This Isn’t About Self-Care. It’s About School Culture: What the Research Says About Staff Wellbeing
This week, many teachers and school staff are returning to classrooms after the summer break. The return can feel like a shock to the system. One minute you’re breathing again, the next you are running on timetable adrenaline. It is no wonder that so many educators head into August and September with a quiet promise to themselves. This year, I am going to protect my wellbeing.
Many schools say the same. The problem is, too often, the way we think about wellbeing falls short. It becomes a tea break. A themed week. A poster in the staffroom. And then, it sort of fizzles out.
What if we stopped putting the burden of wellbeing back on the teacher? What if we treated wellbeing not as a personal goal, but as a structural responsibility?
In this article, we are not handing out mindfulness tips. We are asking schools to look in the mirror. Because no amount of resilience will fix a system that is making people unwell.
The Stress Is Real. The Research Says So.
Across Europe, nearly half of teachers report experiencing high levels of work-related stress. According to the OECD TALIS (2024), the most common reasons include administrative overload, constant policy shifts, and pressure to raise student outcomes under unrealistic conditions.
The European Commission’s “Teachers in Europe” report identifies two clear risk factors:
Excessive non-teaching duties
Large class sizes without adequate support
Teachers in countries where non-contact time is protected and after-hours demands are limited are significantly more likely to stay in the profession. In contrast, where planning time gets squeezed and workload expands quietly out of hours, burnout rises; and so does attrition.
Wellbeing Is a Leadership Responsibility
Research shows that cosmetic wellbeing measures (one-off events, posters, or feel-good slogans) do not reduce stress or improve retention. What does make a difference is the leadership culture.
According to the latest OECD TALIS findings, schools with:
Supportive senior leadership
Shared decision-making
Trust-based staff cultures
…report significantly higher staff satisfaction and lower intention to leave.
When staff feel heard, respected, and safe to speak openly about concerns, everything changes. This is known as psychological safety, and it is consistently linked to improved team functioning and retention. Erasmus+ research and the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) both highlight reflective supervision, not performance management; as a best practice in keeping educators engaged and supported.
Workload Is Not a Vibe. It’s a Policy Issue.
If you want to support teacher wellbeing, start with their workload.
This means reviewing:
How often meetings happen, and whether they are purposeful
How non-contact time is protected from cover or administration
Whether there are boundaries around out-of-hours emails, calls, and marking expectations
Whether staff feel permission to prioritise, say no, or delegate
Wellbeing policies that are formalised (not just mentioned) make a measurable difference. Eurostat data shows schools with clear, enforceable wellbeing structures (including flexible working and protected hours) have up to 20 percent lower turnover rates than those relying on informal gestures alone.
Make Collaboration the Default
Teachers do not thrive alone. They thrive in networks of trust, professional dialogue, and shared responsibility. This is not about adding extra collaboration time. It is about the quality of professional relationships.
The eTwinning Monitoring Report (2024) found that teachers involved in cross-school and cross-border collaborative initiatives reported significantly higher levels of wellbeing. Why? Because collaboration builds professional identity, reduces isolation, and brings shared reflection into the job.
We need schools where staff regularly:
Reflect on their work together
Share the emotional labour of teaching
Learn with and from one another
Autonomy without isolation. Support without surveillance. That is the balance we should be aiming for.
Five Questions Every School Should Ask This Term
Wellbeing is not an initiative. It is a culture. If your school is serious about it, ask:
Do our policies protect planning time, or quietly erode it?
Can staff finish their work within contracted hours, most of the time?
Do we reward presence and performance equally?
Is there a safe space for staff to speak honestly… without consequences?
Are leaders modelling healthy boundaries, or glorifying burnout?
If the answer to these questions is unclear, the next step is not a wellbeing poster. It is a strategic plan.
A Final Thought
Many teachers end their day staring at the wall. Not because they are uncommitted, but because they are overwhelmed. If schools want better outcomes for students, they have to create better conditions for the people teaching them.
Staff wellbeing is not a soft measure. It is a hard truth.
If your school does one thing differently this year, let it be this: stop asking staff to recover from the job. Start building a job they do not have to recover from.
