STAFF from Pemberley Academy and Tany’s Dell this week completed the grueling Tough Mudder race as part of the schools drive to explore a better work-life balance for their staff.

The race, which took place in South London is an exasperating combination of a 10 mile cross country course peppered with 26 obstacles that involve scaling walls and plunging into Ice cold water. Max Steele, a teacher at Pemberley who organised the race, bought the group together once it became obvious that there was a need for his colleagues to get their heads out of books and get physical during the week.

“It started as a weekly ‘fit’ club which lots of staff attended, and as it became so successful and part of our weekly set up we decided we needed a focus and the Tough Mudder provided this”

The school has made a huge commitment towards safeguarding the mental health of it’s staff and has signed the ‘Time to change’ employers pledge, a scheme being pioneered by MIND the West Essex based mental health charity. A recently published study by University college London [UCL] found that many teachers work more than 60 hours a week with 47-50 hours a week being an average and many schools have now had to try and focus much more creatively on the physical and mental health of it’s teachers.

“We’ve had great fun over the last year and will continue to run the fit club for all of our staff with a goal to completed another tough mudder and a sprint triathlon in the summer of 2020. Our staff have really enjoyed the opportunity to leave the marking behind for an hour a week and get together to be more active, and it’s lovely to hear that lots of other schools are doing similar things.”