Teacher Support Network May Meeting: Handling stress

Our first meeting is geared toward a relaxed conversation and workshop on stress. How can teachers manage it with increasingly complicated workloads that eat into their personal lives? How can teachers start to regain their own time and maintain a healthy work/life balance?

A joint survey of teachers recently conducted by Teacher Support Network and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers shows that stress remains the leading cause of health problems for teachers, and as a Guardian news article recently pointed out, "the rash of government education policies over the last five years has undermined attempts to agree a proper work/life balance and led to increasingly stressed teachers."

Seventy per cent of teachers and lecturers say their health has suffered because of their job, and over 50 per cent are stressed by working in education, according to an Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) and Teacher Support Network survey.

Of the 762 teachers responding...

• 85 per cent reported stress as their main health issue
  
• 83 per cent reported problems getting enough sleep at night
  
• 82 per cent reported feeling exhausted
  
• Just over 70 per cent of those with health problems said they have considered leaving the profession as a result.

You can read all about the survey results at the Teacher Support Network website. But where do teachers go from here? Better policy may be the answer, but what can teachers do for themselves and each other until such a thing comes to pass?

Meeting Agenda

1. Start the evening with a meet and greet session where the members can get to know each other
2. Teacher Support Network wellbeing workshop
3. The group going forward:

• When, where and how often should the group meet?
  
• Agenda for the next meeting
  
• Ways of increasing group members
  
• What purpose do members hope the group will serve?
  
• Topics to discuss in the future

This is the beginning of Teacher Support Network's Meetup.com group, and its something we see as a teacher-led endeavor. At our first meeting, we'll discuss stress and stress management, and we also want to bring you in on the planning of future monthly meetups. While encouraging peer-to-peer, frank discussion, we're also looking to keep things relaxed and confidential. Consider it a stress-free place to talk about the stress of the job.

Sign up with our group and send an invite to other teachers you know as well, and please give us some feedback about what you'd like to see at our inaugural meeting as well.

See you there!