Best Practice

Staff mental health: Are you having your five-a-day?

Pay and conditions Teaching staff Staff wellbeing Mental health Workload Flexible working
In a three-part series, Phil Denton considers the merits of initiatives to improve mental health. In part three, he meets school leader and self-confessed ‘Wellbeing Super Model’ Patrick Ottley-O’Connor and considers the NHS five steps to mental wellbeing resource


In our vocation, we are constantly looking to support, protect and cherish the young people in our school. However, the demands of the role can take an emotional and physical toll on us as professionals, which can ultimately lead to mental health issues among teachers and a retention crisis which is damaging to the profession.

The Department for Education has reported that a fifth of teachers leave teaching within two years of qualification (DfE, 2021). And the pandemic has exacerbated the stress facing our colleagues. Education Support’s latest Teacher Wellbeing Index found that 84 per cent of teachers and 89 per cent of school leaders described themselves as feeling “stressed” or “very stressed” (SecEd, 2020).

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