The Worst Mistake We're Making With Staff Wellbeing In Schools...
Is thinking that wellbeing = workload.
The mentality that if we just reduce what we're asking of people, or worse, do things for them, it'll all be harmonious sunshine and rainbows in our schools.
The truth is, this way of thinking not only glosses over some of the most important issues we face in school, but it also becomes a trap for leaders, placing all the responsibility for wellbeing on them.
What's more, we end up finding unnecessary and expensive solutions to problems that needn't be problems in the first place…
People are whinging about workload again? Let's give everyone access to an AI tool that does it for them, rather than asking whether that task is actually needed at all!
Solely reducing wellbeing down to workload is not the answer.
In reality, it's not just the amount of work that's to blame for the absence, poor mental health and burnout that we're seeing among our staff right now…
It's a piece of the puzzle, absolutely.
But it's not the whole picture.
And the research backs this up…
A 2023 UCL survey of 2,938 teachers in England found that, when ranking the top predictors of teacher wellbeing, workload came third, after self-esteem and self-care.
The Education Support Teacher Wellbeing Index 2024 showed that teachers and support staff identified not feeling appreciated as more impactful on their wellbeing than workload, with 55% of school teachers and 64% of support staff citing it as the key driver of negative school culture!
And a Sheffield Hallam University meta-analysis found that relatedness (staff's social connections to significant others in school) was the single most prominent influencer in early career teachers' wellbeing, identified by 81% of participants.
Meanwhile, Gallup research found that only 25% of teachers strongly agree they received recognition or praise for doing good work in the last seven days.
This isn’t a new problem, either. Way back in 2012 the OECD found that 75% of teachers say they would receive no recognition for improving their teaching or being more innovative!
Imagine this…
You go into work and, whatever your role, your line manager tells you that your workload has now halved.
Those 30 reports? You've only got to do 15.
The risk assessment for the school trip? Someone else will do that.
You've even got a professional playwright coming in to take your end-of-year production off your hands.
Amazing, right?
But what if the time you came in and left school was still noted down by SLT and brought up against you?
What if, every week, you received an email telling you that your PPA was being taken away due to staff absence?
What if the staffroom was a ghost town and, when staff did rarely use it, not-so-subtle side-eyes, gossiping and gaslighting filled the room?
How about constantly having your mistakes pointed out, never receiving any thanks for your efforts, or even being isolated and bullied in an effort to force you out?
How would your wellbeing be then?
Of course, this is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek image, but you get the point.
Workload's important, but it's not equal to wellbeing.
The six pillars of being and working well...
In truth, workload falls under just one of the six areas of what we really need to be and work well in school…
It is one part of the Capacity domain, and even then it isn't just reducing workload we need to think about. We have to consider how we support staff in managing productivity, having systems and strategies to manage pinch points, and allowing all staff to be part of the conversation around workload - to name just a few.
We then also have Care, Clarity, Competency, Connection and Contribution. In (very) short…
Care: this is your school having a true culture of caring, staff feeling empowered to look after themselves and encouraged to build healthy boundaries with work; and an environment that allows all the above.
Clarity: communication is key for psychological safety — we know this. Staff having clarity around expectations, changes and the thinking behind decisions is then key for communication. When the goalposts keep moving, or when different leaders communicate different priorities, staff experience an invisible, relentless drain on their energy that no workload reduction addresses!
Competency: this is staff having the knowledge and skills to be their best selves professionally, giving staff autonomy over their professional development journey and ensuring they feel effective in their work.
Connection: maybe our most fundamental domain. As humans, we need to feel seen, heard and valued. We need a sense of belonging and connection to our group. Culture is, at its core, a connection issue.
Contribution: it's purpose, meaning and being enabled to play to our strengths. It's pursuing passions, taking on projects and going a layer deeper with our sense of belonging: contributing to the group. NFER research found that teachers with the highest levels of autonomy are more than 85% likely to intend to stay in teaching!
This is fantastic news for leaders..
Together, these make the six pillars of being and working well in our schools.
This might sound like a lot to consider, but this is actually fantastic news for leaders…
We know, absolutely, in clear terms and with an extensive evidence base what we need to focus on if we want to improve wellbeing. And if you're in a school that's done all it can for workload but wellbeing still isn't improving, these domains give you your next steps.
If we can just shift our mentality with wellbeing away from solely blaming workload (and those who contribute to our workload), view it as one of many areas, and start to put strategies in place for each of them, then we will see real change with our staff wellbeing.
Rather than having a culture where wellbeing is something that is "done to" our staff, or worse, a culture where wellbeing becomes just a nuisance or something for the SIP/SDP, we start to begin with wellbeing.
It becomes the foundation, the starting point of everything else we do in school, not an additional bolt-on responsibility no one wants to think about.
Then, and only then, will we see the real shift with wellbeing that we so desperately want and need in our schools.
If you'd like to find out a bit more about how the Rewriting Wellbeing Framework can support your staff's wellbeing, just pop me over a message or email and I'll be happy to have a chat to see how I can help!
- Charlie
References
Education Support (2024). Teacher Wellbeing Index 2024. London: Education Support. Available at: https://www.educationsupport.org.uk/media/ftwl04cs/twix-2024.pdf
Education Support (2025). Teacher Wellbeing Index 2025. London: Education Support. Available at: https://www.educationsupport.org.uk/media/3qeajx41/teacher-wellbeing-index-2025.pdf
Gallup (2024). Why Appreciating Teachers Is More Important Than You Think. Available at: https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/210041/why-appreciating-teachers-important-think.aspx
Maxwell, B. (2016). Supporting and inhibiting the well-being of early career secondary school teachers: findings from a self-determination theory perspective. British Educational Research Journal, 42(6), 1072–1093. Available at: https://shura.shu.ac.uk/13860/4/Maxwell%20-%20supporting%20and%20inhibiting%20the%20well-being%20of%20early.pdf
NFER (2020). Teacher autonomy: how does it relate to job satisfaction and retention? Slough: National Foundation for Educational Research. Available at: https://www.nfer.ac.uk/press-releases/new-study-suggests-teacher-autonomy-over-their-professional-development-is-strongly-linked-to-wellbeing/
OECD (2012). The Importance of Teacher Recognition. Paris: OECD Publishing. Available at: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/the-importance-of-teacher-recognition_5k4220vw98ms-en.html
Taylor, L., Zhou, W., Boyle, L., Funk, S., & De Neve, J-E. (2024). Well-being for schoolteachers. Oxford: Wellbeing Research Centre, University of Oxford / International Baccalaureate. Available at: https://wellbeing.hmc.ox.ac.uk/news/wellbeing-for-schoolteachers/
UCL Institute of Education / Education Research Programme (2023). Exploring key predictors of teacher wellbeing, job satisfaction and burnout: Policy briefing. London: UCL. Available at: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/education-research-programme/sites/education_research_programme/files/teacher_resilience_policy_briefing_1
