Developed by Teacher Support Scotland, a charity which promotes the wellbeing and training of teachers, the initiative will provide a free and confidential 24 hour support line staffed by qualified coaches and counsellors. Teachers will also be able to access self-help online, ask questions of qualified coaches and register for one-to-one email coaching via a new revamped website.

The launch at Commercial Primary School in Dunfermline today will be attended by representatives from schools which took part in a trial of the new services. The trials revealed that while Scottish teachers are likely to ask for support on similar issues to their counterparts in England and Wales, priorities are different north of the border. Most notably, health and wellbeing enquiries were twice as frequent in the Scottish trial at 18 per cent compared to 9 per cent in England.

Amongst the issues most frequently raised by teachers during the trials ‘working conditions’ topped the list at 32 per cent followed by ‘personal issues’ including family and life events at 24 per cent.

Commenting on the new services Teacher Support Scotland Chair, Dr Ivor Sutherland said: “We’re very pleased that, after a rewarding period of consultation with Scottish teachers, we will now launch 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.”

The initiative follows recent reports that teachers in Scotland are between three and six times more likely to take time off work due to depression and stress than the rest of the workforce. Amongst Scottish teachers the highest average number of days taken for depression or stress-related illnesses was 3.37 days per teacher per year in Perth and Kinross - five and a half times the national average of 0.6 days per worker per year.