ERS0008

Written evidence submitted by Education Support

1. About Education Support

Established by teachers for teachers, Education Support has been supporting teachers and education staff for 146 years.

Our mission is to improve the mental health and wellbeing of teachers and education staff. We believe that better mental health leads to better education.

We support individuals and help schools, colleges and universities to improve the mental health and wellbeing of their staff. We also carry out research and advocate for changes in Government policy for the benefit of the education workforce, using our unique combination of expertise in the education sector and mental health and wellbeing.  

Our services

• We have a free, 24/7 emotional support helpline for teachers and education staff. They can call us any time of day or night, and speak to a qualified counsellor who understands the challenges faced by those in the sector.

• We provide emergency financial support for teachers and education staff. We have seen a significant rise in applications, with food costs now topping the list of reasons for application. In 2021 we received 690 grant applications and awarded 335 grants. In 2022 we received 1060 applications and awarded 695 grants.

• We also provide professional supervision for school leaders in England, which are funded by DfE. From April 2023, college leaders will also be able to access the service.

• In Wales we provide peer support groups and professional supervision for school leaders, funded by Welsh Government. We also provide a School Wellbeing Advisory Service, which provides bespoke support to schools, to help them on their wellbeing improvement journey.

• We also provide Employee Assistance Programmes for schools and colleges.

https://www.educationsupport.org.uk/

1. Why we are submitting evidence

The education recovery programme was developed with important ambitions for children and young people’s education, and is a necessary part of the nation’s post-pandemic recovery. It has, however, landed at a time when many pupils are struggling with mental health special education needs or simply arriving at school reliably washed and fed. Alongside this, Teachers and school leaders are dealing with severe budgetary challenges, staff shortages, expanded role responsibilities and intense pressure as individuals. The impact of this difficult professional context is borne out in the current teacher recruitment and retention challenges.

2. Teacher workload and teacher retention

While the pandemic had a temporarily positive impact on teacher recruitment, it is clear that more experienced teachers are leaving, and recruitment is once again below pre-pandemic levels.[1] The Government’s own data shows that recruitment is down by a fifth.[2]

It is well understood that workload is a key driver for teachers leaving the profession.[3] Our 2022 Teacher Wellbeing Index shows that:

• 59 per cent of staff have considered leaving the sector in the past academic year due to pressures on their mental health and wellbeing (67 per cen of senior leaders, 59 per cent of school teachers)
• 55 per cent of staff have actively sought to change or leave their current jobs (58 per cent of senior leaders, 53 per cent of school teachers)
• 68 per cent of staff cited volume of workload as the main reason for thinking about leaving their jobs (83 per cent of senior leaders, 66 per cent of school teachers)

We also surveyed more than 1,000 teachers in secondary state schools across England (in field between 18th and 28th of October 2022) and found:

• 30 per cent of teachers reported that their work-life balance was either bad or very bad (climbing to 37 per cent in Education Investment Areas).
• More than one third (35 per cent) of teachers said that they are working between 10 and 25 hours outside of the school day, in an average week.
• 70 per cent of teachers said they wished they spent fewer hours working outside of school hours.
• And, 39 per cent of teachers said that they were very likely to leave teaching if they were offered another job in another sector which promised a better work-life balance. In fact, better work-life balance polled most strongly compared with other factors, including more pay, as a reason that would make teachers very likely to leave if they were offered a job which promised that.

Poor retention will impact the whole school community. Aside from having to engage in a costly and lengthy recruitment process, morale and teaching quality will also be affected. Back in 2019, one report found that schools had been paying out up to £11,000 in 'exorbitant finder's fees' to agencies to recruit teachers.[4]

A shortage of teachers can threaten the stability and consistency that a quality education requires, ultimately affecting student attainment and behaviour.

3. The expanding role of teachers

When considering challenges related to teacher recruitment and retention, it’s vital to take a realistic view of how the job has changed since the beginning of the pandemic. The social and emotional needs of children and young people in our schools have significantly increased. Teachers and schools staff are left trying to support their pupils in areas of mental health where they are neither adequately supported nor trained. This is having a significant negative impact on teachers and schools staff, who are at risk of burnout.

We know from our own research, and from direct conversations with our service users that there is a massively increased level of need in schools, and teachers and schools staff are often left struggling and unsupported trying to meet it. CAMHS and social services are also under significant pressure and cannot meet the current level of need in the system.[5] Teachers have a strong sense of dedication and moral purpose - we found in 2021 that 77 per cent of teachers had clear sense of purpose when starting work as educators and most kept this sense of purpose during their careers[6].  They are going above and beyond to try to meet the needs of their pupils, even if it falls well outside of their usual job description. A participant in our 2022 Teacher Wellbeing Index research told us:

[Throughout the pandemic] We… took on a huge increase in student mental health and safeguarding concerns as best as we could…. dealing with police, social services, and psychiatrists etc. to keep our students safe was exhausting and at times very upsetting.

Head/Deputy Head of Year, Academy, London

We surveyed more than 1,000 teachers in secondary state schools across England (in field between 18th and 28th of October 2020). Here’s what we found:

• Often, the emphasis is on catch-up and recovery of lost learning post-pandemic, but our polling also shows that nearly three quarters (74 per cent) of teachers said they often help pupils with personal matters beyond their academic work – and this has increased in recent years.

• 72 per cent of respondents said that they are helping pupils more with non-academic matters than they did 5 years ago. This climbed to 82 per cent of teachers in schools in Education Investment Areas – parts of the country with poorer educational outcomes, designated by the DfE.

• We know that there has been a significant rise in pupils struggling with poor mental health, and this is confirmed by our polling in what teachers are dealing with in the classroom. Helping their pupils to process their emotions (69 per cent) and talking to them about their mental health (69 per cent) came out as the top answers as to which non-academic matters teachers were specifically helping their pupils with.

• More than a quarter of teachers (27 per cent) reported that pupils’ behaviour issues were often disrupting lessons.

• The economic implications on families amid the rising cost of living was also apparent in our findings. 41 per cent of teachers reported that they had bought their pupils key supplies (such as pens, paper, or bags). More than a quarter (26 per cent) of teachers said they had prepared food for pupils when they didn’t have any. 13 per cent of teachers cleaned their clothes when they were dirty; and 10 per cent bought them parts of their school uniform.

• One third (33 per cent) of teachers reported helping their pupils resolve a family conflict (so that could be between siblings, parents etc.). More than a quarter (26 per cent) of teachers reported signposting a family in their school to local support services (such as social housing).

4. Conclusions

Education Support launched its Commission on Teacher Retention in December 2022[7] to investigate actionable strategies for schools seeking to keep talented staff in their classrooms. High teacher churn can directly affect the quality of education delivered in schools, which in turn has the potential to affect our economic growth and Levelling Up ambitions in the longer term.

Children’s education, and our economy’s growth and success hinges on the quality of education delivered by a system which has not seen per pupil spending grow for 14 years[8]. While additional spend has been welcome, it has not caught up with the pace of additional need in the system since the beginning of the pandemic.

Teachers and education staff are responsible for teaching, guiding and inspiring the next generation of adults. To demonstrate value for money, it is vital that new education programmes and initiatives do not drive unintended consequences like poor mental health and staff retention levels. If they do children – and the quality of their education – will suffer.

It is also clear from our research that – while making up for learning loss is important – the scale and range of needs in schools is significant and complex.  Many children and young people are not arriving in school in fit state to learn. For programmes like Education Recovery to work, children and young people must arrive in schools having their basic needs met, and feeling safe and secure enough to learn. In turn, the teaching workforce must be well enough, and adequately resourced to focus on delivering the best possible education, with support available from other relevant public services, rather than stretching our definition of teachers’ roles and responsibilities. While the aims and ambitions of the Education Recovery programme are important, to deliver real value for money, the wider context of teacher and  

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