Sick of school
Jane Deith
People are often interested to know what subject my next documentary is about.
When I told them I was looking at teachers and stress there often came a shrug of the shoulders and something along the lines of 'that's teaching, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the classroom'.
To a certain extend, they're right. Teaching is stressful. Twas ever thus. But was it ever as stressful as it is now, with Ofsted raising the bar, government raising the rhetoric on outstanding schools and achievement and more monitoring (some say surveillance) of teachers than ever before?
We found teachers who'd ended up in hospital with stress, or worse, on the verge of suicide.
Listen to the programme here
And more convincingly, we found exclusive data from a teacher insurance company that stress is the single biggest reason for sick leave in schools. Bigger than colds or the flu.
So, how worried should we be about our teachers' mental health?