This episode is the second of two podcasts focused on staff wellbeing and offers advice for teachers battling poor wellbeing, high workloads and poor work/life balance.
Our guest Peter Radford talks about his own experience, the symptoms, and how others might spot the signs before it is too late. Peter advises both schools and teachers.
For schools, we discuss the tenets of creating a healthy culture and the principles of a mentally healthy working environment, including our six basic psychological needs as human beings. How can schools reduce the stigma around mental health in schools and help line managers to be more supportive of colleagues. What are the lessons schools should be learning?
For teachers, we discuss what teachers themselves can do to protect their own wellbeing, including advice to new teachers, how to say no, how to prioritise personal time, the importance of sleep, asking for help and how to talk about things, managing workload, and defeating the myth of outstanding.
This is the second of two podcasts focused on staff wellbeing. In the first episode, we spoke with three experts about how to create a whole-school culture of staff wellbeing, including mentally healthy working environments, the pillars of psychological safety, how to bring wellbeing into the everyday, and emotionally literate leadership.
We considered how line managers can support colleagues and spot problems, the role of staff wellbeing leaders, how schools should respond if staff are struggling, and what teachers can do themselves, including how to say no, sleep properly, and prioritise personal time.
Find this episode via https://bit.ly/seced-wellbeing-staff and for a webpage featuring a range of Education Support resources relating to the topics discussed in these two podcasts, click here.
Peter Radford is the author of Love Teaching, Keep Teaching: The essential guide to improving wellbeing at all levels in schools. He has written for SecEd in the past and speaks powerfully about his own battle with workload and wellbeing during his time as a teacher and school leader. His company Beyond This delivers training and workshops for staff and students. Visit www.beyondthis.co.uk
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For details about The SecEd Podcast, or to suggest future topics, email editor Pete Henshaw at editor@sec-ed.co.uk