Staff Wellbeing

[BadgerBadgerMushroom]

Just wondering if anyone has any suggestions about how to promote and improve staff wellbeing in school? Anyone doing anything for this. I know it's a big Ofsted focus at the moment and thinking of setting something up in my school.

We got a training day just got ourselves- no meetings, nothing. Just time.
So useful.

'Because support staff don't work as hard as teachers.'

Wow!

@ilikeafish do you think I should take it to SLT . Although not on management I have been teaching there a long time. So established. I just wondered if having a spokesperson for us worker bees might be useful. Maybe it's not as simple as I thought. I agree less marking is key...I don't get how some schools can reduce it and other schools say...oh no we can't do that.

Support staff don't work as hard?

Was that including eighteen hour days for a week for events? Coming in at weekends for intervention classes? Coming in during unpaid holiday to mop up the result of not making them kids complete their work during the term? Starting work before the teaching staff and still working long after the teachers legged it offsite?

Or does that include the times when I was teaching the kids they couldn't manage? Breaking up fights? Running clubs? Individual tuition for vulnerable students thereby saving the budget from the horror of paying for qualified staff as stated on the EHCP. Handling safeguarding disclosures? Or teaching classes where the teacher had no subject knowledge at all and merely sat there picking up the significantly higher pay whilst the Support Staff did the work?

Not forgetting the age old 'Well, I'm a teacher and I do unpaid overtime all the time' speech. Yep, I'd feel more amenable to it if I got the same salary, legal protection and pension, too. I wouldn't be bitching at somebody on Minimum Wage that they should work for free 'for the children' or because I did it.

@FabulouslyGlamorousReindeer fucking hell! Don't work as hard? I'm a HLTA and I work bloody hard. Just as hard as my colleagues!

We get a week a term where there are no meetings after or before school. We get fed on INSET days which isn’t always something I’ve experienced! Breakfast every now and then which is nice. Weekly shout outs in staff briefing which I enjoy.

We get listened to if we say “hang on scheduling another meeting in this day means this one needs rearranging thank you” and they do. So far!

Maybe don't work as 'hard' was crudely put. Would they 'don't have the same pressure' as teachers be more accurate?

TAs aren't leaving in droves like teachers are. IMO being a TA is a much easier job than being a teacher (I have been both). Of course, this difference in work load is reflected in pay and conditions for TAs.

I'm responsible for mental health and well being of pupils and staff at my school. I've done surveys, etc, done back to SLT (I'm not SLT- far from it!) and they changed absolutely nothing as a result. Cue an even more demoralised staff and a frustrated me. I've tried and I've failed. Some of the ideas above sound good but we'd never be allowed to have days off - not a chance in an indy school.

@fruityb how do the shout outs work? I'm imagining snaps jars like legally blonde lol

It’s in staff briefing on a Friday morning. People drop them in a post box all week and then they get read out and we get chocolate. I’ve had mine read out a couple of times and it’s really nice!

@FabulouslyGlamorousReindeer well put. Teacher can be paid 2x 3x even 4x more than TAs and yet who is leaving the profession in droves? I think that says it plain enough.

I’ve never known a wellbeing initiative in school that didn’t backfire and piss everyone off.

Yup - TAs and other support staff don't leave. They just get made redundant or their contracts not renewed.

It's always easier to leave a job to discover yourself or change sectors if you've already got the manageable mortgage, cash in the bank and the ability to breeze back in as supply if things get a bit tight than if you're working as hard for less than a quarter of the salary (minus another 20% for term time only contracts), get patronised about how your insecure and non transferable job is so easy compared to theirs and spend your day dealing with the fallout with none of the appreciation, access to CPD, training or rewards.

*I’ve never known a wellbeing initiative in school that didn’t backfire and piss everyone off.

It will never work if it doesn’t come from SLT.

Thanks for the input everyone

Ooh... I'd start with a crash course in management skills for SLT. An SLT that can communicate would be such an improvement. Consulting the staff before driving a coach and horses through their job description and transforming the school. Finding out what the staff members' professional interests are (would avoid me - interested in G&T with a stats background - teaching an SEN group whilst my SEN loving, math phobic colleague tries unsuccessfully to teach year 8 maths). Mean it when you say that you welcome staff feedback and fucking listen when you get it, rather than dismissing the concerns of crying members of staff. No requirement to provide cover work when absent. A day's paid carer's leave per term (nobody whinges about paid sick leave being unfair on those who are never sick, so I fail to see how this is unfair to those without dependants). An end to casual maternity discrimination. Clear policies on recruitment into SLT. The odd sign of appreciation - we don't even get so much as a mince pie at Christmas, never mind meals on inset or, god forbid, a Christmas party.

Tldr: communication, compassion and appreciation.

@Justalittlebitfurther there is no planning for those covering and as I stated everyone gets at least one well-being day

Sorry, support staff dont get planning time, so if we are requested to do other roles (for example, invigilation or acting as a reader during an exam) that time is dead time to us. We are not normally paid overtime and the time lost on our proper job has to be made up somehow. I am after nearly 4 years in education seriously considering returning to my old sector. 3* the money and perhaps slightly more stress but not a lot. I have found the attitude to support staff to be really quite poor, and no, a well being day doesnt come close to making up for that.

@lucymaudmonty
Report writing....is it necessary?? My school scrapped it
lucymaud would you be able to say more about this? We drown in reports, they seem to be added to yearly and staff are fed up.

Totally what was said in the 1st and 4th replies.

I do NOT want to have to waste an afternoon wandering around the grass outside the classroom learning how to 'smell the air' and 'take in the moment' when I've got a 'to do list' longer than my arm, EVER again.

Well, I could have put the full stop after 'take in the moment' come to think of it.

Following

Our school's marking policy is only assessments and not books. All our frees are protected so no cover. KS3 don't have grades so data is just a score out of 5 for effort, so data drop takes about 30 seconds. The school have subscribed to activelearn so homework tasks are self marked. All together this means I have a work life balance. That was the key part of my wellbeing.

Get rid of marking. It's had a hugely positive impact on all the teachers at my school.

@Rainuntilseptember just that. Don't write subject reports any more. It has had no negative impact at all. We still send data out to parents two or three times a year and there is parents evening too.

I think the rationale was that some staff were writing 1000 reports a year, they weren't always great quality, understandably because of the volume and they had lots of spag errors which took a long time to correct . Now we have to write a form tutor report at the end of the year. So 30 rather than 1000!

I think for everything you do you have to ask "what would be the impact if we stopped doing this?'. If results would go down, or safeguarding would be compromised, or the quality of teaching and learning would suffer then obviously you wouldn't cut it out. But lots of things schools do aren't actually necessary.

I work in a particularly stressful place. This has recently been brought in because it is REALLY needed.

We stay an hour for INSET after school once a week.... and once every half term is a wellbeing session in this INSET time.

Last time we did a lighthearted quiz where you team up with a partner and had nibbles on the table. We're doing a Christmas crafts session in a few weeks with mince pies to scoff. It's worked well so far.

We have a family therapist who works in school and staff are able to book time with them if we want to.

At Christmas and summer hols, staff are presented with a small gift...chocolates, wine, flowers what ever from SLT to say thank you.

We are thanked fairly often by SLT.

Nothing huge, but it does make a difference.

The TAs that feel put upon and overworked, are you in secondary or primary? I'm wondering if it's a different type of workload?