Stress now the talk of the staff room

THE FRIDAY THING: TEACHERS in Oldham are feeling the strain.

Apparently stress in the classroom is hitting new peaks, right across the borough.

Stress leave is the talk of the staff room (well, it is for those not on stress leave) as the number of teachers who have to take time off to recover from the stresses and strains of the job increases.

During 2008-2009, 41 Oldham teachers needed to go on leave after teaching the little classroom angels. Figures for 2010-2011 show the stress epidemic had grown; classroom stresses afflicting 113 teachers.

So what has caused such a significant rise? Are the kids making life more stressful? Have some schools cut the number of day’s holiday? Were the teachers of yesteryear made of sterner stuff?

Apparently research shows that teaching is one of the highest-pressure careers with 41.5 per cent of teachers reporting themselves “highly stressed”.

Part of the problem, perhaps, is that heads now have the power to sack poorly-performing teachers. The teaching unions sympathise.

The parents of poorly-taught youngsters whose futures are in the hands of some folk who are plainly not up to the job will take a different view.

The same thoughts will apply to the rule that now allows schools to adjust pay scales to reflect teacher ability. “Unfair” scream the teaching unions; “bring it on” say parents who want the best possible education for their children. Education should be run by the schools not by the unions whose concern seems to be focused far more on their members (irrespective of the quality of their teaching) than it is on the pupils whose future can be made or ruined by teachers.

The parents’ poll on the workings (or largely not workings) of Oldham Academy North on an Ofsted-run website painted a worrying picture that should not be ignored.

Teachers need to be reminded that, in these troubled times, those folk lucky enough to have jobs are all stressed and under pressure but how many of them have the luxury of an opportunity to take stress leave? Something about heat and kitchens comes to mind.


OLDHAM certainly has its fair share of women, deserted by husband/partner and also left in the lurch by the failure that has been the Child Support Agency.
How these women must cast an envious eye to Italy, where former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has been forced by the courts to offer his former wife Veronica Lario £29.4 million a year at a time when ordinary Italians are struggling through a financial crisis.

Berlusconi now intends to marry 27-year-old Francesca Pascale, who has probably already put a date for the divorce in her diary. And where all this leaves Mr B’s 18-year-old “friend” and lingerie model, Noemi Letizia is the subject of much Italian speculation.

You have to admit, Italian politics are a lot more fun than ours. All we’ve ever had was John Major and Edwina Currie.



FINAL WORD: Where would you expect an Al Qaeda-inspired terrorist to be? Somali-born Ibrahim Magag was being held under so-called security measures because of the threat he poses to the public.
So is the dangerous Ibrahim in jail? No, he is on the run and has not been seen since Boxing Day. He could be anywhere with Al Qaeda friends plotting murder and mayhem on the streets. He was, after all, held under Terrorism Prevention Investigation Measures introduced a year ago by, no surprise here, the Lib-Dems after a major row with the Tories.

Maybe Nick Clegg and his crazy cronies should be placed under constant guard for our protection.