Co-creating a culture of wellbeing at school
The majority of my time in leadership has been during a pandemic. While this has been a complex time, it has also been a time of great learning. It has led me to recognise the collective challenges faced by teachers and school staff and to better understand what it is to lead.
Student wellbeing has been prioritised more and more by schools in recent years. As the positive education movement continues to grow, schools are adapting their curriculum, upskilling their teachers and creating new positions to oversee the rollout. Young people are provided opportunities to learn about their strengths, develop social and emotional literacy and learn how to take care of themselves and each other.
Ironically, this movement comes at a time when high numbers of teachers are leaving the profession. This is due to a growing workload, administrative burden and stress caused from managing student behaviour. Currently, 40–50% of teachers leave in the first 5 years and that number only feels like it’s growing with the challenges of COVID-19. Just last week, I had conversations with some amazing teachers who are considering exploring other fields or requesting to work part-time just so they can sustain themselves in education a little longer.
When I chose to be a teacher, I imagined my main role would be developing innovative lesson plans and executing them in the classroom. But the reality is, the administrative pressure placed on teachers takes up a large portion of their week. I’ve looked at the workload of my team and the time constraints of their week and have recognised that if they want to put time into planning innovative teaching, that that time is happening after hours or on weekends. But, luckily for our young people, there are incredibly passionate professionals who are willing to do this work. So, how do we ensure they are well supported and can stay in the field?
Why do we lead?
I’m now into my third year working in school leadership and my tenth year working in schools. Transitioning from a classroom teacher to a team leader was challenging for me. I was experiencing imposter syndrome (who am I to lead?) and there was also some grieving. I was grieving the loss of time in the classroom. I loved being in the classroom with young people. I loved the ‘aha’ moments when you can actually see learning and growth taking place. I loved the fun, the energy and the relationships. I even loved the discomfort (which sometimes lasted for months) of trying to establish a rhythm and routine while still earning the trust of a new group of young people.
So, why would I leave all of that for a leadership position? What would I love about leading? The truth is, I didn’t fall in love with leadership as quickly as I did with teaching. But, somehow, I couldn’t not do it either. The thought of ensuring more young people had access to meaningful education led me here. The thought of being able to implement positive change and benefit a larger number of young people drew me in.
Three years into leadership and I’ve come to understand that meaningful education will only be alive for our young people if I prioritise:
1. Finding good people to do the work
2. Looking after them so they can choose to stay
Leadership lessons through lockdown
Early into our first lockdown period, I found myself working the longest hours I had in my entire career. Our school community was facing so much uncertainty, we were all concerned for our young people and were experiencing high levels of stress within ourselves. I thought my role needed to be one of unconditional availability to my team. I wanted to show them I valued their wellbeing above all else through this time, so I put everything I had into it. I led every online meeting with connection activities, I scheduled 1:1 check in calls with every member of my team (not recognising the number of hours this took per week), and I kept my work phone on after hours in case they needed to call me. My rationale was that I needed the team to be ‘well’ so they could then in turn do the caring for our young people. And they did. We made it through to the end of 2020. But, there were some leadership rookie mistakes being made on my part. I was experiencing some warning signs of burnout and in many ways I was missing the point.
Staff wellbeing as a shared value
(3. Looking after each other so we can all choose to stay- collective care)
We started our 2021 school year working together on our vision and mission statement. We agreed that the first thing we should do for our young people is to “be well so we can do the work well”. We knew we had to prioritise staff wellbeing and the team culture in order to apply our best work to the mission. This time, I knew I would also have to lead by example and be well, so I could also lead well.
By setting the wellbeing priority with the team early in the year, it evolved to be less ‘leader led’, and more about developing a genuine understanding of each other. We brainstormed various ways we could achieve being well and working together. From there, the team rituals started coming to life. Morning circle time, weekly debriefs, a gratitude wall and a staff award each week. Staff members started running optional activities for each other, group workouts, a book club and a craft group. And while these rituals and activities were humming along, the connections and care in the team were coming to life.
When lockdown 6.0 hit Victoria and we found ourselves having to close the school doors again, I didn’t feel the same pressures of the previous year. Instead, I felt a sense of confidence in our community to continue caring for each other. We came together and developed our offsite working agreement. Everyone contributed ideas of how we wanted to live our school values and work as a team during this time. What came out of that was a true commitment to look after each other, acknowledge the hard parts of the work, allow for some messiness and inject fun into our day. This saw us adapting our previous rituals and optional activities and adding some new ones, such as a ‘Lockdown Secret Santa,’ a check out question each afternoon and debriefing in partnerships. Finding ourselves in another extended lockdown period, we are frequently revisiting our working agreement and allowing moments to reflect on the rituals and routines and adapt when we need to.
The pressure I placed on myself to be ‘unconditionally available’ to my team was lowering quickly and I started to recognise what it really takes to have a healthy culture. Nobody benefits from a burnt-out leader, but what they do benefit from is a community that cares. And our team has become exactly that. A community who not only come together to celebrate the wins, but who also come together to hold what needs to be held
Moving forward with care
We need good teachers to teach our young people. And yet I am deeply concerned for our teachers — those who feel they need to leave and equally for those who are choosing to stay. For those who will stay, we need our schools to recognise the collective challenges we share and become communities of care. With that deep concern, comes an equal amount of gratitude. It is a challenging time to be in a school, but it is also such a privilege. I belong to a community of people who hold shared values, big ideas and engage in meaningful work together. Changing the education system and lowering the administrative burden may currently feel out of reach, but truly looking after ourselves and each other is not.
