Violent students, 24/7 pressure and huge workloads: Why Queensland teachers grapple with keeping the job

Stress and exhaustion is rife among Queensland teachers forcing them to question staying in the job. These teachers explain the reasons they have felt pushed to abandon the profession they love.

Queensland teachers are at breaking point with insurmountable workloads, expectations of being “on” 24/7, results-driven pressure, a steamroller curriculum and increasingly violent students forcing many to consider abandoning the profession.

Current and former teachers, union representatives and academic experts – all confirm stress and exhaustion is rife among school faculties.

Teachers who spoke to The Sunday Mail anonymously, for fear of hurting their careers, detailed the extreme challenges they face daily, which hamper their ability to keep doing the job they love – one they all consider vitally important for the children’s lives they change.

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Queensland Teachers’ Union Kevin Bates said the demands confronting teachers were causing them to question leaving the profession.

He said the community was at risk of losing good teachers because they “are unable to keep up with the depth and breadth of expectations”.

Queensland Teachers' Union president Kevin Bates. Picture: Supplied

And Independent Education Union NT & QLD branch secretary, Terry Burke, said Queensland schools needed “a reset”, as good teachers who felt “the job they love is one they can no longer do” began resigning.

QUT’s School of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education, senior lecturer, Dr Rebecca Spooner-Lane said teachers were reporting higher levels of workplace stress and were in need of more support.

“They’ve got a huge amount of work intensification, funding is an issue, we’ve got large classroom sizes and not an awful lot of teacher aides to support teachers,” she said.

One retired Catholic schoolteacher, left teaching for two years to study law and returned to the classroom, only to be so shocked at the changed conditions they ultimately resigned.

“The most notable thing was how much less teaching I actually did … the amount of data I had to collect and analyse and all the classroom and teaching details that have to be provided to administration. It was quite distressing to see a job that I loved and respected had become so diminished about actual teaching.”

Another Catholic primary school teacher, with just three years experience, left to pursue another career and said despite thinking it was a job worth doing, “it was impossible to have a life outside of the teaching”.

Teachers say the onerous record keeping is unnecessary. Picture: iStock

The former teacher said most of the record keeping was “onerous and much is unnecessary”.

“I once spent an entire Sunday at school completing detailed evidence on a student with special needs for funding purposes; the child definitely needed the added assistance but it had to be ‘proven’ with over 25 pieces of evidence – 4-6 pieces of evidence would have been sufficient.”

Education Minister Grace Grace said there was zero tolerance for violence against teachers in Queensland schools.

She said school workplaces were supported through health and safety committees and advisors, rehabilitation and return to work coordinators and additional regional support.

She said the implementation of the Occupational Violence Prevention procedure “demonstrates the seriousness with which the Palaszczuk Government takes health and safety in Queensland schools”.

Ms Grace said following union negotiations the government had implemented measures which would improve data and information collection, school reviews, and to reduce workload for school opinion surveys, school annual reports and OneSchool operation.

But Mr Bates said those measures were an important start but only scratched the surface of the workload issues facing teachers and principals.

An Education Department spokesman said the department was committed to ensuring that Queensland state schools are safe and supportive environments for staff, students and the wider school community.

A retired state high school teacher of 40 years said there was too much paperwork and not enough time for “real hands on teaching”.

“There’s just too much pressure on the curriculum, you don’t get time to do reading and writing in class because you’ve got to keep going with the curriculum.”

The former teacher said despite the fact that “kids are kids” and going to “push the envelope” student behaviour had become more “nasty, malicious, disrespectful and violent.”

“Kids do hit out and that but there’s more pushing of desks and banging of chairs, throwing things, slamming doors, there’s more of that whereas before that never used to happen.

“I was always very fortunate that I didn’t have anything more serious than that.”

The retired teacher said teachers were also trying to cope with the fact that parents had become more “dismissive of their own role they had to play”.

“In the past it was more of teachers and parents working together for the good of the kid but nowadays it’s not, it’s just: you fix it, your problem.”

Teachers say that data collection takes precedence over hands on teaching. Picture: iStock

Overwhelmingly the Queensland teachers said they devoted their time and efforts to being the best educators for a job they believe is still rewarding and vital – but the astronomical workload diverted them from actually teaching.

“Finding the time to do my work properly, there’s always been a recognition that workload has been increasing for teachers and that’s really come to a head in the last few years,” a Brisbane High School teacher of more than 20 years said.

“We’re not being given the time or resources to adequately cater to the range of student learning styles and needs.”

The teacher said they were “collecting data for the sake of collecting data” without the time to adequately analyse or use it.

A Brisbane High School teacher with 13 years experience said while it was a rewarding vocation, over the past few years there has been increasing expectation from parents that teachers are available 24/7 to speak with students and parents over email.

“It depends on the area you work in but occupational violence is becoming more and more frequent across the state,” the teacher said.

“It’s ranging from verbal abuse in the classroom, the playground, to students hitting teachers or making threats of violence against teachers or staff in the school.

“Parents are being verbally aggressive and abusive towards staff … and a lot more people are on social media … so i’m seeing it in that space as well.”

Teachers say their after hours workload has become insurmountable. Picture: iStock

A Brisbane high school teacher of 6 years said it was an “astronomical workload” in terms of take-home work, who said they hadn’t had a free weekend this year, except for one week of holidays.

“I’m in the middle of marking exams at the moment and I have a young son, last weekend we had to book a babysitter …. there’s no other time in our schedule to get the marking done.”

Another Brisbane primary school teacher of 8 years implored the community to understand Teaching was not a 9-5 job.

“We do 11 weeks of ‘holidays’ a year, but a lot of this time is spent preparing for school, marking, making resources. I know teachers who spend most of their weekend planning for the next week.”

Mr Burke said teachers needed more support.

“What is desperately needed in schools is a range of personnel to compliment the fundamental role of the teacher in the teaching learning dynamic,” Mr Burke said.

“They’ve been feeling they’ve been left to deal with everything and we need some visible actions to show that they’re not alone in dealing with the current challenges of providing education for students.”

While Mr Bates said the fundamental problem with teaching and school leadership was that it’s a job that’s becoming impossible to do.

“One of the crises facing education is occupational violence occurring in schools and it has the impact of creating health issues, on a significant level physically and also on mental health.”

Mr Bates said part of the problem was that school funding was “well below the minimum level of the school resourcing funding – will not be reached prior to 2032 – and state schools will continue to be funding below the minimum level of funding required by the Act.”

Teachers have admitted to feeling “stressed out of my brain”. Picture: iStock

‘The job has changed’: Study investigates why teachers stay or go

Queensland teachers are leaving the profession because of stress and exhaustion, limited career pathways and dissatisfaction borne out of lacking support from school leaders, according to a Brisbane study.

The University of Queensland School of Education professional experience director Dr Katie Cawte conducted a PhD which examined the reason why mid-career teachers with between 7 and 20 years either stay or leave the profession.

As a former teacher herself, Dr Cawte said she believed teaching was an exciting and rewarding career but conditions could be improved in order to maintain and retain teachers.

“Firstly the main challenges for teachers are the fact that the job has changed from simply being a teacher of content to encompass many other responsibilities, this ties in with the challenges pressures and demands,” she said.

She said the role of a teacher had come to include those of an emotional counsellor, caregiver, role model, career counsellor, as well as teaching content.

Dr Cawte added that work intensification included an increase in administrative duties, including more paperwork, and record keeping for teachers, and the “invisible workload” – the time spent after hours, on weekends and holidays.

“All of the participants I interviewed, considered leaving at some point in their teaching career and one of the main reasons was due to stress associated with the job, and another big factor was limited career pathways and advancement opportunities,” she said.

A teacher in the study who had left the profession said they felt: “stressed out of my brain” and “[I] wasn’t sleeping cos I was working so hard”.

While another former teacher said the stress was linked to the intensifying workload and expectation that teachers could do more with limited time and resources, according to the study.

“I think the accountability has created a lot of stress for teachers because they worry” one teacher said.

Dr Cawte found that the reasons why teachers stayed in the profession was linked to their role with students and the rewarding nature of helping their pupils learn, job security, and financial and family reasons.

“Across the participants’ stories of their teaching journeys and their reasons for choosing to remain in the profession, a recurring reason was related to the intrinsic benefits and rewards of being a teacher,” the study said.

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