Teachers among happiest professionals

The wellbeing and mental health of teachers in England is similar to those in other professions and teachers are less likely to report feelings of 'low self-worth', according to new research from academics at the UCL Institute of Education. The paper, published in BERA's Review of Education and funded by the Nuffield Foundation, looked at data from more than 60,000 teachers in England collected over the last decade. The study, which is the first to compare the wellbeing of such a large number of teachers to other professional groups, found that teachers had similar levels of anxiety, unhappiness and life satisfaction to other professional groups. Overall, the study found that 22% of secondary and 20% of primary teachers were unhappy, compared to figures of 21% and 23% for demographically similar individuals working in other professional jobs. Relatively few primary (5%) and secondary (7%) teachers had low levels of self-worth, compared to around 11% for other professional workers. The situation was even brighter for headteachers, who were found to be happier, have higher levels of life-satisfaction and were more likely to feel that their life is worthwhile than other occupational groups. Co-author of the study, Professor John Jerrim (UCL Social Research Institute) added: "A myth seems to have emerged that teachers have worse mental health and lower levels of wellbeing than other groups.