How To Save Wellbeing In Education

an emotionally intelligent approach for What Really Works.

If you have spent any time in a school staffroom, you will know the look. The one in a teacher’s eyes when they are halfway through the term and running on caffeine and sheer determination. The one that says, “I love my job, but I do not know how long I can keep up this pace.”

In education, we often talk about caring for our people. Too often the solutions we offer feel more like decoration than change. A coffee van on Friday morning. A wellbeing wall with quotes about self-care. A cupcake day in Week 7. These gestures are thoughtful, but they do not fix the reason staff are leaving the car park each afternoon with shoulders tight and hearts heavy.

If we want to take wellbeing seriously, we need to stop treating it like an occasional treat and start treating it as a structural necessity. Wellbeing is not an “add-on.” It is built into how a school operates, how leaders lead and how staff are trusted and supported.

What follows is not a list of ideas that will make the newsletter look good. These are practical, systemic changes that shift the day-to-day reality of working in education. They are grounded in neuroscience and emotional intelligence, but most importantly, they are grounded in the lived experience of what it means to show up every day in a school.

Flexible Use of Time

Flexibility is not a perk. It is a recognition that educators are human beings with lives outside of their job titles.

When staff have the freedom to adapt their schedules within reason, they feel trusted and respected. A teacher who has been at school until 8pm for parent–teacher interviews should not be expected to be on morning duty the next day. Someone working on curriculum planning could be given the option to do it from home, where they can focus without interruptions. Even something as simple as letting teachers block out “deep work” time in their calendars for marking or assessment planning sends a message. It says your time is valuable and we trust you to use it well.

From a neuroscience perspective, control over time reduces the brain’s threat response. When we have some choice, the amygdala, which is the part of the brain that fires up under stress, becomes less active. Cortisol levels drop. The prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for decision-making, creativity and empathy, can function at its best. In a school, that means calmer classrooms, better thinking and more connection with students.

Flexible time means planning where you work best without the clock breathing down your neck.

Reducing Paperwork and Streamlining Administration

Ask almost any educator what eats up their time and they will mention admin. Endless forms. Data entered three times in three different systems. Compliance reports that take hours but seem to vanish into a black hole.

Reducing unnecessary paperwork is not just about efficiency. It is about cognitive capacity. Cognitive load theory tells us that our brains can only process so much at once. When that capacity is clogged with repetitive, low-value admin, there is less mental space for the things that matter. That means less energy for being present with a class or responding thoughtfully to a struggling student.

Schools that take wellbeing seriously audit their admin processes every year. They ask, “Does this task improve learning or wellbeing?” If the answer is no, it gets cut or redesigned. Centralised systems that allow information to be entered once and used in multiple places can save hours. Administrative staff can take on non-teaching tasks so teachers can spend their time teaching.

Every piece of admin you remove is one less thing weighing down a teacher’s mental bandwidth. That is not a small change. That is the difference between a teacher who has energy for their class and one who is counting the minutes until home time.

Actively Collecting Meaningful Feedback

Schools are full of surveys. The problem is that many of them are long, unfocused and never lead to change. Collecting feedback only improves wellbeing if it is acted upon.

When staff are listened to and see their input reflected in decisions, the brain’s reward system kicks in. Trust is strengthened. A sense of belonging grows. When feedback is ignored, the opposite happens. Staff learn to stop speaking up and cynicism takes root.

The most effective schools and leaders keep feedback short, focused and purposeful. They might run a quick two-question survey each term about workload and leadership support. They might hold short 5-minute listening sessions where staff can suggest solutions, not just point out problems. Most importantly, they always close the loop. They say, “Here is what we heard. Here is what we are doing.”

This is how you turn feedback from a formality into a foundation for culture change.

Backing Staff Publicly and Privately

There is nothing more deflating than being left unsupported in front of a parent or a class. The way leaders back their staff, both in public and behind closed doors, can make or break morale.

Psychological safety, which is the sense that you can take a risk or face conflict without fear of humiliation or punishment, is one of the strongest predictors of high-performing teams. In the brain, it calms the threat response and allows for better emotional regulation.

Backing staff does not mean ignoring mistakes. It means supporting them in the moment and addressing issues respectfully afterwards. If a parent complaint comes in, hear them out, but make it clear that the school supports its staff unless there is clear evidence otherwise. Never undermine a teacher in front of their students or community. Always follow up after a difficult situation with a genuine check-in.

When staff know they will be backed, they feel safe enough to try new things, speak up and stay.

Meaningful collaboration starts with giving people a real say and acting on it.

Providing Opportunities to Learn

Professional learning is not just about ticking boxes for compliance. When done well, it reignites a teacher’s passion and builds the capacity of the whole school.

The brain thrives on novelty and growth. Learning something new activates dopamine pathways, which increase motivation and resilience. Forced or irrelevant PD has the opposite effect. It drains energy and enthusiasm.

The best approach is to give staff a say. Let them propose PD that links to their professional goals. Offer short, in-house workshops to cut down on travel and time away from students. Adjust other workload expectations when PD is on the table.

When teachers are learning with purpose, they are not just better at their jobs. They are more engaged, more adaptable and more likely to pass that spark of curiosity on to their students.

Allowing Agency and Trust

Micromanagement erodes trust. Autonomy builds it.

Self-determination theory, a well-researched model of motivation, places autonomy at the heart of wellbeing. In the brain, autonomy signals safety and respect, lowering stress and boosting creativity.

Schools that build agency into their culture allow staff to set their own meeting agendas, manage project timelines and try new teaching methods without fear of immediate judgment. They reduce the need for constant “permission seeking” in day-to-day decisions.

When teachers feel trusted to do their jobs, they step into that trust with a sense of ownership. That ownership drives better outcomes for students and a healthier culture for staff.

Managing Workload Requirements

Wellbeing collapses when workload is treated like a bottomless bucket. You cannot keep adding without taking something away.

From a biological perspective, constant overload keeps the stress response switched on. The HPA axis, which is the system that controls cortisol release, never gets to stand down. The result is poor memory, emotional dysregulation and eventually, burnout.

Managing workload means being intentional. If you introduce a new initiative, pause or remove something else. Map the year to identify the pressure points and adjust accordingly. Give staff explicit permission to prioritise what matters most and set aside the nice-to-haves during peak times.

This is not about lowering expectations. It is about keeping expectations human.

Protecting Personal Time

Rest is not optional in education. It is the reset button that makes all the other work possible.

When personal time is respected, the brain has a chance to repair, consolidate learning and regulate mood. Without it, stress hormones remain elevated, empathy declines and relationships, both in and out of school, begin to fray.

Protecting personal time means more than telling people to “switch off.” It means creating policies that support it. No expectation to check emails after 5pm or on weekends. Limit evening events and share them across staff so no one person takes the load repeatedly. Protect school holidays as genuine breaks rather than catch-up periods.

These are not indulgences. They are the maintenance schedule for the humans who keep the school running.

Protecting personal time means stepping away from the desk and letting the day end.

What Real Wellbeing Looks Like

When schools commit to embedding these changes, wellbeing stops being a side project and becomes part of the school’s operating DNA. It is no longer something that needs a calendar event or a special week to exist. It lives in the way decisions are made, how time is used and how people are treated every single day.

This shift is powerful, because it moves wellbeing from being reactive to being preventative. Instead of patching up the damage caused by unsustainable demands, schools are creating an environment where those demands are managed before they can cause harm. Staff are no longer just “coping.” They are able to work in ways that protect their health, their passion and their ability to stay in the profession for the long term.

The benefits of getting this right are far-reaching. Teachers who feel supported and respected bring a calmer, more focused presence into their classrooms. They are more patient, more willing to try new approaches and better able to connect with their students. Neuroscience tells us that when people are working in a safe, well-structured environment, the brain’s stress response is reduced. This allows the prefrontal cortex to function at its best, supporting clear thinking, empathy and creativity. Those are not just “nice to have” traits. They are the very qualities that make an exceptional educator.

When wellbeing is embedded, staff leave school each day with enough energy left for the rest of their lives. They have the capacity to enjoy their families, catch up with friends and rest properly. That recovery time feeds back into their work. A rested teacher arrives with a sharper mind, a steadier mood and a greater ability to adapt when things do not go to plan.

Retention is another critical benefit. Education systems around the world are losing experienced teachers at alarming rates, often because they feel the job has become impossible to do well without sacrificing themselves in the process. Schools that embed genuine wellbeing practices buck that trend. They become places where good teachers choose to stay, where their knowledge and skills deepen over time and where mentoring the next generation of educators is part of the culture. This stability benefits students too. Continuity in staffing builds stronger relationships, smoother learning experiences and a more consistent school environment.

It also strengthens the whole community. When staff feel valued and energised, that energy ripples outward. Parents see it in the way teachers engage with their children. Students feel it in the quality of attention they receive. Leadership teams notice it in the collaborative spirit among staff.

At the end of the day, caring for the people who care for everyone else is not just a moral responsibility. It is one of the most practical ways to ensure that a school thrives. Healthy, supported educators create healthier, stronger and more connected school communities. Isn’t that the kind of success worth investing in.