A new report shows more than 40 per cent of Canberra principals say they're at risk of violence and bullying, prompting a leading expert to call on bureaucrats and parents to put faith in school leaders and let them get on with the job.
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The Principal Health Report, compiled by the Australian Catholic University, polled 119 ACT principals on their experiences at work.
More than half of Canberra principals reported stress and almost 60 per cent sleeping issues and burnout. More than 70 per cent complained of work-family conflict though levels of job satisfaction were also high.
Nationally, more than 53 per cent of principals worked more than 56 hours per week with about 27 per cent of respondents working more than 61 to 65 hours per week.
Report author Philip Riley pointed to an increasing tendency to blame schools rather than systems as explaining the poor results.
"This idea of school choice and NAPLAN becoming high stakes is all really recent, the last kind of decade I suppose it's really ramped up," Professor Riley said.
"Departments of education have addressed this by basically devolving responsibilities of these issues out to schools rather than saying 'how are we contributing to this', because they're contributing by ramping up accountability which means principals particularly are spending more and more of their time justifying their position rather than doing the work that they want to do."
Catholic Primary Principals Association president Brad Gaynor said he was especially concerned by the figures illustrating excessive workloads and stress.
He said external pressures, such as compulsory administrative tasks, were a source of great pressure.
"It's the constant change of government initiative after government initiative that we've got to get rolling with and that just adds further stress to already time-poor people," he said.
"You're too busy doing all these administrative tasks that take you away from what you went into the profession for, then you stress about that - you stress that you're not getting into classes, that you're not supporting teachers as best you can, so it's sort of a dual-edged sword."
The report made 15 recommendations, including that employers reduce job demands or at least provide greater resources and support, and that community members support their local school and stop with offensive behaviour.
The ACT government last year released an occupational violence policy and management plan for schools. The nation-leading documents followed the release of figures showing almost 700 school staff were assaulted in 2015-16, including 48 principals.
"The [Education] Directorate is working with the appropriate stakeholders to develop a wellbeing strategy to further support principals," a spokeswoman said.
"This is still in early stages but will look at things such as improved support for principals following significant incidents, improved peer support networks, health checks and access to external support and increased leadership development opportunities."
Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham said: "It's appalling to hear what some of our fantastic teachers and school leaders face in the workplace and it's totally unacceptable."
