Thriving Teachers – Elevate Address the Mental Health Crisis in Schools

Jamie Oliver improved the menu at Charlton Manor Primary School when he visited in 2015, now Elevate are working to improve the mental health and wellbeing of its teachers.

Tim Baker, Headteacher of Charlton Manor School, said:

“When I proposed the programme to my staff, the overwhelming response was gratitude for taking their wellbeing seriously. The correlation between the self-worth and happiness of a teacher, and that of a child through their academic career is something we have observed and acknowledged; with the Thriving Teachers initiative we are taking positive action on behalf of our staff and students.”

Through their innovative Thriving Teachers programme, Elevate will deliver ten weekly interactive sessions to the teaching and ancillary staff at Charlton Manor School, focusing on improving self-esteem, resilience, nutrition, mindfulness and reducing stress.

Elevate’s Co-Founders Ruth Tongue and Lucy Faulks (respectively a qualified nutritionist/sports scientist and executive coach/author of technotox.com) created the programme in response to the statistic that 75% of teachers in the UK are reporting symptoms of stress – including depression, anxiety and panic attacks – compared with just 62% of the working population.

Elevate commented:

“In addition, the Office of National Statistics reported that suicide risks for primary and nursery school teachers in England were 42% higher than in the general population between 2011 to 2015. This is a shocking statistic we are keen to rectify.”

According to a recent National Education Union survey, 80% of classroom teachers have seriously considered leaving the profession in the past 12 months because of their workload and almost 40,000 teachers quit the profession in 2016.

Elevate have themselves been mindful whilst creating the course:

“We were aware that this would be delivered during lunchtimes or after school to an already time-poor community. As a result we have created 30 minute sessions, with five minute supporting podcasts.”

Elevate works with businesses nationwide to help them improve the health and wellbeing of their workforce. This is a pilot scheme which will act as a trial before rolling the scheme out across other schools in the UK, as well as potentially offering parent and pupil variations. Elevate will evaluate the key metrics of success against their Wheel of Wellbeing^TM throughout the ten-week programme, the Thriving Teachers 10-week programme synopsis is available on request.