Teachers hate Sundays.

60% of teachers regularly find themselves feeling depressed and unhappy as they face their preparation chores on a Sunday evening in readiness for the first day of the week. This rises to almost 90% when asked how they feel at the end of their holiday periods, just prior to returning to work.     The Self Esteem Advisory Service has conducted an informal survey of primary school teachers to find out how they cope with stress in their workplace.

Holidays were seen as a very important part of stress management but many teachers felt that holidays offered a brief opportunity to return to what they called the 'normal world after days spent 'in the trenches. Staff shortages, rapid turnover of head teachers, negative Ofsted reports and a culture that pounced on bad practice rather than also praising good practice were thought to be the main culprits for engendering stress in the teachers. The pupils were not seen as a huge source of stress. Teachers believed that the children only reflected their own degree of stress and began to react badly to it after a while.

The Self Esteem Advisory Service has developed a Guide to Staffroom Self Esteem which is available free on the website www.selfesteemadvisoryservice.com
ENDS

Editors Notes
The Self Esteem Advisory Service is run by Buckholdt Associates, an educational consultancy directed by two psychologists. The organisation is based in Gloucestershire and works with schools and parents throughout the UK. The director specialises in emotional intelligence and self esteem development.    She has worked in this field for the last fourteen years and has run conflict mediation programmes and many building self esteem courses for schools, teachers, parents and children during this time. Her programmes are run in conjunction with the University of Bristol, ISIS and the Centre for British Teachers. She established and runs the national Self Esteem Advisory Service online and conducts research into the factors that increase self esteem in adults and children.
Self Esteem Advisory Service, Buckholdt House, The Street, Frampton on Severn. Glos.GL2 7ED
Tel: 01452 74 1106:     Fax: 01452 74 1520:     Email: elizabeth@buckholdtassociates.com