Angela Falkenberg has been called a “bitch dog” while principal of a primary school. She has colleagues who have been slut-shamed, she says, and threatened with having their throats slit.
The president of the Australian Primary Principals Association (Appa) has had four decades in the education system, and says “every year, behaviour gets worse”.
“I’m frustrated by the almost normalisation of it,” she says.
Without urgent reforms, Australia could lose an “entire generation” of principals, a new report has found, as they grapple with depression and anxiety due to growing workloads, physical violence and bullying.
Numbers reveal an increasing challenge
The Australian Catholic University’s (ACU) latest principal health, safety and wellbeing report, released on Monday, surveyed 2,182 school leaders in 2024, representing more than a fifth of principals.
It found instances of physical violence had increased by 82% since the survey started in 2011, while threats of violence were also at their highest rate in the same period, with teachers grappling with weapons brought to schoolyards, having to break up fights and, in some instances, being bitten.
Amid the challenging workplace conditions and high workloads, more than half (53%) of principals surveyed signalled an intention to quit – a slight decrease on 2023 (56%), but jumping to 82% for those with low job satisfaction.
Queensland school leaders recorded the highest intention to quit (58%) while ACT had the lowest (44%). The report found that based on the current trend, about 500 principals could end up abandoning the role.
World-leading educational psychologist and co-chief investigator Prof Herb Marsh says mental health challenges in the profession continue to escalate.
In 2024, 9% of participants recorded a severe score for anxiety, compared with just 1-5% of the general population, the report said. Levels of depression were also significantly higher than in the general population, with 7% of those surveyed recording a severe score, compared with 1.5% of Australians.
“Australia risks losing an entire generation of school leaders without urgent reforms,” Marsh says. “Despite this adversity, school leaders have maintained high levels of resilience and commitment. Their professional dedication is to be applauded.”
Half of principals were subjected to physical violence last year, the survey found, and more than half (54%) experienced threats of violence. Of those threats, 64% came from parents or caregivers; 95% of actual physical violence was carried out by students.
Almost four in 10 (37%) of leaders were affected by bullying, and seven in 10 (74%) experienced a critical incident, defined as an unexpected event that could be a threat to wellbeing.
The most common were violence threats and security threats (44%), followed by student and community deaths (15%) and suicide and suicidal threats (13%).
Some 45% of school principals also triggered a “red flag” email in 2024 – alerting school leaders to concerning results and the risk of self-harm, occupational health problems or a serious impact on their quality of life.
Assistant Prof Paul Kidson, an ACU educational leadership expert and former school principal, says violent behaviour has ranged from teachers having to physically break up fights in school grounds to children bringing knives to school, throwing tables down corridors or physically biting and bruising school leaders.
In one instance detailed in the report, a NT principal alleged a “loaded firearm” had been pointed at them and they had been told they would be shot.
A cultural shift
Kidson says there has also been an increase in “inappropriate and appalling language” used by parents and caregivers on social media platforms.
“I’ve had a school leader tell me: ‘Years ago, if someone said they needed to wear a body cam I would recoil in horror, but now I wonder if I ought to’,” he says.
“How did we get to the point where people’s really inappropriate behaviour is seen as something we have to tolerate?” Falkenberg asks.
“It’s become a low-trust environment … adults are reporting: ‘My child wouldn’t do that, you’re lying,’ to the point some [teachers] have had to resort to CCTV to play back to parents.”
Kidson says a societal shift is playing out in schools, noting an escalating culture of male superiority and misogynistic views that has drawn concern from gender equity groups.
“When you see how Andrew Tate, Dana White have impacted impressionable young men, why are we surprised when that turns up in schools?” Kidson says.
“I don’t think some of public discourse is helpful. We see bullish, belligerent behaviour rewarded. Kids think: ‘That’s how I navigate life’.”
What needs to change?
The report found heavy workloads and a lack of time to focus on teaching and learning remained the top two sources of stress, followed by student-related issues – such as behavioural problems – and the mental health of staff and students.
It made a series of recommendations, highlighting addressing heavy workloads and prioritising wellbeing support as pressing concerns.
Kidson says school leaders perform a role akin to CEOs, but battle unsustainable workloads and conditions that wouldn’t be tolerated in other industries.
According to 2025 Seek data, the average principal salary is between $180,000 and $200,000 a year. The report found that principals worked an average of 54.5 hours per week during term time.
“What we’ve seen over past decades is an increasing number of social, emotional and mental health challenges [of students], and teachers have not been trained to deal with those,” Kidson says.
He says despite the “outstanding success” of the sector’s significant wins in recent months – including Labor’s school funding agreement and the education minister’s convening of a national principal reference group last June - they need bipartisan support to continue in the next term of government. He is urging the Coalition to match Labor’s funding.
“Many principals feel we’ve finally started moving in the right direction, and we can’t afford to lose that momentum,” Kidson says.
“The work of school principals is often governed by people who aren’t directly involved in it – that’s where a reference group becomes important. These are the types of things that should be quarantined from political point scoring.”
The co-chief investigator of the survey and a leading school wellbeing expert, Prof Theresa Dicke, says despite the spike in violence, school leaders showed surprisingly high levels of job satisfaction.
“We need all school leaders to find their work satisfying, helping those who don’t is now even more urgent given they are the ones likely to leave,” she says.
“School leaders’ health and wellbeing is important in itself but has an effect on student outcomes and vice versa. If teachers are satisfied in their jobs, students are more likely to achieve.”
Are you a teacher or a parent who’s noticed new behavioural trends in Australian schools? Contact caitlin.cassidy@theguardian.com
• In Australia, support is available at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14, and at MensLine on 1300 789 978. In the UK, the charity Mind is available on 0300 123 3393 and Childline on 0800 1111. In the US, call or text Mental Health America at 988 or chat 988lifeline.org.
