Preparing teachers to thrive in the profession starts before they enter the classroom. Start. And stay explores how initial teacher education can better integrate teacher wellbeing, setting out guiding principles to support future educators and strengthen the sustainability of Australia’s teaching workforce.

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Executive summary

While initial teacher education (ITE) programs, spanning early childhood to secondary education at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, must meet accreditation and professional standards (Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership [AITSL], 2022a; 2022b), teacher wellbeing remains largely overlooked. This is despite the known stressors faced by pre- service teachers, particularly during placements. COVID-19 further amplified mental health challenges, exposing the personal toll of a profession centred on care.

Poor teacher wellbeing is linked to increased stress and absenteeism, higher rates of burnout, higher organisational costs and greater intention to leave the profession. 40% of new teachers leave within their first three years (Department of Education, 2023b), costing an estimated AUD$25,000 per departure (Heffernan et al., 2022). This, in turn, significantly impacts student achievement, engagement, overall wellbeing, and the school climate.

The Better and Fairer Schools Agreement (BFSA), implemented in 2025, represented a major step towards addressing key issues in education, such as improving equity, excellence, wellbeing, and workforce development (Department of Education, 2025b).

Globally, research indicates that it is possible to embed wellbeing into higher education programs through various approaches, including mandatory content, elective content, and curricular infusion. Key factors for success include ensuring relevance, securing leadership support, and fostering collaboration.

Teachers and educators play a crucial role in promoting mentally healthy learning communities within a more resilient, effective, and sustainable education system in Australia. Supporting their wellbeing can create a ripple effect, benefiting not only the teachers but also students and their families. Supporting teachers’ wellbeing strengthens their mental and physical health, improves stress management, and enables greater focus on students’ learning needs.

To help address high attrition among early career teachers, we propose mandating comprehensive, evidence-informed strategies for personal wellbeing into the curriculum for pre-service teachers (PSTs). In this report we argue that wellbeing must be meaningfully and explicitly integrated into ITE programs through an introductory foundational subject, in discipline-specific content and as part of PSTs’ professional experience. Teacher wellbeing should not be viewed solely as a matter of self-management, but as a shared responsibility across workplaces and the education system.

Furthermore, when working with First Nations pre-service teachers about identity and wellbeing, initial teacher education program developers should partner with First Nations academics in content design. They must also decolonise their thinking (Gannaway, 2020) and recognise the harmful, “central role of racism (not the students’ Indigeneity)” in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students’ experience of the education system, and other aspects of their lives (Moodie et al., 2019, p. 292). Such collaborations will ensure that the material is culturally appropriate, relevant, and respectful of Indigenous perspectives and experiences.

Recognising the diverse contexts and self-accrediting nature of most ITE providers, a set of guiding principles are recommended to guide the development of wellbeing subjects in ITE programs of study. The overarching principle is that:

All Australian initial teacher education programs should explicitly teach pre-service teachers about teacher wellbeing. Teacher wellbeing should be a common thread throughout ITE programs (including discipline-specific content and professional experience) and be the explicit focus of at least one mandatory subject.

Key messages

  • Teacher attrition remains a significant challenge, with 40% of beginning teachers leaving within their first three years, a problem exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This exodus causes systemic disruptions and personal stress, with an estimated cost of AUD$25,000 per departing teacher.
  • Wellbeing is crucial for the teaching profession, with a bidirectional relationship between teacher wellbeing and professional performance. Australian teachers’ wellbeing is lower than the general population, with a clear link between poor teacher wellbeing and increased stress, burnout, and intention to leave the profession.
  • Teacher wellbeing should not be seen solely as a self-management strategy; teacher wellbeing needs to be seen as a broader workplace and system responsibility.
  • While all ITE programs in Australia must be accredited to address the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, teacher wellbeing is not explicitly addressed in the current standards.
  • Including teacher wellbeing in ITE programs has the potential to reduce early career teacher attrition. Currently, there is a lack of consistent preparation for managing personal and student wellbeing in ITE programs across Australia.
  • To support teacher wellbeing in ITE programs, it is important to: teach about wellbeing clearly in all programs, use ideas that include everyone and are based on good research, and help future teachers understand their own wellbeing within the broader education ecosystem.