The wellbeing of student teachers: co-created guidance for Initial Teacher Education providers

Existing research identifies the likely risk and protective factors which affect trainee teachers’ wellbeing and resilience. Risk factors include high workloads, feeling like a buren and negative school cultures (Malone, Saini and Poole, 2024). In addition, financial anxieties (Bolton, 2022) and performance cultures in schools (Ball, 2021) are also risk factors. Protective factors include positive relationships with staff (Gu and Day, 2013; Worth, Bamford and Durbin, 2015) and integrating wellbeing and resilience interventions into the initial teacher education (ITE) curriculum (McLean, Taylor & Jimenez, 2019; Newberry, 2013). Research suggests that student teacher wellbeing is of concern in European countries (Thompson, Clarke, Quickfall and Glazzard, 2020) and globally (Hascher and Waber, 2021).

Despite this research, it appears that there is a paucity of research on how to pro-actively support student teachers’ wellbeing. Existing research has gathered perceptions of trainees (for example, Malone et al., 2024) or has explored interventions which are embedded into the central ITE curriculum (McLean et al., 2019; Newberry, 2013). University strategies for wellbeing may not address the specific challenges of students on professional programmes (STeWDUBS, 2023). This study therefore seeks to address the following objectives:

• To produce a literature review on student teacher wellbeing
• To co-create a four page guidance document for ITE providers (HEIs, SCITTs and new providers) and policy makers, that is easy to engage with