Teacher welfare

The winners of the inaugural Teacher Awards were announced this month, and over the coming weeks we’ll be sharing their stories. In this article, we speak with Kate O’Donnell from GOAL College, winner of the Improving Health and Wellbeing Award, sponsored by Bank First.

‘We examined the extent to which teacher wellbeing changes over one school term, and the role of teacher-student relationships in how these changes unfold.’ In our latest reader submission, Rebecca J Collie and Andrew J Martin, from the School of Education at UNSW, share findings from their latest study.

Understanding the key concerns of your school staff can help inform professional development and supports provided. A recent survey asked teachers working in preschool to year 12 settings to share how often they worry about COVID-19 and other extreme events, such as natural disasters and critical incidents.

In this extract from their new book, Leading Improvement in School Community Wellbeing, Dr Donna Cross and Dr Leanne Lester are discussing the role of ‘wellbeing champions’ in a school setting, and the 4 key elements school leaders need to prioritise when it comes to staff wellbeing.

Recruiting career changers into teaching has become a strategy to address teacher shortages in hard-to-staff schools. In today’s article we speak to Dr Babak Dadvand from La Trobe University about his research that aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of how career change teachers navigate challenges in these schools in the early years of switching to the profession.

In this episode of School Improvement, we’re joined by Angeline Aow and Sadie Hollins, 2 of the authors of Becoming a Totally Inclusive School: A Guide for Teachers and School Leaders. We’ll be talking about what we mean by Total Inclusivity, and exploring the Continuum on Becoming a Totally Inclusive School – a 6 stage framework to help schools and educators move from theory to practice.

How do educators best support the mental health and wellbeing of the children and young people in their care, as well as their own? When faced with questions asked of them in their daily job, where do they go to ask questions about mental health and wellbeing. Thankfully specialised support from Be You is available.

As an educator, finding the time to discuss matters you are finding challenging with colleagues, to seek advice and reflect on your practice, might seem impossible. In this episode, we’re joined by Dr Anne Southall and Associate Professor Fiona Gardner to hear about their development of a reflective circles education model.

Experiencing grief is something we will all confront at some point in our lives, but navigating a death in the school community, when you also need to support your students, can be really challenging. In this Q&A, we’re joined by author Hazel Edwards OAM to unpack her new book, Grief and Loss in Schools: A Resource for Teachers.

It is widely acknowledged that teaching is a stressful job, and the global events of the past few years have added an enormous amount of extra pressure on those working in education. In today’s episode we share some of the pieces we’ve published on the topic of teacher health and wellbeing.