Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode
of Teach, Sleep Repeat Bite size.
My name is Dylan. And my name is Hayden, and
you're joining us on a very special episode.
Dylan, would you like to tell our listeners why it's a very
special episode about Guys, I've got some news.
We are sponsored. This episode is sponsored and we
are sponsored by toxic schools. Now we've promised between
ourselves, we won't let it affect our work, OK, but we do
have a sponsorship. Toxic schools.
Shout out to all those toxic schools out there That, that.
That's it, Hayden. That's all they wanted us to
say. So should we get started?
Yeah. Absolutely.
So today we're gonna talk about we've we've actually come
together and we've got a nice top five list of things that you
can do in your school to improve well-being.
It's something we talk about a lot in our podcast, and today we
just wanted to just go into a little bit more detail.
So, Dylan, should we start off with our list and go straight
into #1? Let's go straight to #1.
Shall WE #1 be a boss at work who doesn't remotely listen to
your staff Because at the end of the day, Hayden, you are above
them 20? Yeah, exactly what?
What does the word boss mean? It's not that, OK.
It's not that. Yeah.
They're your subordinates, so as a boss, what you need to do is
ensure that they know your staff know that you are above them and
you're not accountable to anything.
OK, they are, but you're not. I think really importantly on
the on this point is if you're going to be in charge of
someone, whether they are professional or not and have
qualifications and are really good at what they do and are
actually at the chalk face delivering the actual thing that
the school has been built for, that's irrelevant because you
have a suit and tie on and you have your own office.
And as soon as you have your own office in a school, your word is
sacrosanct. So if your staff listen to
something you say and introduce and they say, ohh, that's not
quite working for me, they're lying.
They're doing it for attention. Don't listen.
It's about respect, isn't it? I I had a a leader once told me
in a training course that if you don't make your staff cry and at
least one of your staff members cry at least once per week, they
don't respect you. And if they don't respect you,
they're not going to teach the kids as well.
So it's a bit of a, you know what I mean?
Yeah, it all comes together. It's trickled down as well
because if you want your staff to have this kind of dynamic
with the children where they are superior to them and they don't
listen to them and you know, you want to embed this culture of
actually I'm in charge of you that needs to come from the top
down. So that starts with the people
in charge of the school. So just to summarise .1, how are
you going to increase? Well-being.
Well, you're going to make sure your staff know who's in charge
and not care remotely what they think about the decisions you
make. Fantastic stuff.
So to the second point on our list about improving well-being
in your school is to implement forced well-being sessions.
Mandatory. OK, everyone has to go.
Yeah, definitely. And you know I think what what
was really obvious here, I don't know why we're really wasting
time saying this hand because it's in the name well-being.
So you know, if as a school you organise and this is the key
part of these kind of sessions, they have to happen in time
where teachers have free not learning time.
I'm talking how much time. I'm talking after school and
they have to attend. OK?
Are you gonna put it as part of directed time?
Don't worry about that because it's forced.
Well-being. So, Hayden, what are some of the
things that we can do with our star to make sure they feel
better? Well I've got a funny I've got
an anecdote for you an example of of this.
I've done this before and one of my schools we we implemented
yoga on a Thursday after school. It was from 3:30 till 4:30, and
it was so funny because one of the teachers they were they.
I'd made them cry in the previous week, so they
respectively now they came up to me and and and they said.
That's cool. I'd love to do some yoga.
My well-being is terrible at this school was like, stop.
And then they asked if they didn't have to do the marking
that they would have been doing in that hour.
Yeah, And we all honestly, unanimously, everyone looked at
them and we all laugh. It was so funny.
Of course you do. Of course they do.
Of course they have to. They have to do it, OK?
Because, look, it goes back to what we said in the first point.
It's all about respect. If you're feeling stressed
because you can't get your marking done, it's fine.
Don't do it at that moment. Go and do some sugar instead,
OK? Afterwards you feel better, you
could do your marking. Exactly, Exactly.
So there we are, forced well-being sessions.
And there's a long way. If that doesn't work, just get
him some pizza. There's nothing wrong with that.
And I've never, ever, ever seen anyone eat pizza and be sad
about it. So that's.
What? I've never seen anyone eat pizza
whilst doing yoga. Double up your well-being.
Fantastic. And you heard it here.
First, tip 3. I want you to put yourselves in
the shoes of a teacher. OK?
You have directed time, and that is time when you're in your
contract. That is where you can be told
what to do. So as leaders, as school leaders
in a school where we want to increase well-being and make it
better, what you need to do is make sure teachers still retain
some kind of purpose. And what's that link to director
time you might be thinking, Well, here's the top tip, make
sure you're directed time only includes half the job.
And I mean that most because teachers need to make sure that
when they finish the job at school, they get go home and
carry on doing it, because that's what's going to make
their lives filled with purpose. That's what's gonna make
themselves feel better, isn't it, Hayden?
Exactly. Well, actually it's very
interesting you said this because very recently the
teacher, well-being indexed, released some new data and
comparing 2022 and 2023, we can actually see that well-being is
getting worse. Teachers are becoming less and
less happy in this job. And I think that is because it's
pretty obvious, isn't it? Yeah.
Teachers, what I love, what are teachers love doing?
Working. They love working.
That is the best part of the
job. And what they're doing at home
if they're not working, sad. OK, so the best thing you can do
as a boss to your staff that respects you is say, yeah, we've
got directed time. But I'm aware, I'm aware of your
needs outside of school. I'm not just a boss here, I'm a
boss at home as well for you. And what I can do is take away
all of those jobs from director time and say do them at home, do
them at home instead. Do them at home.
Do them because honestly you could be spending time with your
family. That and I think as a boss we
have a duty to ensure that that doesn't happen.
So you wanna base well-being. Just make them do work at home.
They will be really, really grateful.
Yeah, fantastic Dylan, thank you.
Onto tip #4. Now this is one of my absolute
favourites because we were just talking about how teachers love
to work. They love to work, so there's
nothing better for them to get their teeth stuck into than a
change in curriculum. And the best way to do this is
not to wait for an appropriate. Of time where you know there's
nothing going on. And are we better change just
one thing. No English.
Scrap it tomorrow. Tell them all that next term
English is being replanned. Here's the new unit, but make
sure it's not quite a full unit and they have to do loads and
loads of extra work. The best bit is Dylan, you might
be thinking, All right, fair enough.
I've tried that. It sort of works.
Next term, history bomb gone. Geography.
Next term, bam, we're redoing it.
OK, so the last thing we want Hayden, is for teachers to be
resting on their levels. And if something's lacking in a
school, well, that's just the facade.
Enough. Nothing's ever working.
OK? Make sure nothing is ever
working in the school. You're only one change away from
having the best school ever, and just make sure that not only is
it one change away, if you're scrapping English and making
them replan everything from scratch, why not scrap masters?
Well, and while you're at it, take a look at your afternoon
curriculum. Because listen, at the end of
the day, what our teachers, if not workhorses who we have to
make, feel absolutely terrible and do all of the work for us,
What do you? Think are men.
And do you know what I have noticed from my experience?
As a school leader is after about a year, yeah, two years at
absolute most of using a scheme once everyone's just about got
their head around it. People get lazy.
They stop doing it properly. So you've gotta scrap it.
Just we're right there at the apex.
Bam, gone. Here's a new, here's a new thing
that does the same thing. You know what, Replan Hawaii as
well. I wanna, I wanna get this across
to our listeners because they they need to know this.
It's because we answer to Ofsted.
OK. So if you work in a school where
locally a recent a school local to you has also had Ofsted and
had a good outcome, then there's only one thing to do Hayden, and
that's to completely scrap what you do and copy what they.
Do Yeah, copy them. And again it doesn't matter what
you do, irrelevant because they got a good or outstanding.
So I think as good leaders in good schools where we really
value well-being, we completely scrap everything we've done and
just copy that school as. Best we can.
Amazing. Dylan, I think we need to move
on Before we go to our last point, our #5 tip.
Can we do some honourable mentions, do you think?
Yeah, absolutely. Let's do it because, you know,
there's just always something else we can do.
Yeah, these are like quick fire tips.
So if you're a leader and you're looking to implement something
tomorrow and you've already scrapped English, here's
something else you can do really, really quick.
So I'll do one. You do one.
OK, let's do it. Let's do.
It Here's my first one. Teachers don't need desks or
chairs. Get rid of them.
What are they for? How many times you walked into
into a teacher's classroom? Been sat there on that chair.
Yeah, get up you lazy tike. Go do your job.
You know it's gonna boost exercise.
It's going to boost their wealth, their wealth and their
well-being, their wealth, because they'll be more active.
It's better. So wealth, and they're
well-being, will be health. Group by these things, health is
wealth. Therefore, get rid of the dice.
They will be pleased. Next one Hayden.
This is vital. This is vital because it's two
prongs here. OK?
Make sure you go around at the end of school.
And you see your staff working to the bone because they respect
you. They will never let you down
because you've made them feel like rubbish.
They respect you, they're working to the bone, it's
getting late and you go what you do, Why don't you go home?
Why don't you just go and tell them to go home?
Because you know, they've got stuff to do at home, they got
some work to do for you. And if they remotely think about
turning around, I'm saying if they even dare to answer you
back and say, ohh, I've got to do some marking that is in the
policy. And I've got 90 books to get
through because you've made the marking, but just ignore them.
Repeat the phrase, go home, and then check tomorrow that they
did actually get that marking gun still.
It works. It works.
It happened to me once. I was sat there marking 430.
I said, ohh, well, I still have to mark these then.
And I went, yes, and I think, thank God I can do this at home
now. Well, I love doing more work.
It was brilliant, honestly. Revolutionary explanation next.
Next one. Next one is.
This is the great one, so you gotta make sure.
That your staff are not only delivering all of the curriculum
in all of the subjects, but they have to be a specialist in a
subject as well and lead that subject for the grand total of 0
extra pay. Because it's about the love of
the job, isn't it? Yeah, and I've got to just
clarify as well. I know you said about no extra
pay, obviously, because why would we?
But. But it's really important
actually, for this well-being. Tip that you also don't give
them any time in the school day you can't give them either.
That that's often overlooked. Often staff might be given a bit
of time to do something. Don't do it.
Don't give them. Any time you know the the
synergy is for this point, this tip here, if you really want to
like up your game with this, yeah.
Once they've got to terms with being given geography and
they've got a leader for the school, hit him with the PE.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. With the PE as well, and the
further apart the subjects are linked to each other, the
better, because you're widening their skill set, you're doing
them a favour. We don't wanna be skill staff.
Last two honourable mentions, so last one from me.
Save yourself time. It's important to look after
yourself. OK, So when it comes to
residential, that's overnight. Don't ask them if they want to
come, just book them in immediately.
Assume they'll come that way. They're already booked in.
They're not gonna put up a fuss because they respect you.
Remember someone you, they respect you.
If you're gonna build up on all of this to have good, well-being
staff respect you, just put them in.
They have small children at home, that's fine.
They won't want to be of them anyway.
Why would they want to spend time with their small children
and their family when they could be with their school family and
30 children an hour away at residential?
You're so good at this Dylan, right?
Last tip, really quick one. So your well-being is important.
You as a leader, don't forget about yourself.
OK, so when staff leave, that can cause a big job for you,
can't it? Like, ohh, I've gotta recruit
someone. No you don't.
You don't have to recruit anyone.
You just give it to someone that already has a job and you don't
take away their job. Otherwise you'd have to find a
new person to do that role. So when someone leaves, give
their entire role to someone else and tell them to get on
with it. Fantastic.
So there are honourable mentions, make sure you
implement those. But guys, this is a step by step
guide. You have to do everything from
step one and the final, final point.
Last thing, just to fulfil our sponsorship duties.
Just reminding you guys that this episode is sponsored by
toxic schools. Last tip #1.
The best thing you can do to boost well-being and make your
staff feel absolutely amazing day-to-day is to criticise every
single thing they do and make sure that they never ever ever
feel like they're doing a good job.
Because what does that do Hayden?
It breeds complacency and that's the last thing you want for
well-being. We we like to use.
Something called the negative sandwich, however, means
slightly tweaked, haven't we? We've taken out the hand, we've
taken out the the bit in the middle.
What you need to do is start with something negative, because
they need to know first thing. Remember, you're the boss.
Yeah, you're subordinate there below you.
They don't do a very good job or they'll be in your shoes,
wouldn't they? Also, you tell them something
bad about the lesson. You follow that up with
something bad, just not as bad. OK, so OK, the first thing was
terrible. And then you just wrap up that
sandwich, get that second bit of bread, and you just tell them
something that makes them cry. It's gotta be.
Terrible. Something that absolutely
obliterates every part of their essence and soul that went into
creating these lessons. 9:00 PM the night before.
Yeah, that's how you breed. Good well-being and and this is
where I I just want to be real with people.
Now. This is where if you're really,
really passionate about making sure, well-being as good in your
school, it's not easy to make someone cry, OK?
It's something you have to practise years and years and
years. So in order to get more
practise, in making sure that your feedback is that horrible
to professionals that they literally want to cry, you have
to observe from every single day, every time, everything.
You have to observe them as much as you possibly can.
Because then not only are you getting better at giving
feedback which makes them feel awful, which is great for
well-being, you are also then getting to see how bad they are.
Because like I said, there is always something you can
improve. Nothing is ever good.
And that's where we're going to start making our teachers feel
better. Yeah.
So there we are. There's our top five tips on
improving well-being in your school starting tomorrow, guys.
Let us write us right into us. Let us know what's the first
thing you've implemented. And I tell you what, there are
bonus points if you implement them all at the same time.
That is going to have the biggest impact to guys see you
next time where we unfortunately will run out of sponsorship.