3 Ways To Support Teaching Staff to Avoid Stress and Burnout

Running a school is no mean feat. Anyone who has held such a position will tell you that there are many complexities involved with maintaining a healthy faculty and ensuring that pupils and their educators are kept happy and supported at all times.

But with burnout rates rising amongst teachers (figures show an increase last year of 9% on the year before) and more and more teachers leaving the profession altogether, how can you ensure that your team has everything they need to support them when they need it the most and od the job they spend so long training for. After all, teaching is more than just a 9-5 job you clock out of each day.

Avoid Micromanaging

Micromanaging in any job role isn't always well received, and the same can be true for teaching. As a school leader or principal, the last thing you should be doing is micromanaging every aspect of what your teachers do. You should be able to respect their professional judgement. After all, they will all be working under enough pressure as it is and allowing them to act appropriately and use their initiative and creative skills to address behavioural, educational or relationship concerns within the faculty will help them to do the job they need to do instead being worried about what will happen to them if they don't toe the line. Simply put, let them do their job to the best of their abilities, and if something isn't right or working, then allowing them to discuss the situation at hand freely can help you to come to a resolution far easier and more effectively than if you are trying to control every aspect of what they do.

Respect

Hand in hand with removing micromanagement from the equation is giving teachers the respect and autonomy to do what they do best. Respect the fact that they have a tremendous workload, respect the fact that they have lives outside of education, respect the fact that there are some things the teacher cannot control and respect that they, too, are people with feelings and treating them as anything else will impact their ability to work.

Extra Mile

Going the extra mile to support your teaching staff will look different for every school. It can be preserving the sanctity of prep time and ensuring they don't get disturbed or pressured into taking too much on that can impact their lesson plans. It can be supporting them if they have a challenging student or parent interaction, allowing them mental health breaks and offering practical support for them to avoid burnout and additional stress. Or it can be offering rewards, bonuses, teacher gifts for anything other than the end of the school year, or simply providing a safe space for them to decompress when required.

Allow your teachers to feel confident they have your full support and be there to assist them in any way they might need or not help as the case may be. Play it by ear for each staff member, adapt to how they work and respond to you, and garner feedback to allow you to help them as needed, not simply to meet demands and targets or because you succumbed to pressure from external factors.

K Burgess xoxox

*Collaborative Post