Staff Wellbeing Ideas

Ensuring that you are doing all you can as a leader to recognise the effort your staff are putting in is hard. All day long, tiny acts of kindness and outstanding practice are taking place and you will only see a fraction of them.

How do you communicate your thanks to staff? What do you recognise? Will teams be aware that you do notice?

Here are some simple ideas we have found:

Recognition and rewards:

• Employee awards – nominated within team from team
• Recognition of and incentives for achievements – boxes of chocolates, certificates etc
• Regular praise for good achievements
• Achievable goals with prizes
• Always try to relate to and empathise with your staff. This is paramount when working with our clients so it should be with our peers
• Have a positive part of team meetings – colleagues say something positive or recognise a quality in each other and say it
• Compliments hour – only give nice comments and feedback
• Give staff a “voucher” (£40-50) to spend on training & development that is NOT work related and then publicise what they’ve done
• Listen, ask, keep excellent communications.... buy cake!
• Thank people – make them feel appreciated.
• Say “thank you” to your staff when they have done well (even better with a handwritten or at least personally signed note to them)

Visit the Learning Curve for more ideas

How do you ensure that staff achieve some semblance of a work/life balance? Is there a way that you can help Middle Leaders take the temperature of their team? Is there a 'staff tracker/bingo card' where you try to encourage them to try a range of wellbeing activities to give them a break and help them unwind?

Can you create some time in the day for individuals or teams to take a break?

Here are some simple ways that staff could try to give themselves a break.

What to do first?

As a leader, the volume of tasks to complete can seem overwhelming. In any one day there can be a succession of decisions to be made on trivial matters up to those which could have real long lasting impact. Making sure that you give each one the appropriate time is quite a challenge, especially when you can feel under pressure to 'always have the answer'.

The diagram below helps to give a very simple framework with which you can review actions and tasks. It is also worth considering some mantras that can help to avoid being swamped:

• Take your time to really listen to the question and think about your response. Is it something that has to be answered today? Is it you that should be doing the answering? Should you be taking advice? Do you even know the answer?
• Don't be afraid to say you don't know. No one knows everything. Admitting that you need time to research the issue/question and that you'll get back to the person when you have an informed response isn't weakness.
• Are too many questions coming to you? Are there systems in place to ensure that class teachers, Middle Leaders and other SLT are clear on their responsibilities?
• Don't be afraid to stop doing something good so that you can do something great. Often it is hard to let go of something that is working for fear that a new approach won't work out... but if you don't try you'll never know. If we lived our life on that basis we'd still be riding horses to work.

Peer Review - Improvement Workshop

SLEs from our Peer Review cohort led their first session this month at Branfil Primary. In our cohort we have eight Havering Schools:

• Hacton Primary
• Broadford Primary
• Mead Primary
• James Oglethorpe Primary
• Hilldene Primary
• Upminster Infant & Junior
• Engayne Primary
• Branfil Primary

Each school undertakes to receive a Peer Review, and then an Improvement Workshop.
It is too early yet to be able to judge the impact that these reviews will have on pupil outcomes, but staff feedback has been very encouraging:

100% agreed that the Improvement Workshop was a positive experience which will help move our school forward.
I felt it was very positive throughout and we gained a lot through it - Branfil teacher
I thought it was very worthwhile experience - Branfil teacher

The SLEs use a range of thinking tools to help promote discussion and help the staff of the focus school tease out ideas and strategies to move forward followings the findings of the review.
Radiant Thinking

Peer Review: Facilitator Workshop

Facilitated by the Education Development Trust, we had a great training session for our Improvement Facilitators. Our cohort of eight Primary schools have now completed the first two of the reviews in this cycle, with one more to come in January. Having led one Improvement Workshop to enact the findings of the Review, our facilitators were excited to have the chance to meet up with Deanery colleagues who started the Peer Review process a few months earlier.

It was a great chance to discuss ideas, listen to each group's experiences and consolidate our understanding of the techniques and tools we have for the reviews.
T Chappel - Improvement Facilitator

Our two cohorts of schools now have nine facilitators who will be able to support the school improvement process. We hope to add more capacity as the year progresses.

Click here for a link to the Schools Partnership Programme

Google: Culture first, technology second

We were delighted to be asked by Google to present at BETT this year. Our presentation focused on the importance of first building a staff culture before expecting the technology to unleash collaboration.

View the slides here

Across our Federation we have made a conscious effort to build INTELLECTUAL & SOCIAL capital. Google has helped with the first, as they have Educator Level 1 & 2 training which has ensured that our staff are confident with G Suite and all the key apps. However we have worked just as hard on the expectations we have for SOCIAL capital:

• staff nights out: activity based team events darts, Topgolf, bowling, shuffleboard
• fun activities and games to start staff/team meetings
• free refreshments in the staff room to encourage people out of their classes
• free Zumba sessions every week
• cake on a Friday
• joint PPA time with all of the team released at once - across both schools

This meant that when we started to implement G Suite and introduce Chromebooks the culture of collaboration, that was already established, really took off.

Jade then spoke about the practical applications it has to help her lead a team effectively and make a difference in the classroom. The core message behind her part of the presentation was to ensure that:

DON'T BE AFRAID TO STOP DOING SOMETHING GOOD... BE BRAVE AND TRY SOMETHING THAT COULD BE GREAT

There have been lots of questions, nerves and doubt over this new way of doing things. But thanks to the effective modelling of our Google champions we have been able to save time, increase engagement, reduce duplication of tasks and concentrate on the main thing... planning, resourcing and teaching great lessons for the children.

Little Things - Huge Impact

The Brailsford mantra of 'marginal gains' has been slightly tarnished with revelations about the use of exemptions and different medications. However the idea that small actions can have a large impact is rooted in history.

What small changes could have a large impact in your setting?
Could you change attainment and progress with a tiny tweak?

Believe In Your Vision

It might not sound relevant to teaching, but as The Last Jedi reaches over $1billion in takings, it is worth reflecting that the whole story was almost never told.

George Lucas wanted to make a movie with his favourite science-fiction character, but he couldn’t afford to buy the rights. Instead he borrowed a little bit from old science fiction stories, samurai tales, Westerns, WWII pilot adventures…and then set his own story in space. That was only the beginning of the struggle to get Star Wars made. No one wanted to finance the story, the budget was tiny, the skills didn't exist to make it... even the cast and crew were reluctant to take part. They thought George's vision was crazy.

However he persevered, he re shot scenes, he believed in himself and never gave up on the vision he had for the story.

It is an incredible tale of success against the odds. 

• How would you get staff to buy into your vision?
• Have you ever been tempted to give up when others just don't get it?
• Are there factors holding you back from achieving your vision?

Maybe watching George describe what the process was like for him will be inspiring for you!

Click here for the video