Overworked school leaders struggled to find an hour free in their schedule to take part in free, government-funded mental health support sessions, an evaluation of the scheme found.
Education Support has been offering six professional supervision sessions for staff in assistant headteacher roles and above as part of a £1 million Department for Education scheme.
A study evaluating the service, published Thursday, urged the Department for Education to consider “how the culture around expectations for leaders accessing support could be changed”.
It said this could include “setting clear expectations (and associated time/funding) for school leaders to access supervision or support for mental health and wellbeing”, after a number spoke of “how isolating the role can be”.
“Barriers [to engaging with the support] are related to school leader workload and expectations around school leaders accessing support.”
