Where are we now?

As I come up to the second anniversary of my tenure as Chief Executive at Education Support, it is a good time to give you an update of how the charity is developing.

The pandemic has been an experience unlike any other in the lives of many of us. Whilst we have faced difficulties in the past, few of us have lived through historical events that affect the whole of society: The effects have not been equally felt, with particular communities bearing more than their fair share of the pain. Much of what we took for granted has changed forever. This is true at Education Support too. Coronavirus affected our income and the way we deliver services, but I’m pleased to say that we maintained support for education staff throughout. This was only possible due to the thousands of individual donors who give regularly to the charity. We pared back our activity to focus on the work that makes the biggest difference to the frontline, and the lessons learned from this year will stand us in good stead as we face the coming years.

I come from a family of teachers. My grandfather was a schoolmaster in rural Ireland in the 1940s and 50s. He taught his pupils to read, write and count, but more than that, he helped poor families to navigate an impenetrable and punitive welfare system. He encouraged parents to learn to read and write. He provided a listening ear for stories that would otherwise have gone untold. And he was beloved by the community that he served. The context might be different today, but my grandfather’s experience is replicated across the UK in modern settings today. I will use every ounce of creativity and passion at my disposal to ensure that the health and wellbeing of school staff gets taken seriously in 2021. As the days lengthen and the buds of spring appear in the garden, I find my attention drawn to some of the positives in this horrible situation. A variety of polls show us that the public continues to value and trust teachers. Those of us who homeschooled our own children are well aware of the effort that is going in to remote learning, sustaining direct contact with children and young people, and maintaining on-site support across the country. Once again, education professionals have demonstrated the critical role they play in keeping calm and carrying on.

Individuals

Support for the individuals who make up our education sector remains at the heart of our work. This includes teachers, lecturers, school and college leaders, as well as support staff and administrators.

We continue to make hardship grants to those in distress. Our helpline continues to provide 24/7 support to anyone working in education: with almost 600 calls each year from people clinically assessed to be at risk of suicide, this is a real lifeline for many. During the first lockdown we began creating short videos on subjects including stress, bereavement, anxiety and more. That content has been viewed over 130,000 times since April 2020, illustrating the appetite for specific mental health advice for teachers.

Schools, colleges and universities as workplaces

Our main work with education workplaces focuses on the provision of counselling support for staff. In addition, we have developed a highly successful online peer support model as well as a telephone supervision service. We developed this work in response to the obvious strain on school leaders over the past twelve months. The initial evaluation is very positive, and we expect to expand that work over the coming year. In the meantime, we are piloting a Wellbeing Advisory service in Wales: one of our experts works directly with schools to help them develop the most appropriate support for their staff locally. More of this on page 16.

Education policy

We will continue to research the mental health and wellbeing of the education workforce. We then use this evidence to lobby for changes to government policy. Currently, we are advocating for changes to the accountability system, the expression of trust in teachers and the unsustainable workloads regularly seen in the sector.

Many of our donors have written to us to describe their frustration at how education policy has become something of a political football. Retired teachers and lecturers are aghast at the way in which education professionals are treated. As we assess the long-term impact of Coronavirus on education, we are determined to increase our work in this area and to amplify our voice in the policy debate. We will do this through focused research to fill gaps in the evidence base, as well as through partnerships with other organisations who also want to see change, be they mental health charities, think tanks, trade unions or academics.

All the while, we must continue to make sure that teachers across the country know that our services are available to them. The pandemic has given us the opportunity to reach more people directly through online events: I presented to over 850 people on various Zoom events last week alone.

We will continue to innovate and deliver high quality services that demonstrate the value of good support across the sector. In particular, we want to find ways to support those educators who routinely deal with the most difficult situations in schools and colleges and we know that they can be left distressed by the difficulties they see in communities, families and students.