PROGRESS Stories

One school shows the key to boosting staff wellbeing lies in improving relationships

Sheila could remember a time when the school staffroom was a friendly place to go to for advice, support and comfort. Not now, though.

The relentless pace of work nowadays meant that relationships were difficult to build and maintain. There was no time for people to stand back and reflect on what they were doing and meetings never went beyond an exchange of essential information about children, resources, plans and events.

People were now serious, disinclined to smile or laugh and always ready to be short and impatient with each other.

For Sheila, the surprise discovery from the online survey done by staff at their INSET on the first day of term was that so many other members of staff felt the same. No matter what their level of responsibility, gender or length of service, people were hungry to know each other better.

At the meeting held to explore the data, people began to talk about how they stayed in their key stage areas and hardly knew anyone outside their area.

The lack of familiarity had bred insecurity about the thoughts and intentions of other staff members. People thought there were cliques and felt unsafe about venturing into the communal staff areas.

New members of the ever-expanding support staff were not even known by name to staff outside their key stage or year team. Everyone was too embarassed to ask because they thought they should be able to supply a name for the rather familiar face!

By making time to talk about these issues, staff were able to start thinking about what might be done to improve the situation.

Over three meetings and a term of reflection, they came up with a plan of action:

• Half a day of INSET time a year to work on a curriculum area such as art, PE, music, drama or technology in a way that was practical and experimental so that everyone had to work together.
• Each key stage and the office team to plan one voluntary social event a year. Some were to be cheap and local, others more adventurous and some connected to festivals such as Christmas.

The impact of these two developments was a rapid improvement in:

• Staff well-being
• Collaborative working across the whole staff team
• General social interaction through the school.

PROGRESS Stories