Even without the pressures that the COVID-19 outbreak is piling on schools, many principals have been having a rough time fulfilling their day-to-day role.
Common challenges include large administrative workloads, dealing with difficult parents, managing students’ mental health and safety issues and simply finding the time to get back to what they do best – leading and teaching.
Happy School creator Steve Francis is an expert in the complexities of leading effective schools. He works with school leadership teams and staff across Australia and New Zealand to optimise their schools.
He says that when it comes to principalship, the COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating an already difficult job.
“I am concerned about the well-being of the teaching profession,” Francis told The Educator.
“These unprecedented times are putting huge demands on teachers with many experiencing a high level of personal and professional stress whilst they radically change their approach”.
Francis said that as well as dealing with the COVID crisis on a personal and family level, many teachers are also dealing with the professional challenges of transitioning to an online or remote mode of teaching.
“Many teachers are anxious about ‘getting it right’ for their students,” he said.
“Teachers are also at the forefront in the community. Parents expect staff in schools to be calm, unflustered and have all of the answers. That’s challenging in the current climate”.
Francis said it has also been interesting to see the increase in regard held for the teaching profession, by many parents, as they endeavour to ‘home school’ their children with the early closure of many schools for the Easter break.
“Many parents have found that teaching isn’t as easy as they thought,” he said.
“Now, more than ever, teachers and the great people who work in schools need support and inspiration. That has been the focus of our work through the Happy School program for the past 10 years”.
As Happy School’s contribution to the profession in this difficult and demanding time, the company is providing the Top 20 Happy School articles, with its compliments to anyone who needs and deserves a boost.
“Once a week they will receive a one-page article designed to support the awesome staff who work in schools and inspire them to persist in these challenging times,” Francis said.
Just CLICK HERE or head to https://www.happyschool.com.au/top-20-inspiring-articles/ to receive the articles completely free of charge and be part of the TOP 20 countdown!