Stress at work?

Yet another cause of stress with teachers IS the fact that everyone goes on about their short working day and long holidays. My daughter never ceased to be either marking or doing lesson plans. The final straw was the brilliant idea of doing spot checks on classes given that some of her classes had a mental age far below their actual age and yet the spot checks seemed to expect a 'proper' lesson. I think it was a 'three and you're out' system. Maybe they did need to weed out bad teachers but, hey, they shot themselves in the foot this time. I was always having to look after the boys because her school had different holidays to her childrens [hadn't always been the case; someone decided to change the dates]. As for taking them to school with her; I'm only relieved that she left the school without being stabbed...those children would never have set foot inside the door [rant over ]. Looking at the general picture, I'm sure that one of the main reasons for stress in the workplace is bullying; something that I suffered from for years [took it as far as I could when I made an official complaint but got nowhere] and was one of the causes of my marriage break up [my ex's tormentor eventually ending up in prison accused of violence].

I have worked in the public, private and charitable sectors and all have their strengths and their drawbacks so it seems to me that making comparisons between the sectors is like comparing apples and oranges.

My husband used to work in the private sector. He worked 9-5 and had at least a full hour for lunch, which was deli-style and provided by his employers. On the last Friday of the month the team decamped to various local restaurants and had a 'team meeting' with lunch (and wine) paid for by his employer. Had he stayed he would have been a partner by now and his annual salary, supplemented by a Christmas bonus, would always have been, on average, at least £10,000 pa more than he has received since moving to the public sector.

One of my brothers has also worked in the private sector for many years and hasn't had a pay rise for the last eight of those. He gets no bonuses, no perks and the job is extremely stressful.

Two examples of work in the private sector and yet completely different. I could give similar comparisons between people working in the public sector who also have completely different experiences.

My husband left for work on Monday morning and will be back on Friday evening before leaving again on Sunday night so as to be able to attend a meeting at the other end of the country on Monday morning. He gets no perks or bonuses and very limited expenses - if he forgets to pick up a receipt he doesn't get reimbursed (quite rightly - he agrees with accountability) and although he gets TOIL (there's been no overtime or performance related pay for years) it nowhere near covers the nights he spends away from home. He's a civil servant and there have been annual budget cuts for years resulting in huge losses of personnel so that many people are attempting to do the work of three people, which is unsustainable. Suicides and workplace stress have increased, resulting in ever fewer numbers left to carry the load.
BUT - he has a job and mostly he loves his work and so we have much to be thankful for.

There are stresses in both sectors.

The head of the school where I am governor regularly sends me emails at 2 am - so much for waking out of the job at 4 pm! He has no other opportunity to catch up on the mountain of bureaucratic nonsense he is served up with.

Equally there are members of my family who work in the private sector and cannot make a living wage without doing overtime, meeting targets and trying to fathom a complicated bonus system.

Sorry - too long post ^.

I too have worked in public, private, charitable sectors and trying to present both sides. I have taught and been a governor for 10 years.
So I do not speak from the sidelines as it were - rather 40 years of experience.
Picking individual incidents that happen to teachers is not a good argument. People in all kinds of jobs have the occasional bad day - they may tell their mums about those but not about all the good days and enjoyable times.
MY DS1 rings me up when he has a problem, bad news, (or very occasionally something exceptionally positive) but not to tell me about a normal good day.
My point is that if you average out secondary teaching over the year they probably work no harder, or longer, or have more stressful time than many, many other jobs. But they complain about their lot (with flames fanned by some of the unions) far more than other people who have to deal with difficult situations and a high workload.
We don't have regular updates about the emotions of other professional groups but we do about teachers.

And the NHS Jess. Thanks for a balanced post.

GA what is TOIL? Your last paragraph is pretty much a description of my last job.

Time Off In Lieu - of extra hours worked.

Gosh GA I never got that, he is lucky, I just worked whatever hours I needed to and got nothing in recompense.

I agree with GrannyTwice - this is a very unpleasant thread. There has been a nasty trend over recent years to denigrate public sector workers and exaggerate their perceived benefits at every opportunity, which has led to bitterness between private and public sector workers.

It's perfectly simple really, as others have said - there are extremely stressful jobs in the private sector, and there are extremely stressful jobs in the public sector. By the same token, there are cushy numbers in each. Again, a lot of people work unpaid overtime in both sectors. Some private sector pension schemes, particularly in the finance sector, have been more generous than public sector ones - nearly all are being cut to the bone now, so we can all suffer.

I have worked for 40 years in various jobs within the private and the public sector, so speak from experience.

Divide and rule, eh?

Maggiemaybe I agree with you wholeheartedly, and I - like you - have also worked in both sectors.

Nonnie If, on a regular basis, you weren't paid for hours worked then I would call that exploitation and, in my opinion, not something a progressive country should aspire to. It's one thing being hardworking and conscientious - it is quite another feeling that you have to put up with anything in order to keep in your employer's good books.

This discussion of the merits/unfairness of private versus public sector jobs is just what the present government want, especially when people have perceived ideas of unfairness of the 'other side'. Yes, we can all find examples of fairness and unfairness, of laziness or stress through overwork, and it is basically true that people working in the public sector, historically, have had better pension schemes than most equivalent levels of occupation in the private sector. But, I am sure this will not be the case for much longer as more and more benefits are eroded, more and more services are privatised to agencies such as Capita who pay atrociously low rates of pay and will only provide the minimum pension schemes. We should be concerned about this erosion of public services, of police, medical staff, of teachers, rather than about who has the hardest working conditions. There are now PCSO replacing Police Officers, untrained minimum wage staff administering drugs and procedures in hospitals, and unqualified teachers working in academies. Now this is what causes me stress.

Well said GillT57
These are tough times for many and dividing rich against poor, young against old and immigrants against those already here is all too common.
I can't see that it is a particularly prickly thread. I think we're agreed that specific jobs bring their own stresses. if I had worked in more supportive environment, I might well have stayed in teaching.
In all jobs - if there is good management in work it reduces the stress and if there is a bullying, unprofessional culture it greatly increases stress. I have spent many years in a HR-related work and always say that most people leave a job not because they are looking for a better one, but because they really don't like their manager or their colleagues.
I don't think i followed my thoughts about teaching through to the end - yes there are stresses (alongside the many rewards) but if there is a continual message (particularly from the competing unions) that says "you/we are having the WORST time/Your/our job is the MOST STRESSFUL" you are not helping individual teachers to cope, develop and thrive. You'r just encouraging them to take time off due to stress or leave the profession because they are being encouraged to focus on the negative aspects rather than helping them to cope more successfully.
I was very struck while in Australia once when there were the most dreadful floods. The message coming through the media was not "Oh woe. Everyone is devastated and where are the authorities?" It was people, even people who had lost their homes and relatives, saying "we'll survive and rebuild"; remote communities using their own JCBs to build flood defences and thousands of people turning out with their mops to help Brisbane residents clear up their houses and neighbourhoods.

Your point about secondary teaching, in a previous post, being no more stressful than many, many other jobs is based on your exierience of teaching many years ago, not in the current situation of academies and eroded pay and conditions. This have changed significantly in the last few years. If you found it too stressful to continue as a teacher years earlier, when teaching was relatively satisfying, then you wouldn't stand a chance these days for sure.

It's bad enough for your 'ordinary' class teacher, but the pressures increase depending on your subject (.consider the marking load alone for a secondary English teacher) and seniority.

Those of us with friends or family in the profession see the pressure first hand. Yes, there are other stressful jobs, naturally, but don't accuse teachers of simply seeing the negative.

Impressed by the positive attitude in Oz. Wouldn't it be fantastic if our media reported such good stuff? I do remember that when serious tragedy struck our family how amazingly helpful and kind the great British public were. Never mentioned in the press of course. No one's interested in hearing about good positive actions. I do think that much is made of public sector stress but not about the laughs and satisfaction that can be derived in a small day to day way. That's not to deny that there can be significant levels of stress. I have literally been in fear of my life on a thankfully few occasions.

anya vast majority of academies same pay and conditions as LAs, otherwise they would not be able to recruit.
When I was teaching, schools did not have photocopiers. We used to have to create our own "banda" and "roneo" masters for worksheets or notes and then do battle with the duplicating machinery personally. There are a lot more support staff in school these days and computers also make some aspects of the job a great deal easier. If I wanted to show a film (there were no videos) I had to set up the projector and act as the projectionist.
The way teachers do their job is more prescribed by OFSTED these days (learning objectives, recap at the end of lesson etc) but at least there is that guidance - you know how a "good" lesson should be structured.
So I am well aware there have been a lot of changes over 30 years but quite possibly it amounts to a similar amount of effort.
During my 10 years as school governor we suffered from staff turnover that was too low. Teachers were rarely off work with stress or stress related illness (can't recall any examples) nor leaving in sufficient numbers to move the culture forward - in ways that would have helped the kids. This despite being in the firing line in a school with exam results in the lower 50% - and many kids from difficult backgrounds etc Not an "easy" school.
In my experience people "off work with stress" in many types of employment are very often people who are involved in some kind of disciplinary action. It's become extremely common to do this and it delays the resolution of issues with employment. They get told off, or they are told that there is going to be a disciplinary hearing about an incident and they disappear, get a doctor's note and the HR advice to managers is that you cannot bother them if they are "off with stress" . . I have seen this scenario rumble on for months, in some cases with employee claiming to be too unwell to come to any meetings.
Ask anyone in HR and they will tell you the same thing - as long as the workforce is entitled to paid sick leave, this will happen.
So any data on workplace stress and its effects are somewhat misleading I'd say.
Yes Jane10 a classroom - particularly one that is isolated geographically, as many are, can be a lonely place and teachers need good backup and support if they are to feel safe at work. My headteacher was asked (i.e. pressured heavily) to accept a new pupil who made everyone feel uneasy - query some kind of psychiatric problem. After a trial period without putting him officially "on roll" staff concluded he had recently been a child soldier in Africa and the LA had to find some suitable provision outside mainstream. Also had a spate of refugees from another war zone who, we concluded, had been told by people traffickers or charity workers to pretend to be school age...
Helps that these days that teachers have mobile phones to summon assistance if required.

Good heavens, is it 30 years since you were in the classroom Jess ? Yes, I remember Bandas from my early days. They could indeed be stressful, if that's the point you're trying to make? I remember spending ages on a map of Great Britain only to put the master sheet on the wrong way round and having it completely ruined.

I expect you, like me, also used blackboard and chalk? (sighs nostalgically) I must admit when white boards first came out I felt it was a step too far, then came computers in the classroom and interactive white boards!

And somewhere between black and white boards they introduced the National Curriculum, and criteria marking and then changed it all, again and again. And HMIs (remember them?) were replaced by OFSTED Inspectors (following the Governments narrow agenda) And the 'literacy hour' and next it was to be the new Maths Curriculum of Study, at which point I took the easy option and became an LEA Advisor. But I felt I had served my time at the chalk face white board interface and had earned it after 30+ plus years. I also gave up my position as Teacher Governor.

So I do know about OFSTED inspections and about JARs and so on, but I thank you for the information anyway. I do have to take issue with you about your reasoning why teachers are leaving the profession or coming down with stress and I think you will find that Academies do set their own pay and conditions much of the time.

I had stress at work, I was 16 years old.

I was sent to Coventry by a Union because I didn't want to join the Union, I wanted my mum and I to keep my wages. Lovely people, Those were the days!

Academies, trusts and foundation trusts have the power to vary the pay and conditions they offer to employees.

Academies

As academies have the status of independent schools, they can operate outside the School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD).

Sorry to cut across your post POGS that's a poor start to your working life

I worked in NHS with adults not schoolchildren. I didn't realise this thread was only about schools. Sorry

Neither did I.

I was a teacher - secondary, comprehensive, English, ended up in senior management. I loved (nearly) every minute of it.

Which is why I thought I could not be bothered to take part in a discussion which, as so often happens on GN, seemed quickly to have descended into the usual personal anecdotes linked tenuously to generalised statements.

However, as usual with GN, I have to add my two penn'orth. But I'll stick to what I think, and not try to make it a universal truth!

My job was extremely challenging, very stressful, and I worked at least a twelve hour day, if I count an hour's commute because we couldn't afford to live in London. BUT, every so often there was a semi colon, if not a full stop - a break (half term, maybe) in which I could catch up with all the admin., marking etc. The knack was to try to keep on top of it all - getting up at 4.30 a couple of times a week instead of 5.30 for example. It worked!

Now, if I had got things really wrong, I would have been in trouble. But getting rid of me would have been a long process, unlike the position of some in the private sector. (Yes, I know things are changing now - I am the mother of a clutch of teachers - obviously taught them nothing!)

I honestly never thought much about the pension until my fifties, but am very grateful for it now. I look back on my career, and my students with enormous affection but with no yearning to return to it.

So many people work so hard, in such difficult and often underpaid jobs, in precarious circumstances, that we cannot compare or criticise, but we could sympathise with each other and maybe vote to change things. (Ducks beneath parapet.)

Eloethan you are right but I needed the job. What else could I do? I know I am not alone. I was working for a huge, well known company, and what I did was expected of quite a lot of us, especially when working on a massive IT project. I was putting the point of view that some jobs are not protected in the same way as others.

Would just like to make the point that in my job we had no OFSTED coming in but we had auditors. How often does OFSTED come in? Our external auditors came in every year, internal ones sometimes as often as every quarter. They added masses of extra work with asking for all sorts of apparently unnecessary documentation etc. They sat at our desks and watched our every move at times.

Then we had our annual review/assessments, development plans, checks etc. Feedback forms had to be produced every time we gave a presentation, evaluated and fed back to all sorts of people. This is all without all the hassle HMRC gave us and much more.

No, not saying it was harder than anyone else, just putting another side to it.

Schools are audited too, Nonnie. And very rigorously. I worked in one that converted to Academy status - it had 7 audits, external, internal and funding, between September and July of the first year.