ago but something else has crossed my mind. I have worked in and led schools in difficult situations but the key factor that held the school together was how valued the staff felt. I have also worked in a decent school, great children, great location but a leadership team that could never be bothered to tell us we were doing a good job; the staff were generally very low and this all came pouring out when OFSTED came through the door.

Bear with me here. I hate flying. The only time I enjoyed flying is when I had a flying lesson; I felt in control. So much of what we do as teachers feels beyond our control. This is a topic well worth exploring in the future.


 

Bipolar Teachers

Given the data produced by most of the mental health charities it is fair to say that at least 1 in 100 teachers suffer from bipolar disorder. This is the most conservative estimate and I suspect that the mean value from MIND is closer to the mark which suggests that some 9000 teachers are bipolar sufferers. As with many other mental health conditions there is a stigma about it,

I have always felt that conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar, OCD and depression are separated off even by open-minded teachers from conditions such as stress. The attitude seems to be that stress is a normal condition and that it is OK to suffer from stress but the other medical conditions belong to another world of "lunacy". Since we consider that we can blame someone for our stress then we are more likely to be open about it; stress may trigger other underlying conditions but a finger can still be pointed at an external agent

In your staffroom someone is likely to have one of these conditions, they hide it and struggle with it on a daily basis. I would like to see the day when conversations take place in staff rooms that go something like this;
"I'm really struggling at the moment, the stress caused by this new head is making me anxious and giving me sleepless nights."
"I'm also having a rough time with my bipolar at the moment, I've just gone downhill rapidly and reckon that my trigger is also the new head."


Take a look a this link and hopefully understand a little more about bipolar disorder.

Please also look at Bipolar UK for more information and support. 

Don't become a "Mr Chips" - vocation alert!

This is more of a rant than a discussion of a specific mental health issue but it is worth reflecting on a rose-tinted "Mr Chips" vision of teaching, that of teaching as a "vocation". This picture was posted on a social media website the other day and it made me see red. It is not just that it is all twee and fluffy in its sentiment but it actually has a more sinister side.

I am sure that most teachers want to change lives and make a difference but they also want to be valued, be well paid, be respected and feel like professionals. They want a work-life balance and want to be recognised for their labour. I have long been suspicious of those who claim that teaching is a vocation and that they do it for the reasons on the  mug. I think it is laudable that most of those with whom I have worked aspire to the mug definitions but if it was a true "Vocation" they would renounce their salaries and devote every waking hour to the job.

In an earlier post I talked about the potential impact that sentiments about this being the best job in the world can have on colleagues (see The best job in the world...) but there is another problem that should not be ignored. What happens when the bubble bursts? Without naming names, schools and locations, I once worked with a young and idealistic teacher who gave everything to the profession. This teacher produced excellent lessons and children made great progress, all of this took a great deal of time and the concept of work-life balance evaporated. The impact of exam classes, OFSTED, workload and so on meant that more and more time was being spent doing the job. The teacher was already shy and insular but the additional demands of matching the belief in the "vocation" to the challenges of the job meant that the teacher became even more withdrawn. Eventually as the stress levels increased and as the social isolation grew the penny dropped. The "vocation" bubble burst, the belief was shattered and all reasons to do the job disappeared. An extended period of absence from work followed, after which the teacher decided to leave the profession.

I can't say for certain what the trigger event was but I am sure that an unrealistic belief in the vocation of teaching didn't help. Don't get me wrong, I think it is important that we are principled people who believe in the transformative potential of education, but we must also recognise that it is still a job and that we must not sacrifice our emotional well-being for it.

 

A very useful website from the Mental Health Foundation

I believe that when I have the chance to share fantastic resources that I should. The Mental Health Foundation have a superb publications section on their website. You will find policy, statistics, guidance and help in there. If you suffer from a mental health issue, know someone who does, if you are an employer or manager or if you just have an interest in this area please click on the link.

Mental Health Foundation publications 

The danger of loneliness

Contributory Stressing Factor: Isolation

Teaching is a lonely job. There are not many jobs where hours pass between opportunities to talk to other adults. Teaching is possibly unique in being an occupation where on some days the only conversations you have are with 4 year olds! Often the time when you would like to enjoy the company of family and friends after school or at weekends is filled with planning and marking. There are times when you feel that being stranded in the heart of Antarctica would be more socially engaging than teaching your class of Year 3s.

The first department in which I worked always used to get together at the end of the day for a chat. Sometimes it was about the children, sometimes the management, sometimes just anything, but we always had a chat. Not only did you enjoy adult company and feel part of a community but we also were able to unload our work worries before heading home. This was a very challenging school, an inner city comp with inner city problems but we were generally happy. As a very large school we had lots of teachers and probably more in a department than many primary schools have in total.

I have seen over the last 20-odd years in schools too many teachers left to their own devices. I have also had to pick up the pieces of teachers for whom their isolation in school became overwhelming. I have experienced this as a middle and senior leader as well as a union rep. This is real and it is everyone's responsibility.

Don't just assume that a teacher who doesn't come on-board immediately with the social element is simply being aloof, it could be that they simply lack confidence and feel intimidated by their experienced and apparently successful colleagues.

The emotional well-being of your colleagues should be the concern of everyone in a school. Whether you adopt a moral stance and that this concern stems from your concern for your friends and colleagues or because you recognise (more cynically) the impact on other teachers and educational outcomes when a member of staff is below par, you cannot ignore the emotional well-being of your colleagues.
 

Banter, bullying and duty of care

I mentioned in an earlier posting that perceptions are real, that irrespective of the objective truth of a situation a person's subjective experience of that same situation is "true" and completely real. This must be remembered when we think about staffroom banter.

Banter is seen by some (generally the perpetrators) as harmless, knock-about nonsense, but it is often led by someone with a  dominant personality and with a following. If this "banter" is kept within an established consensual group then perhaps these concerns are less appropriate but when the "banter" is directed towards someone else it can easily turn in to bullying. Even if "consensual" the consent may be grudgingly given to maintain the peace and also because of the dominant position the main perpetrator holds. I feel that we should apply the same criteria to banter/bullying with colleagues as we do with children. If it is repeated, non-consensual (in a truly willing way) and oppressive then banter is bullying.

School leadership has to recognise this as an issue. Schools have a duty of care towards their employees. The line between banter and bullying is easily crossed and if this is the case then action has to be taken. In addition the nature of the "banter" may quickly become discriminatory especially if the theme of the banter is around nationality, gender, sexual preference or a protected characteristic. A union official worth their salt should be all over this and making representations to school leadership and if necessary school governing bodies. Unless action is taken by school leadership then it is easy to see how the school fails in its duty of care towards its staff.

Schools can be extremely lonely places for many teachers and "banter" can make it worse. If you're the victim of banter (or aware of it) and feel it is having a detrimental effect on your well-being you must report it to your line manager or senior leadership. Keep notes, inform your union rep and make sure you are listened to. Protect your own mental health at all times.


ACAS Guidance