What can teachers do about well-being? by Dave Green

"Teachers are notoriously masochistic in their habits and methodologies. They take conscientiousness to new heights, dive deep into altruistic waters, and fly the flag proudly for worth ethic par excellence" says Dave Green, PAGS? affiliated partner and Chair of the Society of Education Consultants in this excellent article. Teacher well-being at work in schools and further education providers, research report published in July 2019, No. 190034, by OSFTED, has been a hot topic on social media. Dave points to a system 'that can fundamentally transform their working and – by association – their non-working lives', reducing workload, saving time, money and bureaucracy.

Dave has over 30 years’ experience at all levels in the public and third sector and business sectors, specialising in teaching and learning, safeguarding, SEND, training and advanced coaching. He successfully worked in roles such as department leader, SENCo, Inclusion Manager, Headteacher, Sales Manager and Executive Head. Dave has always stood for moral integrity, fairness and empowerment. He has recently worked in a number of sectors, and as an Educational Consultant and asylum seeker advocate. Whatever he does it is with integrity, creativity and passion.   

Teachers are notoriously masochistic in their habits and methodologies.  They take conscientiousness to new heights, dive deep into altruistic waters, and fly the flag proudly for worth ethic par excellence.  On Social Media, I read of teachers proudly proclaiming that they are up and functioning at 5am, already high on caffeine and planning the next metacognition session.  At 9pm, on the same Social Media platforms, the same busy-as-a-bee practitioners are thinking, possibly, about shutting their laptops and relaxing, once the last few emails are replied to and a bubble-map resource is completed for a thinking skills exercise tomorrow.  An outsider, looking in objectively at this heightened state of frantic hyperactivity, might be inclined to pronounce teachers, and in particular SENCOs and SEND senior leaders, as hopeless cases, and leave them to their curiously self-perpetuating, gyroscopic world.

Of course, there is a consequence to all this effervescent work creation, and that is the inevitable burn-out.  I have been a victim of it myself, after 30 years as teacher, head of department, SENCo and Head, not leaving the office until each task is ticked off, answering my work phone at all hours, just dipping out of that social or family event to do a quick hour of planning and preparation.  I’ve learned many lessons the hard way.  But what can we do about it?  It seems that the options are limited.

1.     Leave the profession.  Sadly, too many do.  According to a recent National Education Union survey, 80% of classroom teachers have seriously considered leaving the profession in the past 12 monthsbecause of their workload.  According the government’s own data, a quarter of them do so – over 25,000 over a period of 5 years.  OFSTED’s  recent report on teacher well-being states that   “… teachers are suffering from high workloads, lack of work–life balance, a perceived lack of resources and, in some cases, a perceived lack of support…”[1]  The trouble is that this is no solution to the problem.  Maybe for individuals at the end of their tether, but for the nation as a whole it is disastrous.  All that expertise, idealism and passion gone to waste, all those training resources and incentives blown away.  And the morale of those left behind?  You work it out.

2.     Stay in the profession, but don’t work as hard.  Sounds easy, doesn’t it.  Set the clock for hometime, and leave the work behind.  Switch off the phone, snap shut the laptop, slide the tablet into its bespoke hemp pouch.  For a while it’s great, liberating.  I’ve done it myself, lived the work-life balance dream for a short time.  But then the fear, the anxiety, the dread gnaws away at your inner self, the tasks piling up, the backlog, the opprobrium of colleagues, the disapproval of line managers, the desk invisible beneath to do lists and discarded documents.  And then, like an addict returning to the drug of choice, you succumb, and get back on the treadmill, running faster and faster to stay in the same place.

3.     Work smarter.  Let me offer you the breadth of my experience.  I am not perched on a pedestal here, or swanning around with my head in sun-dappled cloudscapes.  I am far from perfect, I stumble, I get overwhelmed, and my time management goes pear-shaped often enough for words to escape me that can’t be uttered anywhere near an educational establishment.  Let’s look at what this means.

Let’s assume you have reviewed and revised staff roles and responsibilities.  Believe me when I say this is my first task in a new school, because here lies the effective code of delegation.  Don’t be the lone ranger: share the load, spell team without an ‘I’, etc.  But what then?  This is where you look very carefully at your own job description, and quantify exactly what it is you do all day.  This will depend on your role, obviously.  I was a SENCo for over 10 years, and I spent a lot of time assessing, testing, tracking and trying to evidence progress for around 200 pupils in a mainstream school with a small team of harassed Teaching Assistants.  I then went on to do the same for all 200 pupils in a special school.  What I never found, was a system that would holistically complete all these tasks for me, that would produce the results, the strategies and the all-important data at the click of a button, that would do in 30 minutes what used to take half a day or more.  But then PAGS? came along too late for me.  So now I try to help those most in need of support and guidance, by showing them systems that can fundamentally transform their working and – by association – their non-working lives.  That’s what PAGS? does.  I just hope it doesn’t come along too late for you.

[1] Teacher well-being at work in schools and further education providers, OFSTED, July 2019