This study aimed to explore how educational leaders in England experience and promote their own well-being. To address this, five semi-structured interviews were carried out with educational leaders who expressed that they had personally experienced high levels of well-being. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), four themes were…

This paper explores perceptions of work intensification around the world. Underpinning this analysis is C. Wright Mills' (1959) argument that many personal troubles are public issues, and the notion that a significant dimension of the privatisation of public education, a concern of public education advocates worldwide, is the ways in which school…

The collection of papers presented in this issue of Critical Studies in Education adds to the expansive body of work on teachers and teaching. Collectively, the papers draw our attention to new ways the field is problematising the emerging and evolving conditions that shape the work, lives and identities of teachers. With this editorial…

This paper reports on factors affecting the working lives of practitioners in health and education in the UK. The context is the increasing evidence of low recruitment, low retention rates and a high incidence of stress amongst expert practitioners in these two public institutions. Similar patterns of practitioner response indicate the systemic…

Prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, England faced a considerable teacher recruitment and retention challenge. The last ten years have been characterised by insufficient numbers of new teachers joining the profession and an increasing proportion leaving the state sector, particularly in secondary schools. This research is designed to…

This report presents the findings from the Teacher Workload Survey (TWS) 2019, which is a large-scale nationally representative survey of teachers, middle leaders and senior leaders, conducted over a three-week period in March 2019. The survey helps act as a national 'barometer' for teachers', middle leaders' and senior leaders' working conditions…

Maintaining an adequate supply of teachers is a challenge in the education sector and an area of significant concern. Previous evidence shows that pay is deemed to be one of the most important factors influencing a teacher's decision to stay in a role, together with the workload and flexibility of working hours. However, up until now, no study has…

Maintaining an adequate supply of teachers in the education sector is both a challenge and an area of significant concern. Of the teachers who qualified in 2013, 67.7 per cent remained in service after five years. The number of secondary school teachers has been falling since 2010 and the number of teachers leaving for reasons other than…

On May 10th, 2020 the Prime Minister announced a phased return of some children to school in England from June 1st. Schools had been closed to all but vulnerable and keyworker children since March 20th, meaning that most children have been educated at home for a period of 10 weeks, and some year groups are not expected to return to school until…

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted on all areas of society, including education. On 20 March 2020, the British Government ordered all schools to close to all pupils, except vulnerable children and the children of keyworkers (such as those working in public health, transport and supplying food). National examinations were also cancelled. As a…

Explores school leadership in Britain's newly privatized and marketized professional-development environment. Considers a model to identify key elements in a "professional development culture." Examines the development coordinator's role as a "delegated leader." Suggests a model for exploring the relationship between continuing…

In Britain, teaching is being reconstructed through a technicist and managerial perspective that bleaches out teachers'"authentic" voice. This paper focuses on a group of urban teachers' professional commitment and explores how teachers' viewpoints are infused with their class histories, class consciousness, and teaching experiences.…

Uses a model of stress which assumes that stress is a function of the balance of demands, supports, and job constraints to test a homogeneous professional group of teachers. Results show very modest support for the model, but confirm the percentage of variance accounted for by these measures is rather small. (Author/HLM)

Describes a small-scale comparative study of management development in various public- and private-sector organizations in the West Midlands, England. Interview data were gathered from 15 managers in 5 organizations. Findings showed disparity between organizational intent and workplace reality. Effective management development requires a strong…

This report is based on interviews with learning supporters and observations of their work in a number of primary and secondary schools in London and in the North of England, areas which are known for efforts toward developing inclusion. The focus is on supporters' perspective, and the aim is to give a platform to what traditionally have been…