Staff wellbeing

Before leaving the school, I had an exchange of e-mails with my then line manager - who also happened to be the Mental Health Lead. Not that she ever did much for staff. Apart from an ineffective survey that was never acted upon. The emails were about how staff wellbeing had not been taken into account at the school.

Below are the last two emails we sent each other.  

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Dear [Mental Health Lead],

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my reflections in your capacity as both my line-manager and as the school Mental Health and Wellbeing Lead. I also appreciate your kind words at the end of your response.

I agree that there may have been a miscommunication in relation to the staff survey that you organised, possibly due to my absence. I am pleased to hear that action was taken following it. I would be interested to know what this action involved.

I concur that staff wellbeing issues are personal and varied. However, we also have to recognise patterns when they occur in workplaces. At [the school], I have not been the only member of staff to experience absence from work due to poor mental health in the last year. Moreover, I am not the only member of staff to be concerned about this pattern. During a NEU meeting held last December, members at [the school] agreed that staff wellbeing needed to be addressed more effectively; in particular, colleagues were concerned that the school's conception of what wellbeing meant was being imposed upon them by the school's leadership. Colleagues agreed to suggest a workshop or staff meeting with the title, 'what would staff wellbeing look like at [the school]?' Unfortunately, due to my absence and [the other union rep]'s disciplinary action, we were not able to properly feed this back to [the head] until April. We have received no comment from her about this suggestion, but can you confirm that this suggestion has been shared with you for your consideration?

You may know that an attempt was made by some staff to ask for the context of my breakdown to be reviewed by the school. Again, we have received no commitments pertaining to how the school's leadership intends to change and improve its approach to staff wellbeing as a result of this, which is very disappointing. I do note that, in your response, you do not acknowledge any particular issue at [the school] pertaining to staff wellbeing. Would this be a fair assessment of your position?

Finally, I just wanted to query the meaning of your phrase, 'the boundaries and expectations of staff wellbeing'. I would be troubled by any notion that there are limits to staff wellbeing, or even that staff wellbeing must be balanced with children's wellbeing. We agreed in a number of conversations together, and in a NEU meeting last year that staff wellbeing and children's wellbeing are complementary, not in a state of opposition. Well teachers teach well. 

I wish you all the best in your role helping to support the wellbeing of children and staff at [the school] in the future.

Best regards,

Alex

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Below is the response I received – its brevity speaks volumes…

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Hi Alex,

Thanks for your comments.

Best wishes,

[Mental Health Lead]

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Any school that fails to value the wellbeing of its staff is ultimately going to fail its children. Schools are organic places - miserable undervalued teachers make for miserable undervalued pupils. 

We also need to look after our teachers – they are the critical and pivotal force in providing an environment where students can feel safe, happy, healthy and, therefore, learn! (WB Survey) 

If you have a happy staff, then I think that leads to you being happy in your own classroom, and leads to happy relationships with the children, and the children with each other. (Primary School Teacher)