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.

The thing with staff wellbeing being focused on teachers is because of the massive teacher recruitment and retention crisis, with teacher workload and stress being widely cited as reasons for quitting.

I don’t think that there’s a recruitment and retention crisis for office staff and so while they undoubtedly work hard and deserve a decent working environment, they’re not going to be at the centre of (or may even be completely overlooked) in any initiatives.

With all this media coverage about people talking about mental health it is so surprising that so many people feel their SLT aren't bothered. I wonder how they feel about it and if they ever wish that someone would invite them to an escape room 😆

Are you asking how SLT feel about it OP?
I don't think many SLT care tbh.
The SLT have always been very chipper at the schools I have taught at! Walking the corridors with a spring in their step.

SLT performance is managed by the HT and they have the people they have delegated down to to blame if it all goes tits up.

They get given a job by the HT and the job is promptly passed down to the teachers, site staff or the business, timetabling, Data, SEN ,ICT teams.

They are the middle men and I can honestly say that they are rarely seen to break out in a sweat themselves if at all.

I'm not sure how many would survive in an escape room without their teams of minions to act on their behalf!

@Elodie yeah was wondering if SLT go home to their families talking about the ridiculous amount of work they have and how they wish someone would sort out work/life balancr or do they just skip out of school at 4pm and go enjoy hobbies and stuff outside of school that I don't have time for!

I think SLT work long hours and have their own pressures. But the relentless grind of performance in front of a class, dealing with whole class discipline etc is not part of their day. They can do their paperwork when they want, it isn't squeezed in at lunchtime or after school.

I think the idea that SLT have some sort of easy life simply isn't the case in many schools.
It's easy to say they delegate work down, but that's exactly how leadership and management works in any organisation. I wouldn't expect the AHT for teaching and learning to run all the CPD, do all department plans, do all quality assurance, all lesson observations, all teacher training etc. That's why there's a leadership structure and different people have different roles.

Of course where there are SLT who don't consider workload and pile it on then that's an issue, but I can't get annoyed at the idea of "management structure works like management structure". Think about it this way, the head will do the least amount of teaching, but if shit hits the fan and results dip, or Ofsted slate the school or there's a safeguarding scandal, it's the head who will be held accountable.

Our SLT look like they are about to have nervous breakdowns. They have sold their soul to the bully of a head in return for promotions and they are very much suffering the consequences.

One of the teachers in my department just stepped down from SLT after years. They are finding a full teaching timetable unbelievably relentless and are also lamenting the loss of their own office. It’s a totally different job.

I think SLT work long hours and have their own pressures. But the relentless grind of performance in front of a class, dealing with whole class discipline etc is not part of their day. They can do their paperwork when they want, it isn't squeezed in at lunchtime or after school.

Not the case in Primary. SLT usually have their own class and are lucky to get 1/2 a day out of the classroom.

1/2 a day is normal PPA allowance isn’t it? Are you saying that primary SLT aren’t given any non-contact time for their SLT role? That’s against teachers pay and conditions and should be contested!

When my DS was taught by the deputy head, they had a full day out of the classroom.

My TAs are lovely people but literally walk in the door at 8.45 and out again bang on 12 (I work mornings teaching nursery). They do no marking or assessments, moan about everything. I spend my evenings re-writing their observations and linking them to the eyfs. I do all planning and then they don't look at the sheets I give them so I'm constantly reminding them what we are doing this week. We have just had ofsted, one swanned in 15 mins late and didn't care. Luckily ofsted weren't in with me then. I have raised this with slt but nobody cares.

Some tas (many even) do an amazing job, my old ta was incredible! We were the dream team! I now have part time tas and they come in, do the literal bare minimum, and don't give a shit: it's demotivating and demoralising and I hate working with such negativity.

Yet I'm not their manager so I can't do anything as my slt don't give a shit.

There are many TAs at my school who
Are similar.

There are also many who are incredible and deserve a lot more!

My school is toxic.

In fact actually there are many teachers who are similar.

Performance management isn't worth the paper it's written on.

If my school properly knew the staff we would have better teachers and better support staff.

Instead of half flogging their guts out and half not caring in the slightest.

A little thing in a way but I have not forgotten how none of the SLT said anything to me after my mother died and I was off for a week. Flowers were sent but that is an automatic office thing, a bit of human decency would have gone down a lot better.

(That's in terms of promoting staff well-being)

@Rain that's really awful 😖 surely work pressure doesn't stop people showing sympathy. No excuse for that.

Mammyloveswibe - I have no issue with TA's who come in for just their hours and no more (would have an issue if they are late tho).

An experienced teacher is literally paid three times as much as a TA, sometimes more.

@noblegiraffe - sorry, I meant 1/2 a day to do "SLT" ing. Apologies if that wasn't clear.

@LolaSmiles my school sounds very similar to yours. Maybe we are colleagues

One of my DC is taught by the primary deputy head. She is off timetable five afternoons a week. Good overall except that the children get taught by TA every afternoon (not TA bashing, just acknowledging the lack of QTS)

I think having optional stuff, like free staff yoga once a week, that people can do if they want to, but no pressure to join in, can work well.

Anything that's compulsory before/after school is just more stress.

I, personally, hate before school meetings. Morning briefing once a week I can cope with, but 8-8.30 meetings before school stress me out and I'm always just thinking about all the things I've got to squeeze into the day!

Centralized detentions are really good, as long as there is someone in charge of chasing up attendance- it's pretty demoralizing to set detentions knowing they probably won't be sat, and no-one will do anything about it.

Consider how many duties staff are doing and when. If staff get a free meal for doing duties, don't penny pinch over this!

One thing that would be (relatively) easy to implement, and would make a difference to my quality of life is allowing tutors to have tutor time in their own teaching rooms. It means I'm not running across school to get to my first lesson, I can welcome kids in the morning more easily, as a science teacher I can set up practicals in advance, and I don't have other people's random stuff left in my room. I can't see the need to have e.g. all Y11 in the science corridor, all Y7 in maths and so on.

Think about it this way, the head will do the least amount of teaching, but if shit hits the fan and results dip, or Ofsted slate the school or there's a safeguarding scandal, it's the head who will be held accountable.

Yes SLT are accountable but when their leadership is challenged by the likes of OFSTED, blame is easily and readily passed down.

Namechanged because I want to post totally outing details

We had an INSET day a few weeks back.

It contained scheduled meetings of various types from 8am until 3pm. To be fair there was a 40min lunch break but we were expected to network with guests during that time...

The focus of the day? SEMH improvement and policy
Lots of repetitious mentions by our keynote speakers of taking staff MH and wellbeing just as seriously as for the students.

Hours spent looking through data collected from student surveys that wouldn’t constitute a valid yr7 science experiment. Coming up with SMART targets on how we could address each of the issues our students were having as revealed by the terrible survey. (“are you happy at school” 26% said no... the survey was done on the last week of the summer term...)

Then we got to look at the staff wellbeing survey results. Every question was actually about our knowledge and confidence in dealing with student wellbeing. Not one single question asking how staff felt We were supposed to write SMART targets for ourselves to address our failings in addressing student wellbeing.

And then at 3pm I was finally able to sit down at my computer.
That was my first day back after being signed off with work stress for four weeks.

@burnout sounds like they overthought that 😲

Oh Burnout - you couldn't make it up.