Teacher wellbeing isn’t a luxury. It’s the whole system

By Joanna Griffith
Community contribution / September 11, 2025

Teachers are in crisis. Which means our children's education is in crisis. I have been in education for 22 years and am now a principal. I know teacher burnout is real. I have seen dedicated colleagues walk away, not because they don’t care, but because the emotional and physical demands are impossible to sustain.

Kwoorabup Nature School has made systemic, intentional changes: clarifying roles so teachers know exactly what is expected, embedding whole-school approaches, putting clear behaviour support policies in place, and sharing workload for events and administration.

According to new research from UNSW, nine out of ten teachers in Australia are experiencing extreme stress. Teachers report stress and anxiety at rates 40 per cent higher than most other professions.

This is not surprising to anyone who works in schools. What is surprising is how long we’ve let this go on, and how far off the mark some solutions have been.

Too often, wellbeing is treated as an afterthought, a “nice to have” patched up with yoga or morning teas. But wellbeing is not a luxury. It is the foundation of a sustainable education system. Without teachers who feel respected, supported, and able to thrive, there is no education system.

The Robinson & Hamilton review for the WA Department of Education in 2023 confirmed what teachers have long known: the workload is unsustainable. Teachers are expected to cover an ever-expanding list of responsibilities, from literacy and numeracy to emotional support and resilience building. They are tasked with identifying additional needs and providing individualised support for increasing numbers of students who need help to succeed, with limited resources.

At the same time, they are left to scope and sequence the curriculum themselves, work that should belong to curriculum specialists. As the review argues, only when schools systematise and routinise their work can the load be reduced, freeing teachers to focus on their core business: good teaching and positive relationships with students.

At Kwoorabup Nature School, we’ve worked hard to put these principles into practice. Our annual staff wellbeing survey has shown this to have a profound impact, with an average increase of 31 per cent across every measure of belonging, respect, contribution, and support.

This didn’t happen because of one shiny wellbeing program. It happened because we made systemic, intentional changes: clarifying roles so teachers know exactly what is expected, embedding whole-school approaches so no one needs to reinvent the wheel, putting clear behaviour support policies in place, and sharing workload for events and administration.

We strengthened relationships across the whole team by placing an emphasis on developing a collaborative staff culture and created an environment where teachers have the tools and backup to do their job well.

Wellbeing is not about bubble baths or resilience posters. It’s about clarity, culture, and community. It’s about making sure teachers have time to plan together, enough classroom support, and consistent systems that let them focus on what matters. When that happens, wellbeing isn’t an aspiration, it’s lived reality. Our results prove it.

The national data from UNSW and the Robinson & Hamilton findings should be a wake-up call: teacher wellbeing is not a side issue. It is the issue.

If we want to address shortages, retain good people, and ensure children receive the education they deserve, we must move beyond feel-good slogans and surface fixes.

Systemic, structural change is both possible and urgent.

Because our teachers deserve more than survival. And so do our children.