A huge focus for school leaders is staff wellbeing. It is clearly an important area - staff are a school’s most important asset, after all. But how far can leaders be responsible for someone’s wellbeing?
During a conversation on this point with a colleague, they said something that resonated with me - schools should be responsible for “professional wellbeing”, not necessarily personal wellbeing.
Of course, the two are linked - but the professional wellbeing remit is where school leaders can make the biggest impact. So what sort of things should we prioritise?
Tips to help professional wellbeing in schools
1. Strong induction processes
One clear area where schools can make a difference is how people are welcomed to a new environment.
This is why we have prioritised a strong induction programme for new starters who join each academic year. This includes a buddy system: we join new staff with a current staff member who may share their interests or have children of a similar age.
We also bring all new joiners together for an informal afternoon tea with the senior leadership team and other staff they are likely to come into contact with, such as the heads of facilities, IT support and the HR team. This ensures that they know who to turn to when an issue arises.
However, we recently realised that we were not doing enough for teachers joining midway through the year, so we now run this same process for them, too. Our next development will be an induction programme for those moving into leadership roles internally, so they will have the same sense of support.
2. Restricting out-of-hours emails
Teacher workload is a common theme that impacts on wellbeing.
This is why, when I became headteacher nine years ago, one of the first things I implemented was restrictions around emails. Specifically, I insisted that staff could not send emails before 6.30am or after 5.30pm.
One question that quickly arose was about responding to late-night emails from parents, who may work long days and not have time to send a message earlier. I reiterated to staff that they had no obligation to answer - and preferably would not even check - emails after 5.30pm.
I also communicate this to parents each year, telling them that I want the staff to be at their very best when they are with the students and this cannot happen if they are answering emails late at night.
Some staff said they felt stressed if they did not send an email or reply to an email from a colleague after this time. To fix this, we trained staff on “schedule send”, allowing the email to be sent at a specific time after 6.30am, even if it is written the night before.
3. The art of receiving feedback
All staff members go through professional challenges in their career, some of which may require feedback from line managers on an area for improvement.
While lots of work goes into giving effective feedback, rarely do we focus on how to receive feedback well. Yet if feedback is not taken in the right way, it can certainly impact professional wellbeing.
This is why we have discussed, at SLT and among the wider staff body, the book Thanks for the Feedback: the science and art of receiving feedback well by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen.
It was felt that understanding how to receive feedback, especially if it challenges performance, could avoid a negative feeling that could impact on wellbeing. This is now a professional wellbeing issue that the school aims to support through development.
4. Counselling services
The school has invested significantly in comprehensive private medical insurance, but we recently added counselling, too.
With a staff body of more than 300 it can be assumed that someone is grieving, depressed or struggling for whatever reason, and this will impact their ability to function at their professional best.
By giving staff access to counselling, they can find support when needed, rather than relying on colleagues or senior staff who may not have expertise in this area.
We are fortunate that we can afford this and it may be unrealistic for some. But I would argue that the cost is likely to be less than the costs resulting from staff absence, both the financial cost to the school and the academic cost to the students. So it is a worthwhile investment.
5. Getting together
Education has moved on from the notion that cookies in the staffroom constitutes a wellbeing programme - but a sense of community and togetherness is never a bad thing.
That is why at least once a half term we have an optional whole-staff breakfast 45 minutes before school starts. This is attended by around 85 per cent of staff, which I feel shows that these touches are appreciated on top of the other professional wellbeing initiatives that we run.
There will always be personal wellbeing issues for staff beyond a school’s control, but if we, as leaders, make sure that we are mindful of the professional wellbeing issues that we can control, we can give staff the support they need so they are in the best position to positively impact the classroom.
Mark Leppard MBE is the headmaster of The British School Al Khubairat in Abu Dhabi and chair of British Schools in the Middle East
