Published: Thursday, 28th August, 2008 10:50
24-hour support service launched to help under-pressure West Fife teachers
By Laura Cummings
Comments (0)
Print Article
Commercial Primary School pupils Sarah MacDonald and Jessica Summers (both 10) help to launch the service with, from left, Primary 5 teacher Joan Douglas, and Hannah Essex and Dr Ivor Sutherland from Teacher Support Scotland.
Pic by: Dunfermline Press
TEACHERS thoughout West Fife are faced with classroom disruption and heavy workloads.
But now a 24-hour support service has been launched to help them cope with everyday stresses and strains.
The free and confidential telephone and online service for serving and retired teachers was launched at Dunfermline’s Commercial Primary School by charity Teacher Support Scotland last Thursday.
The 24/7 support line will be staffed around the clock by qualified coaches and counsellors who are ready to listen and respond to teachers in need in Scotland.
The online service was tested in Fife and Renfrewshire over the past year with just under 150 teachers taking part, including Commercial Primary head Gillian MacKay, and it was decided to roll it – and the telephone service – out across Scotland.
Teachers will also be able to access self-help information online, ask questions of qualified coaches and sign up for one-to-one email coaching via the charity’s website.
The service is already available to teachers in England and Wales.
Hannah Essex, of Teacher Support Scotland, said the service provided practical and emotional support on a range of issues – including personal matters such as bereavement or divorce and specifically work-related issues.
She explained, “During the trial we had people contacting us on issues such as workload, communication with their colleagues and pupil behaviour.
“Thirty-two per cent of people we spoke to during the trial were contacting us on things to do with working conditions; eg, workload and management within the school, and legal issues.
“The second most common problem (24 per cent) was personal issues like births, deaths or their own children.
“We can talk about how to improve communication or how to tackle a particularly difficult issue with a colleague.
"If a teacher has got a disruptive class we can talk through how to tackle that early on before that starts to get out of control.
“Sometimes the back chatting and swearing over a long period of time can cause even the more experienced teacher to feel stressed and anxious.”
She continued, “I think teaching has always been quite a high-stress job because you’re on show from the minute you walk through the school gates and you have got to be very resilient.
“We can be a listening ear and provide practical and emotional support and solutions to help people get through their challenges.”
And David Farmer, publicity officer with the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), hopes the introduction of the service will encourage Fife Council and the EIS to strengthen their efforts with regard to teacher welfare.
He said, “While it’s good that a charity is getting itself involved, we would obviously hope that – although the council has made advances in terms of staff welfare – this would act as a prompt for them to make further efforts in terms of staff welfare.
“There must be a bit of a gap in the market if a charity is coming in as it is.
"While we welcome that, we would like to see the council and ourselves re-double our efforts.”
Mr Farmer said he believed pressures on teachers had increased in recent years.
“A lot of the issues that teachers face now are more challenging than they were 10 years ago,” he said.
Del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Reddit
Stumbleupon
Further Details
Vandals trash memorial to dead babies at Dunfermline Crematorium