Focus on well-being for professional development
CPD Week looks at opportunities to support school staff holistically, through effective structures for professional development
It seems that the nation is run down. Bugs are taking hold and many schools appear to be operating on a fraction of full power. There's only one obvious solution: a fresh focus on well-being, this time blending it with our quest for professional development. This week we provide eight practical, easy tips for achieving that blended solution. We also explore what the GTCE Connect Network can do for CPD coordinators.
Ricky Lankford
We live in interesting times. Demands on our working lives appear to be increasing, the pressure has a knock-on impact on performance and all this is against a backdrop of rising living costs and a full-on housing crisis affecting new entrants (and others) to the profession. No, I'm not trying to drag you down further in the darkest months of the year, but there's no doubt that if we don't take a good, honest look at work-life balance and well-being in our schools, there's little or no chance of achieving improvements and outcomes for anyone, least of all pupils.
o The national priorities for CPD revolve around people, pedagogy and personalisation. For this reason among others, a focus on well-being could usefully be embedded in your school's CPD and Performance Management policies.
o Be open in your school about discussing the inherent tensions between your school's development needs and the personal and professional development needs of individuals. The pace of development is important too. Realistic expectations which are personalised to the individual are most likely to have the best outcome.
o Does performance management in your school encourage everyone to take well-being into consideration? Possibly not, or at least not overtly. How can this be addressed? Consider transforming the language of development used in your school, for example, some may not respond well to the use of 'targets' when 'focus' or 'goal' appears more positive.
o You may also want to look at the number of 'targets' developed with staff members. Perhaps individuals might have a say in the number that they pursue, rather than adopting a uniform approach across the school.
o Staff are more likely to be enthusiastic about their learning if their contribution to the development debate in your school is acknowledged and valued. Is this the case, or might staff in your school think 'what's the point?' Well-being isn't always about care over work-life balance; often it can be about effective motivation
o Move right away from so-called 'deficit models' of performance management and transform what your school does into flexible, reflective and reflexive opportunity for ongoing development that is fully owned by the individuals involved.
o Can you explore ways of disaggregating school closure days so that best use might be made of them? Full days, split days, a combination of the two − there are many possibilities.
o The way in which success is celebrated in a school can have a strong bearing on an individual's drive for further development. Schools that handle this important aspect of CPD well tend to make plenty of opportunity for staff members to talk to each other about development undertaken, the impact it has on practice and the personal development that has been derived from it. This also helps to disseminate learning effectively.
If we are to take personalisation seriously as it applies to professional learning and development, we have no option but to embrace fully the well-being of staff. We may have clearly defined goals for what we want to achieve as schools, but we cannot remove the individual from that process − especially when common sense and classroom evidence tell us that pupil outcomes are improved when those teaching and supporting them at school have a strong sense of well-being.
Issues and Information
This e-bulletin issue was first published in January 2008
About the author: Elizabeth Holmes qualified as a teacher at the Institute of Education, London and is the author of several books specialising in the areas of professional development and teacher well-being.
Comments
Noro etc.
Just look at the base line of spreading noro in the school setting, you were talking about bugs.
Poorly maintained toilets, with no soap or towels, ruled by the disaffected so lingering to wash hands is dangerous.
Move forward to University, e-mails and posters advising students to wash their hands after toileting, a skill they never developed.
Move on again to Doctors in hospitals, infection spreading vectors because they learned never to wash their hands at school.
Rewind to schools, take control of the facilities, keep them clean and well stocked, and teach proper hand washing isn't difficult, install obvious CCTV and monitor for problems.
CCTV can be installed in toilet areas, locked to cover the public areas, not spy into cubicals, but to cover their doors so difficult to damage without a record of use, eliminating an assault area where few staff dare to tread incase they are accused of impropriety!
Well it might be a starting point....
Staff wellbeing and restorative approaches
One aspect of teaching that wears staff down and affects their well-being is behaviour management. An opportunity to de-brief after a stressful incident, and to to repair the harm that disruption and conflict can cause, is often missing for the adults in a school.
Restorative approaches such as mediation and problem solving circles provide unique ways for the staff themselves to tell their story and express how day to day disruption affect them personally.
Staff trained in restorative approaches attest to how much better their relationships are with students, how much more confident they feel dealing with disruption and challenges and how effective restorative meetings are for repairing staff-student relationships soured by conflict and anger.
A school-wide restorative relationship policy is not only an emotionally literate way to deal with behaviour, it is also a recipe for staff and student well-being.
Post new comment