Burnout and exhaustion is rife amongst school principals new research suggests, as it finds many are working upwards of 50 hours weekly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
New research from Dublin City University (DCU) has found more than four in five (86%) principals are experiencing moderate to high levels of work-related burnout.\u00a0<\/p>\n
More than half (56%) of the principals surveyed reported working more than 50 hours each week. Almost a tenth of the principals surveyed reported working more than 65 hours a week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
More than a quarter (28%) of the principals described their mental health as “poor” or “very poor”, with nearly one-third of these leaders stating this has negatively impacted their ability to lead their schools.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The study by the DCU Centre for Collaborative Research Across Teacher Education also found:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Almost 70% of principals reported being unable to avail of their annual leave entitlements;\u00a0
\n 95% of principals identified both general workload and unrealistic expectations from the Department of Education as primary contributors to their burnout;
\n A further 78% of school leaders cited the challenges in leading special education needs provision as a significant factor in their declining wellbeing.<\/p>\n
The report also highlights concerns about existing mental health support structures. More than 80% of the principals who took part in the study found the current state mental health support services for educators to be “poor” or “very poor”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A further 71% cited inadequate resources and unrealistic parental expectations as major stressors.<\/p>\n
“Leading a school is a highly relational and emotionally demanding role which places principals at increased risk of stress and burnout,” said Dr Sabrina Fitzsimons, co-author of the report.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“The data suggests a potential sustainability crisis, with almost one-third of principals self-reporting poor or very poor mental health, while one in 10 principals indicated they were \u2018extremely unlikely\u2019 to continue in their role over the coming year.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
A significant challenge has emerged for principals in recent years due to the lack of a clear remit and job specification, added Professor Catherine Furlong, co-author of the report.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“In turn, what we\u2019ve seen is they are wearing many hats; everything from HR functions and people management, to teaching, organising maintenance of the school grounds, engaging with external agencies, managing tenders \u2014 the list of escalating tasks goes on.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
She added: “The significance of this is that it cascades into every aspect of the school day and beyond, pulling school leaders away from their central role of leading teaching and learning.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr Damien Burke, co-author of the report, said: “Ireland is fortunate to have such a committed and skilled principal community \u2014 our research shows that despite this undeniable professional commitment, many of those in the role are paying too high a personal price for this dedication.”\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Burnout and exhaustion is rife amongst school principals new research suggests, as it finds many are working upwards…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[835,103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":["post-604361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-education","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}