The DfE have launched their Education Staff Wellbeing Charter. Although not compulsory, all state schools and colleges are asked to review the charter and the DfE will publicise how to sign up in the autumn.
While the DfE understand wellbeing in itself isn’t a new topic, they believe it can and should be measured. Given the impact the pandemic has had on staff wellbeing, it’s now, more than ever, important schools commit to creating a wellbeing-focused culture.
The charter includes 11 commitments on education staff wellbeing by the DfE and Ofsted and sets out five principles of shared understanding on the meaning and importance of wellbeing and everyone’s roles and responsibilities.
You can use the charter to:
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Show staff that you take their wellbeing seriously
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Open a conversation with staff about their wellbeing and mental health
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Create a staff wellbeing strategy
We can support your school with the Wellbeing Charter
For more than 100 years, we’ve partnered with schools, listened to teachers and been a champion of great teaching. Our innovative solutions can help you to make the greatest difference in education.
1. Staff Wellbeing training course from Tes Safeguarding
Our wellbeing course provides your school with information, guidance and support to look after your own wellbeing and that of your colleagues, covering topics from the meaning of mental health and wellbeing, and taking a holistic approach to wellbeing to situations where staff wellbeing is at risk.
The course can help you to demonstrate you’re taking action on these charter commitments: prioritising staff mental health, giving staff the support they need to take responsibility for their own and other people’s wellbeing, and giving managers access to the tools and resources they need to support the wellbeing of those they line manage.
2. Staff Pulse
Staff Pulse is a wellbeing survey tool that helps you to understand how your staff are feeling. With questions developed by a psychologist, it captures staff feedback across 21 different categories, including wellbeing. You can also add your own custom questions.
In anonymous scoring and commenting on given statements, staff can be totally honest about how they feel and how you can support their wellbeing, without fear of judgement or repercussions. The results from the surveys will help you to identify actionable insights in both strength and problem areas from which you can create an action plan for improvement.
With Staff Pulse you can show your commitment to these charter pledges: giving staff the support they need to take responsibility for their own and other people’s wellbeing, giving staff a voice in decision-making, driving down unnecessary workload, establishing a clear communications policy and holding ourselves accountable, including by measuring staff wellbeing.
3. Edval Timetable
It’s often hard to accommodate flexible working hours, especially if you’ve multiple staff making different requests. This can mean you can only offer limited flexibility to part-time teachers or teachers requesting flexible work hours. Smarter timetabling can help you to prioritise teacher choices and welfare and create a solution that supports flexible working hours. Our smart algorithm can factor in teacher availabilities and requests, which can open up more options for working hours and will lead to happier teachers and better learning outcomes for students.
Our intuitive timetabling software can help you to champion flexible working and diversity as outlined in the charter.
4. Class Charts
Poor pupil behaviour can be one of the biggest barriers to good teaching and learning that teachers face. Class Charts is a quick and easy seating planner and behaviour management tool that records behaviours in less than 30 seconds and can instantly create and rearrange seating plans in a couple of clicks. It suggests seating plans based on information provided by your school – such as achievement data – to help optimise pupil performance at the click of a button. It supports all staff – from NQTs to supply teachers – to take a proactive approach to poor behaviour; reducing teachers’ workload and removing barriers to learning.
Our classroom management tool can help you to fulfil your charter obligations to create a good behaviour culture.
5. Develop
Through our whole-school online training platform you can provide all your staff with unlimited access to over 130 courses covering a wide range of teachers' professional development needs. It allows you to manage CPD more strategically, raise the standard of teaching across your school, align with best practice and ensure your whole school is up-to-date and compliant with the latest safeguarding and duty of care training.
Let Develop help you to meet the charter requirement of supporting staff to progress in their careers.
To find out how we can support you with our trusted education solutions, contact us today to speak to an education consultant.
