Mindfulness Survey Results - Supporting Middle leaders

Last month (April 2017) I ran a survey to find out more about teachers' mindfulness experience. Due to limited time and resources I wasn't able to do it very scientifically so it wasn't random or stratified. However the results were interesting and provided a useful insight into the varying experiences.

39% of all respondents had never practised mindfulness and 50% over all never practised or did so less than once a month.

61% of the respondents were in Management Positions so I am not going to analyse the results from classroom teachers because there weren't enough to give any valuable data. 

• All the Head Teachers and CEOs of MATs who responded had a mindfulness practice - 75% of those more than once a week.
• 50% of Senior Managers practised mindfulness more than once a week.
• None of the Middle Managers who answered the survey had a mindfulness practice and some had experienced problems when being made to do mindfulness training in their schools. In fact they were the only group who reported any problems. One Middle Manager's experience in particular raised alarm bells about the danger of inexperienced trainers which I have already blogged about here.
• 2/3 who were consultants or coaches practised at least once a week.

In the Government's Teacher Workload survey of 2016 - results summarised above - it was found that Middle Managers worked the longest, were more likely to say their workload was a problem. Conversely Senior Leaders were less likely to say their workload was a problem. As I said this is not a scientifically proven correlation but I don't think we can ignore the coincidence. Could it be that our Middle Leaders are the ones who need the most support? Contact us today to discuss how we can help your staff. 

The survey will remain open - I would love to hear from more teachers. All responses will be kept strictly confidential.