Anxiety of headteachers across England ’substantially increased’ during the pandemic

The anxiety of headteachers across England increased "substantially" throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, finds the largest study of its type to date, led by a UCL researcher. The research shows that headteachers and senior leaders bore the burden of stress throughout the pandemic and that they were 'generally quite good at protecting more junior colleagues from workplace stresses'. The study, which was published in the journal Educational Review, collected 26,394 observations from 1,530 teachers using the daily survey app 'Teacher Tapp' at 75 touchpoints from October 2019 to July 2022. Lead author Professor John Jerrim (Ioe, UCL's Faculty of Education & Society) said: "Our research demonstrates the considerable anxiety teachers experienced throughout the coronavirus pandemic, particularly that faced by senior leaders and headteachers."   "We also found female teachers and those with children of their own to have experienced higher levels of work-related anxiety during this period, peaking at the end of 2020 and start of 2021 when it was not clear whether schools would re-open or not."  During the winter of 2020/21, the average anxiety score entered by participants reached 6.7 on a scale of 0-10 when asked 'how anxious do you feel about work today'' on Teacher Tapp. At this point more than 67% of participants had a score of 7 or more (considered a 'high' level of anxiety).