British Expatriate Network

I was reading underreported.com and saw a link to this-

http//education.independent.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=622766
"Nearly half of UK secondary school teachers have suffered from mental illness"

"Nearly half of the country's secondary school teachers have suffered mental health problems due to worsening pupil behaviour, a survey has revealed.
The research, by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, on 300 secondary school teachers, showed that abuse at the hands of pupils had left 46 per cent taking antidepressants or facing long lay-offs from school through stress.

One teacher told researchers he had been assaulted 10 times during 18 years in the profession and had suffered two breakdowns. He said he had been on antidepressants for more than three years as a result.

The survey also revealed that 72 per cent of teachers had considered quitting their jobs because they were worn out by some pupils' persistent disruptive behaviour, such as threats, swearing, locking teachers out of classrooms, vandalising school property, letting down car tyres, stealing keys, throwing eggs at staff and spitting at them. One in seven (14 per cent) said they had suffered actually bodily harm from pupils. "



You know, now I think about it ALOT of my teachers had nervous breakdowns. If that figure above is correct I can't imagine why anyone would want to go into the profession.

I used to teach in a county secondary, and I am surprised at the numbers being reported in this survey. Obviously, it is not known who is on anti-depressants, but the vast majority of teachers seem well able to cope with the job. The stressed out ones seemed to be those with extra admin on top of teaching (eg heads of department).

Saying that, it is no fun dealing with constant bad behaviour and there is a drip-drip-drip effect.

I am looking to going back into teaching from September, but it will either be in an independent school or supply work - I'll be honest and say that I don't want to deal with other people's rude and selfish brats.

I wonder what the level of anti-depressant usage is in the general working population, along with sickies for stress. It would put it into perspective if teaching was dramatically worse.

I'm not surprised, thinking of what me and my classes were like. What a nightmare, don't know how the teachers coped.

Well, they either weren't mentally strong enough to go into teacher education, or their initial training and subsequent administrative support was inadequate.

It's all too easy to blame the pupils and parents, but teachers are the professionals, they are paid (however little) as professionals, they are the ones with power and training, if they can't handle the job, they should either seek further education or quit.

If you want to be outraged, be out raged at the poor quality and insufficient depth of teacher education programs.

With this attitude I suspect that education is not the right profession for you.

A naice little girls' public school would suit me to a tee. Especially if they did a good deal on fee remission...

So what you're saying is you don't want to teach working class children because you equate them as being "rude" "selfish" and "brats" and not very “nice”.

I think for the good of the children its probably recommended that you stay away from the state system.

So much for Major and Blair's classless society, when even "Americans" are now putting social airs and graces. :roll:

Ameriscot 1 Moo 0

ding ding round two.......

Not all of them, and they're not all working class. But it doesn't take many - just one or two in a class of 30+ to sour the atmosphere.

I agree!

It's nothing to do with class...we all know that anyone is capable of misbehaving. The middle class just wait until they get to university before embarking on a few years of Hooray Henry loutishness.

What we have an education system where there is parental choice. All parents can choose where their children go to school - and being able to afford private education just gives the parents more choices.