Tips to improve wellbeing from Mandy Coalter, author of ‘Talent Architects; how to make your school a great place to work’
There have been some major learnings from the pandemic and every school will approach the topic of wellbeing slightly differently moving forward.
From 2012 to 2019 Mandy Coalter was Director of People at United Learning, one of the largest school groups in the UK, running circa 80 schools across state and independent sectors and employing over 8000 staff
Mandy’s successful book ‘Talent Architects; how to make your school a great place to work’ was published in 2018. The book features regularly as a best seller in Education leadership and is a core text for many of the sector's leadership provider programmes.
Here, Mandy shares her five top wellbeing tips.
Listening to your team
Ensuring staff feel supported and listened to post-pandemic should be a top priority, with counselling and wellbeing support services made accessible to all.
The 2020 Teacher Wellbeing Index found that 62 per cent of education professionals described themselves as stressed, with long working hours deemed a major factor. Around 70 per cent of senior leaders also reported working more than 51 hours per week.
The same report found there to be huge variations in the wellbeing support offered to staff, with 53 per cent of education professionals believing they did not receive sufficient guidance about their mental health and wellbeing at work.
A further 20 per cent reported that they had no mental health support and 42 per cent were unsure if they had a wellbeing policy in place. When asked if they had considered leaving the sector during the past two years due to pressures on their mental health and wellbeing, 52 per cent responded with ‘yes’.
Given the enormous pressures schools faced last year, undertaking sufficient consultations before rolling out new wellbeing initiatives is crucial. Take time to understand and listen to each and every member of staff, to gain a clear picture of what has worked well and what could be improved.
Offering services such as professional coaching, counselling, part time working and career breaks could also be considered.
In a previous blog, we discussed some of the measures you can take to improve teacher wellbeing.
More flexibility
More flexible ways of working became widespread during the pandemic. However, due to the speed at which circumstances were changing this probably felt quite chaotic for teachers and school leaders, especially in the early days of lockdown.
There’s now an opportunity to challenge prior assumptions and embed some of these changes longer-term. Most schools are allowing staff to work from home a lot more, now able to use online video conferencing tools to attend meetings, parents evening or CPD events.
Even those with a classroom-based role can complete marking at home, digitally, rather than having to stay late. By reviewing your flexible working policy, you can ensure staff feel listened to and minimise the chance of long working hours returning.
Tackling workload issues
For some time the education sector has been facing a crisis around teacher recruitment and retention - with workload one of the key reasons for teachers leaving the profession.
Now with pupils back in the classroom, I’d recommend schools implement workload review tools to identify how workloads could be better balanced across teams and to highlight worrying trends before they lead to burnout.
Offering resilience training, line-manager support or time off after busy periods can also help relieve stress.
More streamlined ways of working
Despite the huge challenges, the pandemic did significantly accelerate the adoption of digital systems, able to save hours of time that would previously have been spent manually marking pupils' work, or completing paperwork.
Just because pupils are now back in the classroom, there’s no need to go back to old, inefficient processes. By understanding where time has been saved, schools can ensure teachers are given more time to support pupils.
You can read our blog about the three key benefits of online learning.
Better planning
One of the biggest causes of pressure for staff is constant changes to the school calendar, and this has become even more of an issue during the pandemic. Asking a range of staff to review and provide feedback before finalising the 2021/22 school calendar will be hugely beneficial, especially with a number of key events and exams postponed last year.
When it comes to meetings, it’s important to follow a specific agenda, setting a clear start and end time. Consider the number of meetings booked each week, the time of day they take place and ensure staff feel comfortable requesting a virtual meeting.
Chairing meetings is a core skill and it's useful to train those who do so.
You can find the DfE Education Staff Wellbeing Charter here.
Watch our on-demand webinar from Mandy Coalter ... Take away some top tips for creating a great working environment within your school or MAT.
