Teacher suicide, a gruesome act of destroying lives that are still young, innocent. Lives which still have much to discover about the world.  Recent changes to the education curriculum could cause more stress, but is not only students, teachers too struggle with marking load, Ofsted inspections, reaching deadlines. Preparing lessons and let us not forget coping with students who aggravate and disrupt classes.

Almost three years ago in 2016, there was a report on 31-year-old women who was said to be “worked to death” after she had jumped 140 feet to her death. The inquest heard that the 31-year-old had been appointed as an Assistant Head of Department at Hollingworth Academy at Rochdale, Greater Manchester, also having to keep up with her other class work. Although this troy was reported three years ago I decided to take the opportunity and write about those we see every day in our school. Some we may despise and others we get on very well with, but it has now come to my attention that there is a lot more going on behind a 4 walled classroom.

The vast majority of teachers (83 per cent) feel stressed because of their job, new research has revealed. Most of this stress has grown from marking load as according to statistics sixty per cent agree that marking load is too excessive sometimes. Secondary school teachers are said to be the most stressed, yet there is this theory that teachers in Grammar schools tend to be less worried and tense about their jobs, perhaps this is down to the discipline in schools and the atmosphere students are exposed to, such as any disruptive behaviour by an older student might influence a similar behaviour in younger students.

During this time, I took the opportunity to enquire my friend (who attends Wallington a Grammar school for girls) if she agrees that Grammar schools provide a less stressful atmosphere for teachers to work in. She said, “This is slightly controversial, but I have to agree that because our school is very disciplined, perhaps there are less aggressive students who may provoke teachers, causing long-term issues for teachers”. Later I then interviewed my friend from school, Scarlet Jones who said, “I partly disagree because, I think it all depends on how well the teacher can yet, yet student behaviour is a huge factor that could change this theory”.

After such a concern for teacher suicide, I researched if anything was being done about this issue. The Department for Education has not made much effort and argue that the new curriculum is very beneficial for future generations, and have not considered the workload for teachers. Yet more and more websites have begun advertising ways to cope with stress for teachers, perhaps then in the long-term, the suicide rates of teachers would have decreased.