Teacher Resilience Erasmus Project

Project Title

Teacher Resilience

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Health and wellbeing; Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development); New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The current COVID-19 crisis has greatly accelerated the need for modernisation and digital transformation of education and training systems across Europe. At the same time the pressure on teachers to master a number of new skills and accustom to online teaching, while at the same time deliver high quality inclusive education is tremendous. This creates a lot of preconditions for further increase of the otherwise high number of educators exposed to extreme stress and potential burnout, which is a chronic phenomenon that continues to be a main cause of teacher exodus in the 21st century (Lavian, 2012). Burnout prevalence varies according countries and occupations, but is estimated between 3-16% (Maslach et al., 2001) and for teachers was reported between 25-35% in Europe. A recent survey, conducted by Teachers Assurance UK, published in the Guardian, found that secondary school teachers rate themselves as more stressed than those in the primary sector.

In 2019, the Syndicate of Education to PODKREPA, together with the Plovdiv University “Paisii Hilendarski” and upon request from the Ministry of Education and Science, initiated a large research of the burnout effect on teachers in Bulgaria. The analysis offers a comprehensive insight into the factors that lead to burnout among Bulgarian teachers. The current project comes as a natural continuation of our efforts, moving towards finding a solution to a high on the agenda global issue through transnational cooperation aimed at developing a bespoke strategy to prevent teachers from burnout. Now, in times of unprecedented crisis, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, enhancing teacher resilience is more important than ever (S.Duffield & D.O’Hare, British Psychological Society). A survey conducted in March 2020 by the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence asked more than 5,000 teachers about their emotional responses regarding COVID-19. The survey found that the five most frequent emotions teachers were feeling every day since the eruption of COVID-19 were anxious, fearful, worried, overwhelmed, and sad.

Our project is aimed to design, develop and test a bespoke school teacher resilience toolkit to equip educators with efficient strategies on how to prevent and handle burnout, as well as foster mental and health well-being. We strongly believe that by supporting school teachers in managing stress levels at work we will contribute to strengthening the profile, recruitment and professional development of educators, but most of all to their retention. Our approach suggests that the change should start from inside-out, hence, the focus of our work will be on developing teachers’ own skills and competences to manage stress, thus also having a strong impact on pupils’ well-being. The target group are teachers at secondary level of education because of the intensity of challenges occurring during this stage, related to the specific profile of pupils at this age and the complexity of the curriculum. Also the pressure of teachers for high performance, related to preparing students for different final exams and transition to next education levels and labour market is an additional factor that causes stress. The indirect target group are students at secondary level, as we believe that reducing the levels of stress among teachers will lead to increased quality of teaching and eventually – high attainment levels among pupils.

The approach we suggest, which is based on all partners’ unique expertise (hence a transnational cooperation is required), envisages the following core areas to be covered: self-observation and analysis; nurturing one’s own well-being in times of global crisis; managing online relationships with parents, pupils and peers; fostering creativity for high quality online and blended learning; managing effectively the shift from face-to-face to online teaching.

The Teacher Resilience Toolkit will contain practical activities that teachers could undertake on a daily basis in order to enhance their own resilience and digital competences.

Our consortium is composed of 4 organisations from Bulgaria, Cyprus, Austria and Italy, i.e. a social partner, a consultancy, a training provider and a school.

The project will be delivered across 18 months and our methodology is aimed at developing, testing and evaluating the results in a timely and efficient manner to allow for immediate exploitation of the core output. We will also organise 4 multiplier events to further support our dissemination efforts.

What we aim to achieve at TARGET GROUP level is:
*enhanced competences for self-observation and analysis;
*more responsibility towards one’s own well-being thus supporting teachers’ efficient professional development;
*a better and more effective relationship between teachers, parents, peers, students and the wider society;
*enhanced digital skills and proactive behaviour;
*introducing creativity in all aspects of the school life.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 148055 Eur

Project Coordinator

Sindikat Obrazovanie Podkrepa & Country: BG

Project Partners

• DEKAPLUS BUSINESS SERVICES LTD
• BEST INSTITUT FUR BERUFSBEZOGENE WEITERBILDUNG UND PERSONALTRAINING GMBH
• Istituto Tecnico Economico e Tecnologico “Girolamo Caruso”