School principals face triple crunch of workload, mental health and teacher shortage

The co-president of the ACT Principals' Association was surprised to find out the diagnosis was burnout.

"I didn't really recognise it. I just reported to the GP and she looked me straight in the eye and said [they were] clear signs of burnout," Mr Mison said.

The experienced principal was not surprised by the initial findings of the Australian Catholic University's annual survey of school leaders released this week.

The top five sources of principals' stress were: sheer quantity of work, lack of time to focus on teaching and learning, teacher shortages and mental health issue of students, followed by mental health issues of staff.

"This is the latest in about 10 years of these surveys which reflect the same sort of disturbing trend," he said.

Australian Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey 2022 gathered data from 2500 principals from different states and education sectors.

It builds a worrying picture of the state of wellbeing for school leaders, with 65 principals reporting they planned to quit or retire early.

Australian Catholic University senior lecturer in educational leadership Dr Paul Kidson said the teacher shortage was ranked the 17th most stressful factor for principals in 2020. It rose to 12th in 2021 and then shot up to third place in 2022.

"Some principals are reporting that they are spending time back in the classroom because they don't have teachers to be able to cover and that's compounding the problem. That's making further challenges for providing that environment that students feel is positive and safe," Dr Kidson said.

"They give out so much of themselves. They're so generous with their own time and energy and they're having adverse health impacts of their own.

"And that is going to be something that will have long term concerns for the profession."

Volume of work and lack of time to focus on teaching and learning have always been the top two stressors since the survey began 12 years ago.

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However, the rise of serious issues of the teacher shortage and increase in mental health issues among students and staff are compounding the existing issues.

Paul Carroll, who recently retired after 24 years as a principal, said the role could be the best and worst job in the world at the same time

"You could receive data showing growth in student outcomes which you have been working on as a school together for a few years and whilst celebrating that achievement you could receive the news from a family that their child had died," Mr Carroll said.

"For the principal, it can be a roller-coaster ride of numerous highs and lows on a daily basis because one becomes invested in the role and you give it everything you can physically and mentally sustain for the benefit of the community.

"It is not surprising that the survey results are not improving."

The unsustainable workload is a hot topic among Australian school leaders.

Mr Mison said he worked 50 to 55 hours a week and often those hours were irregular.

"You do a lot of things outside of school hours meetings, P&C meetings, board meetings, school events, often catching up on the administrative work that you haven't been able to do during the day ... and so it's very hard to maintain a regular personal wellbeing routine."

Australian Education Union ACT branch president Angela Burroughs said principals were often filling in for absent staff and doing administrative tasks instead of focusing on educational leadership.

"They feel wedged between the demands that are being placed on them through their employer and their desire to protect their staff as much as they can so not not pushed down workload to the extent that they can can avoid it," she said.

"But the consequence of that is that they are absorbing more and more and more and it's not infinite. They are at breaking point and something has to change."

Mr Mison said the complexity of principals' jobs had grown over the years.

"I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. I have regular conversations with colleagues all over the country, actually. And this is a big topic of conversation where almost all of us are universally worried about how sustainable the profession is," he said.

Not only do schools have the responsibility for delivering a dense curriculum, they have to address emerging social problems, such as mobile phone addictions, and even take on more parenting tasks as parents work longer hours.

School are also required to carry out various national and international tests and studies while also planning for the individual needs of the increasing number of students with diagnoses and disabilities.

"There's also the absolutely excellent aspiration that we've all talked about that schools will provide a personalised learning experience for every student.

"That's a big ask," Mr Mison said.

"I think this solution lies in a national question about what is expected of schools now."

Plans are afoot at the national and state and territory level to address the national teacher shortage.

Ms Burroughs said improving teacher and principals' wellbeing was proving to be a major challenge.

"It's about changing a culture and that is a really hard thing to do," he said.

Mr Carroll said the Catholic Education system had several programs to support the health and professional development of principals.

Principals also relied on the camaraderie of fellow school leaders to help ease the stress.

"The attempt to recognise the stress is honourable and appreciated, however the workload continues to increase given the complexity of the role."

He said more allied health services were required in schools to support students.

Dr Kidson said principal wellbeing should form part of their performance framework.

"Let's ask them to be held to account for looking after their health and wellbeing. What about we put into their performance framework that they are going to look do something for their health and wellbeing and that the employing bodies would provide resources for them to do that," Dr Kidson said.

However, Mr Mison said this approach could actually backfire and cause more stress for principals.

The Productivity Commission's report on the national school reform agreement argued for low-value tasks to be reduced, but Dr Kidson said these tasks should be stopped altogether.

He said there should be national planning for future school leaders as well as the national and state and territory teacher workforce plans in progress.

"If we have teachers coming into the profession and leaving early, then in five years time or in 10 years time who are those people who are going to do it?" he said.

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