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The well-being and work-related stress of senior school leaders in Wales and Northern Ireland during COVID-19 “educational leadership crisis”: A cross-sectional descriptive study

Emily Marchant Orcid Logo, Joanna Dowd, Lucy Bray, Gill Rowlands, Nia Miles, Tom Crick Orcid Logo, Michaela James, Kevin Dadaczynski, Orkan Okan

PLOS ONE, Volume: 19, Issue: 4, Start page: e0291278

Swansea University Authors: Emily Marchant Orcid Logo, Tom Crick Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1371/journal.pone.0291278

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic caused far-reaching societal changes, including significant educational impacts affecting over 1.6 billion pupils and 100 million education practitioners globally. Senior school leaders were at the forefront and were exposed to particularly high demands during a period of “cris...

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ISSN: 1932-6203
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2024
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Senior school leaders were at the forefront and were exposed to particularly high demands during a period of “crisis leadership”. This occupation were already reporting high work-related stress and large numbers leaving the profession preceding COVID-19. This cross-sectional descriptive study through the international COVID-Health Literacy network aimed to examine the well-being and work-related stress of senior school leaders (n = 323) in Wales (n = 172) and Northern Ireland (n = 151) during COVID-19 (2021–2022). Findings suggest that senior school leaders reported high workloads (54.22±11.30 hours/week), low well-being (65.2% n = 202, mean WHO-5 40.85±21.57), depressive symptoms (WHO-5 34.8% n = 108) and high work-related stress (PSS-10: 29.91±4.92). High exhaustion (BAT: high/very high 89.0% n = 285) and specific psychosomatic complaints (experiencing muscle pain 48.2% n = 151) were also reported, and females had statistically higher outcomes in these areas. School leaders were engaging in self-endangering working behaviours; 74.7% (n = 239) gave up leisure activities in favour of work and 63.4% (n = 202) sacrificed sufficient sleep, which was statistically higher for females. These findings are concerning given that the UK is currently experiencing a “crisis” in educational leadership against a backdrop of pandemic-related pressures. Senior leaders’ high attrition rates further exacerbate this, proving costly to educational systems and placing additional financial and other pressures on educational settings and policy response. This has implications for senior leaders and pupil-level outcomes including health, well-being and educational attainment, requiring urgent tailored and targeted support from the education and health sectors. 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spelling v2 66087 2024-04-18 The well-being and work-related stress of senior school leaders in Wales and Northern Ireland during COVID-19 “educational leadership crisis”: A cross-sectional descriptive study d68adb6744707b3bd75e07bd334d0516 0000-0002-9701-5991 Emily Marchant Emily Marchant true false 200c66ef0fc55391f736f6e926fb4b99 0000-0001-5196-9389 Tom Crick Tom Crick true false 2024-04-18 EDUC The COVID-19 pandemic caused far-reaching societal changes, including significant educational impacts affecting over 1.6 billion pupils and 100 million education practitioners globally. Senior school leaders were at the forefront and were exposed to particularly high demands during a period of “crisis leadership”. This occupation were already reporting high work-related stress and large numbers leaving the profession preceding COVID-19. This cross-sectional descriptive study through the international COVID-Health Literacy network aimed to examine the well-being and work-related stress of senior school leaders (n = 323) in Wales (n = 172) and Northern Ireland (n = 151) during COVID-19 (2021–2022). Findings suggest that senior school leaders reported high workloads (54.22±11.30 hours/week), low well-being (65.2% n = 202, mean WHO-5 40.85±21.57), depressive symptoms (WHO-5 34.8% n = 108) and high work-related stress (PSS-10: 29.91±4.92). High exhaustion (BAT: high/very high 89.0% n = 285) and specific psychosomatic complaints (experiencing muscle pain 48.2% n = 151) were also reported, and females had statistically higher outcomes in these areas. School leaders were engaging in self-endangering working behaviours; 74.7% (n = 239) gave up leisure activities in favour of work and 63.4% (n = 202) sacrificed sufficient sleep, which was statistically higher for females. These findings are concerning given that the UK is currently experiencing a “crisis” in educational leadership against a backdrop of pandemic-related pressures. Senior leaders’ high attrition rates further exacerbate this, proving costly to educational systems and placing additional financial and other pressures on educational settings and policy response. This has implications for senior leaders and pupil-level outcomes including health, well-being and educational attainment, requiring urgent tailored and targeted support from the education and health sectors. This is particularly pertinent for Wales and Northern Ireland as devolved nations in the UK, who are both implementing or contemplating major education system level reforms, including new statutory national curricula, requiring significant leadership, engagement and ownership from the education profession. Journal Article PLOS ONE 19 4 e0291278 Public Library of Science (PLoS) 1932-6203 10 4 2024 2024-04-10 10.1371/journal.pone.0291278 Data Availability Statement: Data cannot beshared publicly because of ethical requirements regarding confidentiality, for which participants did not consent to. Data are available from the Swansea University Medical School Research Ethics Committee (contact via FMHLSEthics@swansea.ac.uk) for researchers who meetthe criteria for access to confidential data. COLLEGE NANME Education COLLEGE CODE EDUC Swansea University SU Library paid the OA fee (TA Institutional Deal) The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded EM (grant number: ES/W007045/1) and the development of the HAPPEN network (grant number: ES/J500197/1) which this research was conducted through (https://esrc.ukri.org/). 2024-04-18T20:31:41.5517926 2024-04-18T20:22:42.4626665 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Social Sciences - Education and Childhood Studies Emily Marchant 0000-0002-9701-5991 1 Joanna Dowd 2 Lucy Bray 3 Gill Rowlands 4 Nia Miles 5 Tom Crick 0000-0001-5196-9389 6 Michaela James 7 Kevin Dadaczynski 8 Orkan Okan 9 66087__30068__a36b29a32da64b64a793a30670e7383b.pdf 66087.VOR.pdf 2024-04-18T20:27:00.4028185 Output 704899 application/pdf Version of Record true © 2024 Marchant et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. true eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
title The well-being and work-related stress of senior school leaders in Wales and Northern Ireland during COVID-19 “educational leadership crisis”: A cross-sectional descriptive study
spellingShingle The well-being and work-related stress of senior school leaders in Wales and Northern Ireland during COVID-19 “educational leadership crisis”: A cross-sectional descriptive study
Emily Marchant
Tom Crick
title_short The well-being and work-related stress of senior school leaders in Wales and Northern Ireland during COVID-19 “educational leadership crisis”: A cross-sectional descriptive study
title_full The well-being and work-related stress of senior school leaders in Wales and Northern Ireland during COVID-19 “educational leadership crisis”: A cross-sectional descriptive study
title_fullStr The well-being and work-related stress of senior school leaders in Wales and Northern Ireland during COVID-19 “educational leadership crisis”: A cross-sectional descriptive study
title_full_unstemmed The well-being and work-related stress of senior school leaders in Wales and Northern Ireland during COVID-19 “educational leadership crisis”: A cross-sectional descriptive study
title_sort The well-being and work-related stress of senior school leaders in Wales and Northern Ireland during COVID-19 “educational leadership crisis”: A cross-sectional descriptive study
author_id_str_mv d68adb6744707b3bd75e07bd334d0516
200c66ef0fc55391f736f6e926fb4b99
author_id_fullname_str_mv d68adb6744707b3bd75e07bd334d0516_***_Emily Marchant
200c66ef0fc55391f736f6e926fb4b99_***_Tom Crick
author Emily Marchant
Tom Crick
author2 Emily Marchant
Joanna Dowd
Lucy Bray
Gill Rowlands
Nia Miles
Tom Crick
Michaela James
Kevin Dadaczynski
Orkan Okan
format Journal article
container_title PLOS ONE
container_volume 19
container_issue 4
container_start_page e0291278
publishDate 2024
institution Swansea University
issn 1932-6203
doi_str_mv 10.1371/journal.pone.0291278
publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS)
college_str Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchytype
hierarchy_top_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
department_str School of Social Sciences - Education and Childhood Studies{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Social Sciences - Education and Childhood Studies
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description The COVID-19 pandemic caused far-reaching societal changes, including significant educational impacts affecting over 1.6 billion pupils and 100 million education practitioners globally. Senior school leaders were at the forefront and were exposed to particularly high demands during a period of “crisis leadership”. This occupation were already reporting high work-related stress and large numbers leaving the profession preceding COVID-19. This cross-sectional descriptive study through the international COVID-Health Literacy network aimed to examine the well-being and work-related stress of senior school leaders (n = 323) in Wales (n = 172) and Northern Ireland (n = 151) during COVID-19 (2021–2022). Findings suggest that senior school leaders reported high workloads (54.22±11.30 hours/week), low well-being (65.2% n = 202, mean WHO-5 40.85±21.57), depressive symptoms (WHO-5 34.8% n = 108) and high work-related stress (PSS-10: 29.91±4.92). High exhaustion (BAT: high/very high 89.0% n = 285) and specific psychosomatic complaints (experiencing muscle pain 48.2% n = 151) were also reported, and females had statistically higher outcomes in these areas. School leaders were engaging in self-endangering working behaviours; 74.7% (n = 239) gave up leisure activities in favour of work and 63.4% (n = 202) sacrificed sufficient sleep, which was statistically higher for females. These findings are concerning given that the UK is currently experiencing a “crisis” in educational leadership against a backdrop of pandemic-related pressures. Senior leaders’ high attrition rates further exacerbate this, proving costly to educational systems and placing additional financial and other pressures on educational settings and policy response. This has implications for senior leaders and pupil-level outcomes including health, well-being and educational attainment, requiring urgent tailored and targeted support from the education and health sectors. This is particularly pertinent for Wales and Northern Ireland as devolved nations in the UK, who are both implementing or contemplating major education system level reforms, including new statutory national curricula, requiring significant leadership, engagement and ownership from the education profession.
published_date 2024-04-10T20:31:36Z
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