A quarter of head teachers in Northern Ireland have unmanageable levels of stress, according to a survey carried out by the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT).
Furthermore, over half of the respondents said that their stress level had a major impact on their health.
As a result of the survey, NAHT have accused the Department of Education of not doing enough to support and “safeguard the wellbeing” of head teachers.
However, the department replied that it does have measures in place to deal with such issues.
This does not seem to be the case judging by the quarter of 236 participants of the survey who said their stress was unmanageable.
Furthermore, four in ten head teachers said that staff morale in their schools had dropped over the preceding year.
The cause of the stress was put down to budget restrictions, long working hours, massive amounts of administrative and paper work, school inspections, and a lack of support when dealing with pupils with behaviour issues.
A similar survey found similar levels of high stress in head teachers back in 2001, something that the NAHT finds very “concerning”.
Stress is an endemic, one which is only getting worse while the economy in which we live continues to struggle.
