Half of school support staff experience stress, Unison warns

A survey by Unison has found that over 50 per cent of school support staff have experienced stress, anxiety or depressions as a result of increased workloads.

The survey suggested that 52 per cent of UK school support staff have experienced stress, anxiety or depression with 42 per cent claiming they had difficulties trying to complete their work on time. Around 13 per cent said they found the workload impossible to manage, while Unison highlighted there was a ‘crisis in health and wellbeing engulfing schools’ which could lead to a ‘mass exodus of hard-working, dedicated staff’.

47 per cent of support staff maintained they were considering a change of career due to issues such as low pay, stress and heavy workload. Two-fifths of respondents said that they found it difficult to talk about the pressures of the job and did not feel comfortable voicing their workload concerns to managers.

Some respondents cited incidents were teaching assistants were taking on extra work to make up for understaffing, while others claimed classrooms were strained with classes being covered by teaching assistants regularly.

Commenting on the findings, Jon Richards, head of education at Unison, said: “It’s shocking that more than half of the UK’s school support staff are now experiencing stress, anxiety or depression because they are being given way too much to do.

“These are dedicated professionals, but with too few of them employed for the amount of work that has to be done, schools are increasingly relying on the goodwill of staff. Teaching assistants are putting in nearly four hours of unpaid overtime each week, and with increasing cuts in school support staff numbers, the situation can only get worse."

Unison has called on the government to establish a national initiative with unions and employers to create recommendations to help schools reduce the workload pressure on support staff.