New data shows impact of Covid on Teachers Mental health

New data from a working paper shows that there was a dramatic impact on the mental health of teaching staff and headteachers during and after the lockdowns. The project supported by the Nuffield Foundation with Teacher tapp, tracked teachers’ anxiety about work at 75 points between October 2019 and July 2022. The fft Education Data Lab have used the data to compile a series of graphs that illustrate the impact and highlights 10 things that can be learned from this.

They highlighted the following:

1. Teachers felt slightly less anxious about work during the first COVID wave than before the pandemic
2. Working hours were lower than usual for teachers during the first COVID wave
3. Headteachers have had a challenging time!
4. Independent school teachers were more anxious than state school teachers – but only during the first wave
5. …this may be due to them being early-adopters of technology and longer working hours
6. Anxiety levels were generally similar between primary and secondary teachers, as well as those working in different types of school
7. Teachers’ anxiety levels didn’t increase during the Omicron wave (Dec 2021-Feb 2022)
8. Anxiety about work increased by more for women than men
9. Female teachers with young children suffered a lot more than men.
10. Teachers do shut-off from work – at least a bit – during the school holidays

Although working hours were lower during the first wave for teachers, headteachers experienced no drop in hours and their workload increased dramatically during the lockdowns and while their anxiety was similar to that of teachers pre-pandemic it changed dramatically when the pandemic hit. With recruitment and retention an issue within education at the moment, it will be interesting to see if any research points to the experience during COVID as being a contributing factor?