This is the first of four posts I have planned ahead of my session at the ResearchED National Conference on Saturday 9th September. In the second post, I will be looking to explore what is, and isn’t, meant by the term ‘supervision’. The third post will outline what models and modalities of supervision there are in other ‘helping professions’. The series will conclude with an outline of a model of responsive, reflective supervision that might be a best bet for supporting and challenging school leaders and staff.
In this first post, I want to outline how research evidence from before, during and after the main phases of the coronavirus pandemic have demonstrated that there is a tangible and potentially urgent need for additional support for school leaders. In my view, this support needs to be different to that which has traditionally been on offer for those in critical roles in schools, and ought to be in the form of responsive, reflective, clinical supervision which is modelled on supervision in other domains and adapted to meet the contextual needs of those working in education.
Teacher Wellbeing at Work (2019)
Let’s start in the good old pre-pandemic days of July 2019, when working in schools was all sunshine and roses. Or, as the Ofsted Teacher Wellbeing Research Report (2019), drawing from Health and Safety Executive data, put it at the start of their report, “teaching staff and education professionals report the highest rates of work-related stress, depression and anxiety in Britain”. The methodology employed by Ofsted was to randomly sample 1000 schools and 250 FE providers that would be representative of the sector, for surveys. From this:
“2,293 staff from 290 schools and 2,053 staff from 67 providers responded to the questionnaire. We selected 19 schools and six FES providers for focus-group interviews and visits. They were chosen based on the reported levels of well-being at work, phase of education, type of institution and region.“
The report makes a lot of the subjectivity of the responses and acknowledges that there were no objective measures chosen because “using objective measures has disadvantages because many are only proxies for measuring well-being”. Interestingly, and in spite of this claim, the report does refer to days lost to sickness absence, which is an objective measure.
The report identifies that teacher’s wellbeing is “worryingly low” and that the education sector “must act now on improving teachers’ occupational well-being at a school/provider and sector level”. Of those education staff surveyed only 54% report high or very high life satisfaction compared with 82% in the general population. Senior leaders and support staff reported much higher levels of occupational wellbeing than teachers and middle leaders, and there was a distinct correlation between the Ofsted grading of a provider and the levels of occupational wellbeing felt by their staff (you can guess which way around that correlation worked).
The report’s findings, which make liberal use of the words “perceived” and “self-reported” to provide some distance for policy-makers and senior policy-influencers, are arresting nonetheless. School staff have “limited policy influence”, “insufficient funding” and a “sense of de-professionalisation”. Workload (51 hours per week for staff generally, rising to 57 hours for senior leaders) leads to a poor work-life balance for educators as they work into their evenings, weekends and holidays. Poor behaviour and combative parents are identified as factors, as are DfE approaches to policy implementation and Ofsted inspections. Lack of support for students with the greatest needs is cited as negatively impacting on wellbeing, as are staff shortages (particularly in specialist areas), levels of pay within the profession and a felt lack of trust within the sector.
Although the report recommends that government provides more resources for external providers to support schools, there are no recommendations around additional resources for schools to address wellbeing issues (just to encourage schools to take up tools to analyse how they are deploying their existing resources). The report offers no specific advice on how the DfE or school leaders can better support staff, other than “by creating a positive and collegial working environment in which staff feel supported, valued and listened to and have an appropriate level of autonomy.” This is all well and good in theory but feels like a phrase that can be interpreted at will by those with seniority in schools, rather than a distinctive and evidence-informed strategy that will change what is rightly identified as a big issue.
Supporting the Mental Health and Wellbeing of Education Staff (2019) and Supervision in Education (2020)
In the months leading up to the pandemic, the Barnardos charity in Scotland published two reports that provide an interesting comparison to the Ofsted report and findings. Supporting the Mental Health and Wellbeing of Education Staff Through Professional Supervision Structures (2019) functions as a position paper and a call for evidence from the profession. In it, the authors recognise from discussions with their practitioners working in school settings that there was “a lack of any form of professional supervision, or dedicated time for reflective practice for teaching staff in relation to their own mental health and wellbeing”. Noting, as have others, that school staff who attend child protection case conferences are often the only people in the room who do not have access to professional supervision, even though they are usually the professional who has the highest level of contact with the child. This “inverse care law” leaves school staff uncontained whilst having to potentially contain more in their daily work than other professionals whose needs are more fully met. The authors point to a cultural problem within education, in which the term ‘supervision’ is unrecognised, or is poorly understood or misunderstood as something potentially threatening or disempowering (more on this in the second post in this series).
The follow-up paper, Supervision in Education: Healthier Schools for All (2020), draws on the findings of a survey of 402 school staff members, mostly from Scotland, and subsequent round table discussions with 39 educators. The respondents were given a definition of clinical supervision on which to base their responses.
“Supervision is a two-way process which is defined as “a process by which one worker is given responsibility by the organisation to work with another worker(s) in order to meet certain organisational, professional and personal objectives” (Tony Morrison, 2001).“
Of those who had experienced supervision, often Educational Psychologists working within schools, respondents felt that the process both supported and challenged them, created a safe space for critical analysis, helped them explore the emotional elements of their work and enabled them to access guidance and advice from their supervisor. They felt that their sessions helped them address burnout and compassion fatigue, improve their professional practice and understanding, and equip them to better support children and families. 95% of respondents offered their support for a model of clinical supervision within education, but identified time pressures (80%), workload (27%), culture (25%) and appropriate staffing (23%) as potential barriers for the implementation of such a model.
Based on the findings from the round table discussions, the author identifies headteachers as being a particularly important group who need to be able to access clinical supervision as they:
“Have no structure to help them and deal with [high level child protection] cases; no one to support them with the decisions they have to make, decisions which weigh heavily on their minds even when they leave the school gates.”
The author concludes that for children to be “happy, healthy, regulated”, they need adults around them who are similarly contained.
Leading in Lockdown (2021) and Leading After Lockdown (2022)
Greany et al’s Leading in Lockdown (2021) surveyed 1491 school leaders, and conducted 58 follow-up interviews with a representative sample of respondents, to consider the pressures of the pandemic on senior leaders. The authors found that 42% of those surveyed felt that they were ‘mostly surviving’ with 23% saying that they were ‘sometimes/mostly sinking’. 40% of respondents were planning to leave the profession within two years for reasons other than retirement and this was higher, at 46%, for headteachers and executive leaders. The report also found that “leaders who have been in the profession the longest (i.e. 26 years or more) are more likely to say they will leave early”. Meanwhile, the youngest respondents and those newer to the post identified loneliness and work-life balance as a key factor in their thinking about leaving the role. Based on post-survey interview responses, the report concluded that “a failure to address the issues could mean even higher numbers choose to leave.”
Only 45% of those surveyed said that they had felt well supported through the pandemic, and the authors found that “interviewees who had received coaching support felt it had been vital for them” (my emphasis). When asked to identify factors that would persuade headteachers to stay in the profession, the fifth most popular response was ‘better wellbeing support’ and the tenth most popular response was ‘greater personal support’. Combining the numbers who opted for these two options (as I think would make sense) would see ‘better/greater support’ as the highest ranked option, ahead of improvements in government trust, enhanced funding, reduced workload and improved inspections, which were the otherwise highest rated responses.
Greany et al’s follow up report, Leading after Lockdown (2022) was based upon a survey of 6057 school staff and follow-up interviews with a representative sample of assistant and deputy headteachers. Asking similar questions to those surveyed about how well they felt they were doing in their roles, the same proportion (42%) felt that they were ‘mostly surviving’ but that “fewer leaders are thriving and more are sinking than when we asked the same question in 2021”. Primary and female leaders were “notably more likely to be sinking”. There was, however, a decrease to 30% of respondents who said that they were planning to leave the profession although this proportion “still remains worryingly high”. The report outlines different phases of the pandemic’s impact on education and finds that the later phase (from September 2021 to April 2022) included newer challenges such as staff absence, pupil safeguarding and mental health concerns, exam uncertainty, the return of Ofsted and closing learning gaps in the face of poor student behaviour and absence. Fatigue, loss of morale and being close to the edge of a breakdown were themes drawn from interviews.
This new research, in the view of the authors, validated the conclusions drawn in phase 1 of the project. They also added a new suggestion for policymakers that “there is an urgent need to focus on school leadership support and development”. This finding is drawn partly from the recognition that England’s approach through the pandemic, whilst “relatively average overall” was “less supportive of teachers and leaders than many other countries”. Greany et al point to the distinction between the British response and those of healthy school systems which “are prepared to acknowledge and address complexity, through shared sense-making and processes of collective learning and adaptation”. This lack of support for school leaders is mirrored in the findings from those interviewed, two-thirds of whom have had their view of headship negatively affected during the pandemic, in part because they see the role of headteacher as being lonely, as exposing post-holders to greater risk, as involving compromise of one’s core values and as having a negative impact on family life.
Education Staff Wellbeing Charter (2021)
The DfE Education Staff Wellbeing Charter (2021) includes, among its ‘organisational commitments’ (but notably not the commitments of the DfE) that schools signing up to the charter should “channel support to individuals whose role is known to have a significant emotional component. This might take the form of peer support, supervision, and/or counselling.” There is also a specific reference to school leaders in the charter, which says that schools should “develop a sub-strategy specifically for protecting leader mental health. This should include access to confidential counselling and/or coaching where needed.” This places the burden for the provision of supervision (for their staff and their leaders) squarely on schools, although the DfE does pledge that they will:
“Measure on an ongoing basis the levels of anxiety, happiness, worthwhileness, life satisfaction and job satisfaction across the sector’, using established metrics and methods. We will track trends over time and build this evidence into policy making. We will also continue to take the advice of sector experts on wellbeing and mental health.”
Given the declining metrics on school staff wellbeing and advice from sector experts, perhaps this means that the DfE will soon be recognising how important, indeed vital supervision funding and provision is to the sector. Perhaps, but I am not holding my breath.
Teacher Wellbeing Index (2022)
The charity Education Support’s most recent iteration of its Teacher Wellbeing Index (2022) paints a bleak picture of the profession and indicates how far school staff wellbeing has declined since the Ofsted report of 2019 (when it was already looking problematic). Based on the responses of 3082 respondents, 707 of whom held leadership roles, the report shows that 75% of those surveyed felt that they were stressed, a figure rising to 84% for school leaders. A higher percentage, 78% generally and 87% of leaders, said they had experienced symptoms of mental ill health. 58% of leaders said they had experienced insomnia because of work and 50% had found themselves irritable and subject to mood swings. Education Support concluded that “the wellbeing of senior leaders is now at its lowest level for the past four years”. These findings echo the responses noted by Greany et al but the underlying data for the Teacher Wellbeing Index shows that males, those over 50 and those who have been in the profession the longest tend to have the lowest overall wellbeing scores, putting them at “high risk of psychological distress and increased risk of depression”.
Two factors from the index may serve to mask the scale of the problems on a daily basis. The first is the level of presenteeism (when staff attend in spite of being unwell), which is reported as 47% generally and 61% for school leaders. The second is that 59% of respondents said that they were not confident in disclosing the fact that they suffer from unmanageable stress. Perhaps unsurprisingly then the proportion of those surveyed who said that they have considered leaving the profession in the last year was 59%, with 61% of senior leaders saying they had done so (up 7% since 2021). 48% of all respondents said that their employers did not support those with mental health problems. Interestingly, and hopefully for this series of posts on the importance of supervision in schools, 76% of those who say they are looking to leave the profession felt unsupported, but this figure drops to 44% (still too high but significantly less) for those who did feel supported by their schools.
Annual Headteacher Wellbeing Report (2023)
Whilst we are down amongst the weeds, the charity Headrest published its Annual Headteacher Wellbeing Report (2023) in February based upon the themes arising from the calls that it has had to its helpline over the past year. The report identifies a latest phase in the Covid/Post-Covid sequence that has provided a new suite of concerns that dominate the thoughts of the headteachers who seek support. In earlier phases the struggles for school leaders were on managing the pandemic, on coping with the return of graded inspections, and on dealing with the mental and physical exhaustion all of this. More recently, the report explains that school leaders are dealing with a range of issues from budget erosion, retention and recruitment, the impact of the cost of living crisis, accessing mental health support for students and stakeholder pressures. This is creating a loss of self-confidence in their capabilities, a sense of moral injury, anxiety, burnout and stress. For some “it was evident that the support they received was minimal and the expectations placed upon them unrealistic”. Unsurprisingly, then, one of the conclusions from the report is that headteachers should be provided with “access to independent, fully-funded support for their wellbeing” and that governors should ensure that this is accessed.
Reflective Supervision in Education 2023
It is not the intention of this post to be all doom and gloom, and so it makes sense to finish this trawl through the literature of supervision within schools (which is pretty thin) with a positive contribution from Hallie Edwards. Her newly published book, Reflective Supervision in Education: Using Supervision to Support Pupil and Staff Wellbeing (2023), draws from her experience as a mental health and school leadership practitioner. I will write more about her models in the fourth post of this series, but for now I want to draw out her reasoning for what supervision is needed in schools, including the details on how she has implemented this in her own setting. Edwards identifies a range of reasons why supervision for all school staff is necessary: for mental health, to help safeguard, to improve behaviour, to respond to trauma and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and to help with workload. Each of these reasons responds to the findings in the 2019 Ofsted report and in the Greany et al reports.
Edwards believes, and has demonstrated, that “any member of staff working with children” can and should receive supervision internally, but she asserts that for members of the leadership team supervision “with an external supervisor” is essential. The benefits of good supervision (which, as the next post in the series shows, is not to be confused with counselling or therapy) are both for the individuals involved and the school as a whole. These include improved mental health and wellbeing, increased self-reflection and self-awareness, improved communication and connection, supported professional development, better outcomes for students and increased confidence in the management of safeguarding and behaviour issues.
These findings support the conclusions drawn by Sturt and Rowe in their 2018 book Using Supervision in Schools (the only other book specifically about schools and supervision that I can find). The authors point to the fact that school staff do not have the same access to structured supervision support as other, similar professions do. In 2016/17 they ran a pilot scheme providing such support for Designated Safeguarding Leads in five schools. In line with their model for school supervision, they drew on the evaluations from colleagues involved in the project about how their experience impacted on their support, their professional development, and their management practice. The respondents said, in terms of support, that they had their emotional recognised, their needs legitimised, and their boundary role understood. For development, they said that supervision gave them knowledge and skills, increased their role confidence, and helped them identify training needs. As managers, these DSLs were able to clarify safeguarding roles, improve information gathering, and discuss concerns earlier.
Conclusions – A Need for Supervision?
Back in 2019, before most of us had heard of Wuhan or understood the acronyms PPE, Ofsted were pointing to “worryingly low” teacher wellbeing. Workload and the traditional concerns of the profession were there, no doubt. But the report also points towards the denigration of professional trust, the impact beyond the classroom of dealing with challenging students and families, and of the impact of declining pay and regard beyond the profession. There are no improvements in resource provision outlined in the recommendations of the report and no specific set of professional practices for schools to consider.
The two Barnardo’s papers point to how the teachers and school leaders lack any structured processes of supervision unlike almost all other caring or helping professions. This has created a culture in education where supervision is equated far more with surveillance and control than it is seen as a measure of support and development. Those in schools who do know what true supervision means point to benefits for both the individual and the school: reduced burnout, improved professional practice and better support for children.
The two reports by Greany et al suggest that almost half of school leaders say that they are merely ‘surviving’ and almost a quarter say that they are ‘sinking’, and that the figures are worse for female leaders and primary leaders. And things are getting worse not better as we move away from the lockdown era. Potentially aspiring leaders see headship as lonely, risky, as compromising personal values and as negatively impacting on family life. Take your pick as to whether you prefer 40% or 30% of headteachers to leave before retirement, but with others less likely to pick up the reins, either figure is unsustainable. More than half of headteachers feel that they are not adequately supported, even though those who have been supported say that it has been “vital’ for them, leading the authors to conclude that the need for support in the sector is urgent.
The Department for Education’s Wellbeing Charter goes some way to recognising this need for support, but responsibility for this is placed firmly and squarely in the hands of schools and governing bodies. In spite of a promise by the DfE to monitor and respond to the data as it arises, there are no signs yet (in the face of pretty overwhelming data) that additional resources and direction in dealing with school staff mental health and wellbeing is forthcoming. If supervision structures are to be put in place, it looks very much like they will have to be built from the bottom up with existing resources.
Both the Teacher Wellbeing Index and the Headteacher Wellbeing Report in the last twelve months suggest that we are at a tipping point. Things have not normalised since the pandemic and it would be a brave gambler to bet the house on them doing so in the immediate future. The stats are staggering but their decline over time(from the low base reported on by Ofsted in 2019) ought to give even greater pause for thought. The pandemic, and our emergence from it, has pointed to the increased complexity of our work in schools, but again there is the silver lining of the fact that good levels of support do make a difference. The trick is how to put that support in place for those who need it most and then roll it out to all those who need it.
Which brings us to the more positive thoughts coming from the two books outlining how small-scale supervision projects within schools have made a difference to those fortunate enough to have been a part of them. Edwards is clear that headteachers, and indeed all school leaders, need external supervision to both support them personally and help them improve professionally, as would be the case if they were members of other helping professions. Sturt and Rowe also hold onto the paradox that supporting the individual through supervision is also about supporting the institution of which they are a part. Supervision, for these authors, is school improvement.
And my own thoughts on the potential benefits of supervision? I am sitting at my computer on my first day post-headship writing the first of four posts on the need for supervision for school leaders and their staff. I will let you, in light of your reading of this post or subsequent ones, decide for yourself where I stand both theoretically and experientially about this issue.
kevenbartle's Blog 
Posted on September 1, 2023
0