Teacher Stress in England Soaring!!

This is nothing new then, or is it? The demands placed upon teachers have always been high, far higher than many either in the general public or the private sector would ever dream of. Many see teaching as an easy path, full of what they see as short working hours plus extended holidays. However, there is no other job or very few that have the constant demands of large numbers of interactions within a day (for example, teaching five lessons per day with class sizes of thirty plus will mean over one hundred and fifty interactions with the teacher in any one day, add onto that interactions with other teachers and even parents and one can see that in those terms alone, teaching has very high potential demands in terms of energy and drive.)

Then we must add the constant need to monitor the class for potential disruption, the need to maintain discipline and order so as to maximise student's learning and prevent unruly students dominating a class. Then in addition the rigour of teaching to a prescribed curriculum and having to meet the ever increasing need to improve results year on year, moment by moment. 

All of this and more can wear a teacher down and create huge amounts of stress. One is teaching and that in and of itself means one spends large amounts of time with children rather than with adults and that also is a potential cause of stress as one can feel isolated from adult conversation and company.

Lastly throw into the mix, huge amounts of paperwork to record, monitor and catalogue student's performance. A lot of the paperwork appearing meaningless and one can see the huge pressures in this profession.

So it is hardly surprising that stress in teachers is soaring:

​http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-31921457