Whether school is in or out of session, Teacher Support Scotland is available to work with educators on whatever issues they face.

Teacher Support Scotland today launched its telephone and online support services for serving and retired teachers across the nation at Commercial Primary School in Dunfermline.

Teacher Support Scotland is the charity dedicated to improving the wellbeing and effectiveness of training, serving and retired teachers.

The new services are entirely free and confidential. The 24/7 Support Line will be staffed around the clock by qualified coaches and counsellors, ready to listen and respond to teachers in need, 365 days a year. In addition, teachers will be able to access self-help information online, ask questions of qualified coaches and sign up for one-to-one email coaching via a new and improved website.

Teacher Support Scotland Chair, Dr Ivor Sutherland, who was joined by representatives from the trial schools at the launch, said: “We’re very pleased that, after a rewarding period of consultation with Scottish teachers, we have now launched these services to teachers in Scotland.

“We’re rightly proud of our education system but its distinctive nature as well as Scotland’s unique character inevitably means that the challenges faced by Scottish teachers sometimes differ from the rest of the UK.

“I’m sure Teacher Support Scotland’s new services will make an invaluable contribution to the wellbeing of Scottish teachers – and thereby the education of Scottish children.”

A trial of the new services revealed that Scottish teachers are likely to ask for help on similar issues to their colleagues in England and Wales. However, the differing educational system in Scotland also ensures that priorities are different, confirming the need for unique and specialised support services. Health and wellbeing enquiries (including both mental and physical health) in particular were noticeably more frequent during the trial than in England, making up 18 per cent of enquiries in comparison to nine.

The top issues for calls during the trails were:

• 1. Working Conditions 32 per cent (including workload, organisational management and legal issues).
• 2. Personal Issues 24 per cent (including family, children and life events).
• 3. Health and Wellbeing 18 per cent (including mental health).
• 4. Careers 16 per cent.
• 5. People Skills 8 per cent.