Teacher Well-Being

[00:01] SPEAKER_02:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.

[00:06] Announcer:

Here's your host, director of the Principal Center and champion of high performance instructional leadership, Justin Bader.

[00:13] SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio. I am your host, Justin Bader, and I'm thrilled to be joined today by my colleague, Ian Vickers. Ian is deputy principal at Santa Maria College in Auckland and an administrator who is closely attuned to the issue of teacher well-being.

[00:32] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:34] SPEAKER_01:

Ian, welcome to Principal Center Radio. Lovely to speak to you again, Justin. Likewise. We spoke a couple of years ago on EduLeadership Radio, and I'm very excited to hear what you've been up to in terms of promoting teacher well-being, which is something that I would say, in my experience, has been treated mostly as a personal matter. We see it as...

[00:56]

teachers' own job to take care of themselves and not necessarily in our profession of school administration as our responsibility. We see ourselves as responsible for students and making sure that as educators we do everything we can for students. But you've taken the perspective that teacher well-being should matter a great deal to us as administrators. Is that right?

[01:17] SPEAKER_00:

For sure. For sure. I think if you look now at sort of 21st century model education, And again, it goes into teaching. But if you look at the sort of business and industry, the 20th century model was flog your people to death, get as much out of them as you could. But the 21st century model, no. If you want to get that quality, you want to get loyalty, you want to reduce your turnover of staff, productivity is up, you've got to invest and look after your people.

[01:48]

So I think that's a sort of starting point, Justin, that when I embarked on this sort of three years ago is, Yes, you want your teachers to be the best. You're looking for excellence. You want them to be creative, innovative, highly motivated. Put in the hours. So you also need to look after these people. They need to be well.

[02:13]

They need to be happy in their workplace, good levels of morale, and care for these people. So that's where I started this project three years ago. I think the first place was in my old school, and I called together like-minded colleagues and said, look, this is difficult. We're really working hard, but people are constantly sick, sick in the holidays, really struggling with a job, death by paperwork, classroom teaching is very, very demanding, the intensity of it. What can we do about it? So from sort of humble beginnings, we got together for an hour.

[02:52]

People had a really good moan and groan about, about working conditions, as teachers do sometimes. But from that, we built a teacher well-being program within the college. It's based around a little bit often in terms of keeping it on the agenda every single week. We have a different theme for the week. Things like, you know, obviously look after your hydration levels with water, fruit week, No email week, which has been a success every time we've run no email week. You know, encouraging tidy your workspace.

[03:30]

We did a nice one this year where we said, okay, we're not going to have a big staff meeting on Monday after school. We will put a big sort of garbage, rubbish dumpster at the back of the school. Please go to your areas, your classrooms, your departments and tidy up your workspace regularly. boxes rubbish equipment you want to throw out please throw out and that that dumpster was full after 20 minutes um absolutely overflowing the biggest we could get uh after 25 minutes our art department were actually inside the dumpster um taking stuff out you know i guess versus rubbish is another person's gold but uh you know so that that was good so you come back to work the following day and your classroom looks brilliant your drawers are and shelves are all tiny um we had things like date night you know we said right next week you've got a week to organize it please do something special with those people around you your loved ones your family your partner your wife your husband um good friends that you haven't seen for months and you keep promising to catch up do something different if you go out for dinner sort of reasonably regularly that's that's okay but can you find something different to do um and that went down a treat i mean some of the stories of people sort of going to the beach and

[04:44]

going to the theater. I haven't done that for many, many years, et cetera, et cetera. Um, and just, it just runs through things like that. Was it a success in our first year in 2012? I'd say absolutely. Yes.

[04:57]

We, we measured our sickness rates for that year and across the whole year. Um, it averaged out with a 27% reduction, um, in sickness rates. The highest one of the terms was actually a 40% reduction on the previous year. So, you know, We're a healthier bunch. And we've just grown. Every year we've added new things to the programme.

[05:21]

This last year we negotiated a deal with our board of trustees that run the school and said, OK, will you come to the table in terms of costs and funds if we set up a regular neck and shoulder massage opportunity for the staff? So, yes. So the staff pay $10. The board subsidise that with $10. And every week we have a professional masseuse comes in to give us 20-minute massages. And within your contacts, you know, that's been really, really helpful.

[05:54]

We've got a wellness clinic next week, and we started last year where one of the local schools of nursing, obviously these students go through the year, and as they finish their course, they need to get practical experience. So we've got them in. They come into the school, and we're offering a 20-minute sort of a warrant or wellness fitness check, if you like. So they'll do the sort of body mass index or do blood pressure. Um, they bring the high tech blood, um, blood test kit and they can check for diabetes. They do a urine test for, um, you know, for, for all that, for hydration level.

[06:30]

So that's like a, you know, and if things come out of that, then they encourage obviously then to shoot off to the, to the doctors just to, to investigate further. But, you know, actually bringing the, bringing the health people in, um, as work to treat. When you start doing this within your own school, then it just, word gets out, you know what the school communities are like, so suddenly other schools get wind of what you're doing. Our program is driven by this booklet, this weekly theme, it's called the Good New Habits book, so other schools are like, can we get a copy of that? And I've made it that it is a free resource for anybody who wants to take it. It's only a starting point, it's not mine, it's not You know, it works in our environment, but please take it.

[07:13]

It's a Word document. You can rejig things. You can take things out you don't like, put new things in. And that's probably in about, I don't know, 900, 1,000 schools in New Zealand now that people have created and rejigged for their environment. People catch up with articles that are written about our programme. And again, that sort of spirals.

[07:31]

I've got a week, a sort of termly article in a school magazine promoting sort of teacher wellbeing. I've had about today, I've had, I don't know, next, in excess of 6,000 emails from all around the world. And I guess the power of the internet, you know, people from Argentina, people from the States, UK, Canada, Australia, and obviously up and down and down the country. You get into discussions with the politicians then. So I've actually had, you know, been face to face with the top politician, the minister of education. And she came to my school and we talked across the table about what can you do to help look after the teachers of New Zealand?

[08:09]

you talk to the top administrators, you talk to the union. So slowly, not only is it just looking after my, I guess, caring for my own school community, but it's sort of banging a drum on a more of a national footing. On a global scale now, it sounds like. Fantastic, yes. And, you know, along with that, we've managed to get for the first time, we had a publication released to all the sort of senior teachers and to New Zealand last year, which was entitled Wellbeing in Schools. And when you open this draft document, unfortunately, Justin, it should have been entitled Wellbeing for Students because there was actually nothing about the teachers.

[08:49]

Yes, I can understand. You know, schools have got rafts and layers of structure and resources and support mechanisms to look after young people, quite rightly so. But my argument is, OK, that's fine. But again, if you want the teaching and learning and all the good work that you demand, you must also spend time and develop systems for your, for your teachers. So again, you know, word gets about and start talking to like-minded people. And for the first time in New Zealand, next October, we're going to have a conference.

[09:17]

This is entitled wellbeing conference, wellbeing in our schools. And it really will be wellbeing in schools. It will be looking after your students and, and resources available for those young people, but also there'll be a strand there for wellbeing of teachers. And it's really important, um, You know, that's on the agenda. And I guess personally as well, this work I've been doing has been, I guess, a little bit of reward there from our Ministry of Education. They've granted me a sabbatical next May, June and July to have 10 weeks out of my school.

[09:51]

Obviously a little bit of refreshment time, but also to allow me to move on now. You know, we've made a start on this wellbeing programme, wellness, morale boosting programmes in our schools. um, can we take it to the next level, whatever that next level may well be. So exciting times. Absolutely.

[10:11] SPEAKER_01:

And just in terms of kind of cost benefit analysis, if we're, if we're to look at this in purely practical terms, you said you saw a 27 to 40% reduction in, uh, illness and basically teacher absenteeism. Is that right?

[10:25] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, for sure. And that, I mean, that's, so when you're doing your, your sick colleagues, uh, I've, It was strange, actually. The end of, we've just started, we've just finished our third term, sort of the last one through our New Zealand winter. And the winter terms are notorious, aren't they, for huge sort of sickness from students and also for staff. And just as a quick snapshot, the last sort of three weeks of last term, you know, you look through who's away for the day and why they're away. And, you know, you might have 10 people away for the day.

[10:56]

But surprisingly, again, it's like, well, there's one person sick. And where's the other nine people? They're all doing conferences. They're doing PD work. They're out of school. There's maybe some events.

[11:04]

So just that sort of snapshot gives you an idea that we're tracking okay. But, yeah, the money-wise, you certainly save money. And that's what I've said when I've been to the politicians and say, if you invest in people in industry, it's proven in this workplace wellness programs that you know, your sickness rates are reduced. And so, you know, some of your big companies say, yeah, we get more people come to work and the productivity goes up. So it's certainly going to save costs. I mean, our massage is probably an example that, okay, the money we would divert into covering for sick teachers.

[11:43]

Well, we've got some spare cash now, so we're able to divert that into supporting the staff around the, around massage and other opportunities.

[11:52] SPEAKER_01:

Now, there's also an instructional rationale to this too, though, right? I mean, the idea is that not only do we have lower costs and lower absenteeism, but that it actually directly impacts the quality of teaching and of the learning experiences that students receive. Could you speak to that?

[12:08] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, fantastic. Actually, it's been a pleasure. I mean, just the last sort of three years, two and a half years, I think, last time we spoke, there was sort of... some sort of growth there and said some of the teaching has just gone up a notch.

[12:20]

But I think, you know, like I said, the last couple of years, it's been some phenomenal. I mean, the teachers are well, you know, they still work very, very hard, but they sort of feel loved and valued. And yes, you know, sort of walking through classrooms, absolutely fantastic. Now, a whole range of innovations, certainly creative is there, very forward thinking as well. Our staff have taken on some some great initiatives this year, you know, using the gadgets in the classrooms and that. So it's been a pleasure.

[12:52]

And I guess, you know, an industry model, they would just and they would say, OK, can we can we pull all this against also productivity? You know, we are a new school where I work. We're a new school. Ten years, 11 years, 11 years ago, the grounds at the school now sits and was just a bare field of a bare paddock. Now, 10, 11 years on now, last year across nationally, our school got probably in the top 15, top 10, top 15 of the exam results in the country. And that's developed.

[13:24]

So the three years that we've been on this sort of journey in terms of looking after our people, alongside it, for the last three years, our exam results nationally have gone up. We're tracking around about 92% to 94% success rate depending on on our top three year groups. So that's fantastic. And the staff, like I said, are working extremely hard in the classrooms and it's been a pleasure to witness and see this sort of vitality around our school. The staff room's buzzing, laughter. We have laughter week and I remember one morning walking up the staircase to the staff room and thinking, gee, they're noisy up there today.

[14:06]

But we've asked them to laugh as well and have some fun. And you go in and it's absolutely a pleasure. It's been a wonderful journey. And I think, you know, I was out talking to some of our young people, our final year group, who are about to leave in about three weeks' time for their final examinations. And we just sat and talked on the bench in the sunshine and, look, talk to me about your best teachers. And the whole range, you know, and some of the stories, why is this teaching your best teacher, why they do this or do that.

[14:35]

You know, they care for me, they look after me, they've got that empathy, you know. they encourage me when times are hard or sit alongside me and really work me through it so the feedback from the young people as well is very appreciative of having a very competent and very sharp and a very well

[14:53] SPEAKER_01:

And so, Ian, as you were speaking to the changes you've made and the investments that you've made in teacher well-being, I couldn't help but come to the conclusion that a lot of the excellence that you're seeing, the extra mile kind of effort that you're seeing from people is a result of the trust that you've built by teachers. showing concern for teachers well-being because i mean i think the tendency as you mentioned earlier is for us to just kind of squeeze every drop of effort out of people without investing anything back and we think well if only we could get people to to work a little bit harder and stay a little bit later and you know do some tutoring after school and come a little bit earlier and put some extra time into collaboration and evening events and everything if only we could squeeze more out of people, we could get better results. And I think what you're saying is, is such a breath of fresh air to us because it really is the opposite approach of investing in people so that they have more to give so that they have the capacity to, you know, to be healthier and to basically bring more to the table rather than just have kind of more squeezed out of them.

[15:58] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think it's a definite, I'm trying to grow a culture really. This is a huge monumental shift for some people. I mean, the politician side and and when you're working with some of these key people that you know fund the schools um yeah i'm getting better at it i mean i think i was pretty naive three years ago but um you're trying to change you're trying to change the shift you know as i talked about from the 20th century model for you know as you said sort of wringing everything you can out of these people so you've got to look after people you've got to invest in these people The problem is just is that some of the people that are making these decisions about school, and a lot of them are ex-teachers as well, is they have not been in a classroom for 20 years. And they've got a, you know, it's like they're, it's like an amnesia to some extent. What was school like? And, you know, the 21st century classroom is a million miles away.

[16:49]

And the young people, you know, the socially, the different, the use of technology. You know, I even, I sat down with some of the main tutors that do teacher training in some of our universities. And I'd say, look, have you got teacher well-being actually as part of your program for, you know, young teachers coming through? No. Why not? You know, there's a concept.

[17:15]

They don't understand. I think if you haven't been in a classroom in the last five years, you're off the pace. You have not got a clue what is going on and the demands and intensity of 21st century education. So...

[17:28]

You know, that trust, you've just got to, from the teacher's side of it, and in the moment, I've actually gone, this is like herbal life and work. This is pyramid selling. I go to the teacher's principles and say, okay, guys, I'll work the politics. I'll work the politics with the politicians, the ministry, with the unions who drag the chain as well. But while they're having to think about it and whether they want to make this sort of flip from the old thinking to the new thinking, guess what? We'll do it ourselves.

[17:54]

So here you go. Here's an idea. you bring your own ideas table. What can you do for your school? What can you, and then share it, share it with, you know, another school down the road. If you're in a rural community, can you Skype?

[18:07]

Can you do, you know, at principal level? Um, we, I was horrified, um, two years ago to read that the, the principals of New Zealand, they had, they were surveyed in the back, back of the 1990s about how things were. And the feedback was, Hey, principles you are working very very hard working very long hours um your workload's um you know pretty pretty heavy um and and you're pretty stressed and burnout is actually on the agenda now okay 20 or 203 2003 they did the same survey so look we're just we're just touching base see how things are and the results were the same you know your workload is actually even heavier the stress levels are high and burnout is not just on the table now it's actually happening But the author went back and said, OK, 2007, tongue in cheek, I've just come back, guys, to survey you again to see if you've still got all these issues.

[19:03]

I expect you will have, you know, but we're just checking. And lo and behold, you are working incredible long hours. You know, the workload's crazy. Stress levels are now sort of really high and burnout is major for you guys. So I went to the principal's association, whether that be primary school, sort of kindergarten, all the way up to the high school level. And you sort of say, yes, you've had three reports.

[19:24]

You are the brains trusting our schools. You've been told you've got issues. Show me what you have done about it, please. What have you done? You know, it's like, ooh. So we've actually, you know, again, with myself and my principal, we actually wrote, we produced a desk as a starter point, Justin, just as a starter point.

[19:44]

Look, let's do something. So we produced a desktop planner for the last three terms. It rolls over again. It's on a weekly theme. But these principles are all locked in together. So we've got 400 principles around New Zealand saying, okay, on my desk now I've got this planner.

[20:02]

So term four next week, week two, is positive health week. So I have this thing in my face on a Monday morning. Oh, right. But I'm not alone. The principle, the road has got the same calendar, planner, right, positive health week. So maybe we'll phone and contact each other.

[20:20]

Should we do something together? Should we go for a run? Should we play a game of squash? Should we do this? Should we do that? You know, and it rumbles through weekly themes like we have at school.

[20:28]

And again, you know, there's some trust developing there and some really good work. They get reminded weekly through a sort of principal's newsletter. Guys, are you looking after yourself? So, yeah, the trust issue is really important. But we are, you know, what we are looking after ourselves. Right.

[20:48]

And that's, that's right. And if you're a better principal, you know, I mean, one of the things the principals moaned about the top of the, when we did a survey last year, the number one for principals in New Zealand of what concerned the most was being out of touch and not up to date with their professional reading and what was going on. Okay. So that was identified. This is a major issue here. We need to be able to do some more reading time.

[21:10]

Why can you not do it at school? Oh, and the excuses galore, you know, Oh, I must have an open door policy. Why can you not shut the door? Well, I couldn't do that. So again, you're trying to bring a culture change when individuals say, do something, don't just moan about it. And then maybe the next holiday break, you just spend, if you, you know, you've got a mountain of reading to do, which you may not get through anyway.

[21:34]

What can you do today? Can you shut your door for one hour? Can you come to school late as a principal? Can you arrive at 10 o'clock rather than nine o'clock or whatever? Or can you go home early? you know, but find a way.

[21:49]

That's the difference between industry. They say, some of the big leaders in industry say, I go to work to work on my particular job, and then I go home and have my personal life. School principals and teachers, we do some stuff at school, and then we go home and carry on doing work. You know, it's trying to get a divide there. So it answers your question, massive. The trust and, but if we're doing it ourselves, teachers are very, very wary of being told or being lectured at by people that not in their profession.

[22:19]

That's, you know, we've got, you've, you've got to be a very special person to get inside a teacher's head. If you're in an industry model or a business model, there was a, a teacher wellbeing program was delivered here to a school in Auckland in January this year. It was a one-off. Um, it was run by a business who said, do this, do that. Well, they've got no concept of how, how a school functions. Um, And it wasn't repeated.

[22:43]

It was interesting. When I went to the organization, why have you not repeated this little program you did? There isn't a demand.

[22:52] SPEAKER_01:

And yet you've had 6,000 emails from all over the world from people who are using your materials. Is that right?

[22:57] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the thing about the no demand is actually school has a budget, doesn't it? And school has a budget, so we need to do this, this, and this for our learning. Yes, we've got to do this, this, and this for our learning. All the money's all gone, unfortunately. And the next one down on the list that probably could have, should have been covered was looking after your teachers.

[23:16]

But next year, we'll come and have another go at it. So it's not, there's no demand. There's actually no money available to go that, you know, sort of further down the list to look after teachers. So. Anyway, we are doing something about it, and it's going brilliantly.

[23:29] SPEAKER_01:

Well, and kudos to you for putting that on our agenda. And I think, you know, you've sounded the alarm so successfully in the work that you've done over the past three years. If people want to get a hold of your materials or get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to find you online?

[23:45] SPEAKER_00:

Right, two things, because that's the plan for next year is when I'm at the sabbatical is to actually crank up my own sort of website and do that. But at the moment, the best way is just to use the simple... Google search, just type in Ian Vickers, Teach Your Wellbeing, and it'll give you links to lots of articles I've written in magazines, links to get the resource. And then the other way is to send me an email.

[24:07]

I've got a Gmail account, which is teachyourwellbeingglobal.com. at gmail.com is the best way to track me.

[24:16] SPEAKER_01:

Well, Ian, thank you so much. It has been a treat to speak with you and hear what you've been up to these last couple of years and the difference you've made in not only in reducing absenteeism, but really just helping people be healthier and helping school leaders pay more attention to this absolutely critical issue. Thank you so much.

[24:34] SPEAKER_00:

It's been an absolute pleasure, Justin, and thank you very much for your time.

[24:38] SPEAKER_02:

And now, Justin Bader on high-performance instructional leadership.

[24:42] SPEAKER_01:

So, high-performance instructional leaders. As you heard, Ian Vickers has set up a program of well-being to help the staff in his school pay attention to how they're doing, to pay attention to their own health, and take steps to not only do a great job on behalf of students, but to invest in their own well-being and in their own health. And the reception to that around the world has been phenomenal. tremendous and i think the key thing that he's asking people to do is really to develop good habits and if you recall in the high performance triangle which consists of strategies tools and habits habits are what give us consistency over time and if we want to be at our best not just on some days, on the days when we happen to get a good night's sleep or when we happen to not be sick or happen to have had a good breakfast.

[25:34]

We've got to invest in building those habits that create success and that put us at our best. And we've got to do that for our teachers as well. We've got to help them pay enough attention to themselves that they can be at their best for students. So I want to encourage you to look on our website, the page for this interview or Google Ian Vickers Teacher Wellbeing, and take a look at some of the resources that Ian has created, the calendar of activities and basically kind of health promotions that you can do to promote well-being among your staff. Take just a minute to take a look at that and see what you can do to help your staff develop healthier habits.

[26:18] Announcer:

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