Ofsted and staff wellbeing

The Ofsted Education Inspection Framework (EIF) has a focus on wellbeing, but how can you ensure and evidence you’re putting staff wellbeing at the heart of your school?

Catherine McNally, Marketing

Ofsted blog image

What does the EIF mean for your school?

In the inspection framework, there’s a requirement under the leadership and management section, for leaders to understand and take account of the main pressures on staff; in particular, how workloads are managed.

With the spotlight on staff wellbeing, you need to ensure you're proactively taking steps to address any issues, which involves a culture of open communication.

What does ‘outstanding' look like?

To achieve ‘outstanding’ in this area, you need to ensure that there’s meaningful engagement with staff and issues are identified and dealt with consistently, appropriately and quickly. Significantly, inspectors will also be noting if staff consistently report high levels of support for wellbeing. To achieve ‘good’, you should be aware of and take account of the main pressures on staff and be realistic and constructive in your management of staff.

How to understand staff wellbeing

How do you know if staff wellbeing is a problem at your school? Understanding how your staff are feeling can be tough to navigate, as it’s still something not all teachers feel comfortable talking about. You need to ask your staff what’s affecting their wellbeing and what underpins those feelings. Regular, short surveys can give you a good idea of what your staff think of specific issues in your school.

Staff participation

If you want honest responses from staff, you must ensure you’re giving them the opportunity to give their opinions without fear of judgement or repercussions. Any survey needs to be anonymous and it should also avoid adding to their workload.

Staff Pulse

Our staff engagement tool can help you measure teacher wellbeing and help you discover if your school staff are happy, healthy and motivated. It provides you with a detailed understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of your school and helps you to put in place action plans to address areas for improvement. It’s easy to collect and understand teacher feedback and you can then track how your actions are working in your school over time.

Book a free demo and see how Staff Pulse can help you get Ofsted inspection-ready today.

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