ROSELYN HOUSE SCHOOL

Mental Health & Wellbeing policy

Roselyn House School has responsibility for the wellbeing of all our staff.

Good wellbeing is central to staff effectiveness and satisfaction, and student learning.

Work-life balance is about helping staff combine work with their personal interests and commitments.

KS Education Limited has a statutory responsibility to ensure, as far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all their employees.

In order for our staff to be at their most effective they need to have good wellbeing:

• To attract and retain the calibre of staff needed for a 21st century education system.
• To improve the school’s effectiveness by actively reducing staff sickness, absenteeism and turnover.
• To develop a more motivated workforce, with high morale, even more able to deliver a better education for our students.
• To improve team work, staff development and co-operation by effectively distributing leadership and creating new leaders.
• To recognise that improving workplace communication has a positive outcome for the workforce.

Ethos

At Roselyn House School we believe that staff wellbeing is imperative to the success and maintenance of our school. We aim to create an effective wellbeing framework that supports staff to increase their awareness of their emotional health and wellbeing. This is reflected within the ‘Roselyn House Wellbeing Charter’ (Appendix A) and Employee Wellbeing Strategy with Implementation Program. 

Two key elements to support good mental health are:

• Feeling Good – experiencing positive emotions like happiness, contentment and enjoyment. It also includes feelings like curiosity, engagement & safely.

• Functioning Well – how a person is able to function in the world. This includes positive relationships and social connections, as well as feeling in control of your life and having a sense of purpose.

Aims of the policy

• To develop a healthy, motivated workforce who are able to deliver a high-standard of education to students.
• To help ensure that our school promotes the health and wellbeing of all staff members, recognising the impact work can have on employees’ stress levels, mental and physical health.
• To recognise that excessive hours of work can be detrimental to staff health and effectiveness and to agree on flexible working practices where possible without damaging opportunities for students to succeed.
• To communicate the importance of a work-life balance to all staff, and to ensure that all policy updates are communicated regularly.
• To respond sensitively to external pressures which affect the lives of staff members.
• To provide staff with training to deal positively with stressful incidents, and provide them with a sense of confidence to deal with emergencies via training.
• To improve staff development, co-operation and teamwork by creating effective leaders.
• To make staff members aware of the channels which can be used to manage and deal with stress or work-related health and wellbeing issues.

Roles and responsibilities

Wellbeing Lead  (Mrs R Smith)

• Will ensure that all staff enjoy a reasonable work-life balance and lead by example in this regard.
• Will support the Directors of KS Education Limited in ensuring that strategies are implemented to effectively manage and, where necessary, reduce employee stress. This includes preventing unnecessary stress and ensuring that any work-based stress employees experience is at a productive, healthy level.
• Will adopt school policies and provide clear guidance regarding time-off for public or trade union duties, or for personal reasons.
• Will facilitate the Staff Wellbeing Programme and ensure outcomes are accessible to all.
• Will ensure clear communication between staff and management with regards to school life.
• Will create reasonable opportunities for employees to discuss concerns and will enable staff to do so in an environment where stress is not considered a weakness.
• Will ensure that all staff are aware of and trained in-line with the school’s priorities and offered opportunities for development.
• Will monitor and review any measures that are planned and assess their effectiveness.
• Will conduct risk assessment for work-related stress in consultation with line managers
• Will make individual interventions such as short-term rehabilitation and return to work plans, and longer-term reasonable adjustments to work.

Also supporting Mrs Smith in leading the wellbeing programme will be Mr Birkenhead, Mrs Higgins and Mr Dickinson.   

We also have additional staff members that are on our Wellbeing Team:-

Mrs Wilson

Miss Smith

Mrs Mercer

Miss Edens

Miss Cooper

Staff members:

• Will make themselves aware of the school’s policies on Capability, Bullying and Harassment, Code of conduct, managing absence.
• Will assist in the development of good practice and ensure that they do not, through their actions or omissions, create unnecessary work for themselves or their colleagues.
• Will ask their Line Manager for help or support if required. This includes understanding that a good relationship requires communication from both parties and so it’s important that issues are raised at the earliest possible moment so that effective strategies can be put in place to manage workloads.
• Will identify opportunities for development and take advantage of those offered by the school.
• Will apply for any requests for leave of absence in advance and be honest about sickness absence.
• Will share their views, ideas and feelings about all issues concerning the school at formal meetings and informal gatherings.

Actions to support new staff

• All staff will be given a school orientation by their line manager.
• All new staff will receive a staff induction programme. This will continue to include all important policies, or their location, and will include this policy on health and wellbeing.
• All staff will be made to feel welcome and given as much support as required.
• All staff will be assigned a Mentor on their first day
• At the end of the first week of employment, new staff will have a review with a senior member of staff.
• All new staff will have a 3-month review interview with their Line Manager. Additional reviews may be scheduled at 6-months and/or a year.

Procedures for handling issues of wellbeing

• The Senior Leadership Team will encourage the creation and maintenance of an atmosphere where all staff members feel comfortable asking for help or raising concerns.
• The Senior Leadership Team will be sensitive to any problems which may cause the employee stress-related issues and should act in a professional, fair, consistent and timely manner when a concern arises.
• Where additional, professional advice is required, the school has contacts with Occupational Health Professionals and Human Resource experts and these avenues should be utilised.
• Roselyn House School will provide support to any employees facing high levels of stress in the workplace, as well as other work-related issues which are having/have the potential to have negative impacts on the staff member’s health and wellbeing. The various options for dealing with such issues should be discussed with staff members where appropriate. In some cases, this may include external support.
• During this time, KS Education Limited will ensure that at all times the staff member’s privacy and dignity is respected. This means maintaining confidentiality, upholding the employee’s rights and dealing with the employee with tact and sensitivity.

Wellbeing approach

Staff will have access to training sessions and signposting to approaches and resources that will support their own emotional health and wellbeing with an aim to foster teamwork and create solidarity.

In addition to the above, as stated in our wellbeing charter, we have taken actions based upon teacher reflections that will reduce workload and support employee wellbeing. Please refer to Appendix A.

Staff Identification

Training and signposting to assessment materials will form the basis for the staff identification. Onus will be placed on staff to self-assess and information for next steps will be available on request.

Staff wellbeing questionnaires will be sent out annually and the analysis of this will help to improve and inform whole school wellbeing approaches.

Monitoring and Assessment

Staff questionnaires and surveys provide an opportunity throughout the year to enable whole school wellbeing assessments to take place to improve practice and monitor outcomes.

The wellbeing programme will continue to reflect and monitor the impact of the actions taken to support staff wellbeing. This will be placed as priority on the agendas for meetings, including governor’s meetings, and reflected on with commitment to maintenance of wellbeing.

Department for Education

The Department for Education brought out a Charter in November 2021 and they pledge the following:-

The Education Staff Wellbeing Charter - November 2021 (publishing.service.gov.uk)

“We recognise that the Department for Education (DfE) shapes the policy environment that state funded schools and colleges operate in, and that our policies can have both direct and indirect impacts on the wellbeing of staff. DfE will work in partnership with the sector, leading the way in protecting, enhancing and promoting wellbeing.

DfE recognises that we have a different relationship with the Further Education (FE) sector. The approach to implementation will reflect that.²

We Will:

1.‘Design-in’ wellbeing

We will integrate wellbeing into DfE’s school workload policy test, where appropriate, considering the impact of policy changes on staff wellbeing.

2.Measure and respond to changes in staff wellbeing.

For the school sector, we will measure on an ongoing basis the levels of anxiety, happiness, worthwhileness, life satisfaction and job satisfaction across the sector’, using established metrics and methods. We will track trends over time and build this evidence into policy making. We will also continue to take the advice of sector experts on wellbeing and mental health.³

We will engage with FE sector bodies to understand insights into staff mental health and wellbeing within the sector. Where appropriate we will build this evidence into policy making.

3.Support the sector to drive down unnecessary workload.

We will continue to work with the sector to drive down unnecessary workload and promote the Workload Reduction Toolkit. We will work to remove unnecessary burdens, including improving how we collect data.

4.Ensure that DfE guidance meets user needs.

Where appropriate we will ensure DfE guidance covers staff wellbeing. We will also develop guidance based on the needs of educational staff, focusing on what they need to know and do. We will publish GOV. UK content aimed at education staff only during working hours (unless, for specific guidance documents, there is a significant user need not to do so, or there is a legislative requirement).

5.Champion flexible working and diversity.

We commit to establish school cultures, and encourage FE settings, to support and value flexible working at all career stages. We will also strengthen our efforts to promote diversity in the sector – eliminating discrimination, advancing equality of opportunity and fostering good relations between those who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.

6.Break down stigma around mental health.

We will build staff wellbeing and mental health into DfE’s wider communications strategy on recruitment and retention, linking to existing campaigns that aim to tackle mental health stigma in our society.

7.Embed wellbeing in training and professional development.

We will continue to strengthen support for professional development. We will ensure that training and development is underpinned by the Standard for Teachers’ Professional Development and that it includes mental health and wellbeing where appropriate. We will also ensure that teacher training and professional development continues to include a focus on managing pupil behaviour effectively.

8.Improve access to mental health and wellbeing resources.

We will work to improve access to high quality mental health and wellbeing resources online, with a particular focus on those that help employers and staff deliver the ‘organisational commitments.

9.Review

We will review progress made against our commitments in 2023. We will also review the impact of this charter in helping to protect, promote and enhance wellbeing among staff.

² Definition of colleges covers further education colleges, sixth-form colleges, independent specialist colleges, dance and drama colleges, independent learning providers, local authority providers, designated institutions, employer providers and higher education institutions that provide further education and/or apprenticeship training up to and including level 5.

³ This will include building wider wellbeing evidence into policymaking, such as measures of mental health stigma reduction.

Ofsted

Within the DfE Charter it states

“Ofsted recognises that we have a dual role to play in protecting and enhancing the wellbeing of staff. First, we are committed to making sure our requirements of schools and colleges on wellbeing are clear. Second, we recognise that staff can feel that inspections are a source of stress.

1 We will ensure that inspectors take staff wellbeing into account in coming to their judgements and monitor this through quality assurance and evaluation.

2 We will review whether the framework is having inadvertent impacts on staff wellbeing (for example, creating unnecessary workload) and take steps to alleviate any issues.

3 We will continue to clarify that we do not expect providers to create documentation for inspection, to try to reduce administrative workload.

• We will also be clear that:
• we do not grade individual lessons or people.
• we do not require evidence from any lesson visit that could be used in capability/disciplinary proceedings or for the purposes of performance management.
• we do not require lessons to be planned in a certain way or for lessons plans to be provided to inspectors.
• we do not require schools or colleges to prepare for inspections.
• we do not require schools or colleges to provide information in any specific format”

As an Independent Special School we are not able at the current time to sign up to this Charter as only maintained schools can sign up to it. As and when we can, KS Education Limited will sign up to it.

S. Damerall & R. Smith

Reviewed: June 2024

Appendix 1 – Wellbeing Charter

Supporting Staff Wellbeing at Roselyn House School

Teaching, Learning & Assessment

• We ensure continuous development of “ready to use” schemes of work and resources to aid preparation time.
• We work hard to ensure assessment expectations are reasonable and consideration is given to times of increased assessment. Teachers have an “assessment week” which allows off-timetable assessment time during the school day. In lieu of teachers’ meetings, additional assessment time is also provided at various times in the year.
• Our learning maps are completed once a year, so teachers are able to ‘pre-plan’ sessions and know expectations well in advance.
• Our Heads of Schools are readily available to support routines and implementation of learning within classes
• At least one department teachers meeting per term.

Behaviour and Pastoral Support

• We have behaviour and medical debrief system in place to support best-practice and consistency. The process highlights any wellbeing needs or signposting requirements.
• We have implemented generic behaviour frequency systems created to reduce workload.
• Each site has an available manager to support wellbeing.
• We celebrate our on-going professional development of staff to understand behaviour systems and functions of behaviour, decreasing anxiety around the management of behaviours that challenge. Including Team-teach, raising feelings of safety and shared responsibility.

Environment

• At Roselyn House School we aim for a place that staff are able to retreat to during break times, or any other time of need.

• We have wellbeing staff rooms on each site that staff are encouraged to use for moments of respite throughout the day.
• We have staff “Wellbeing” boards on each site, celebrating our colleagues (i.e. “staff shout outs”) and for information sharing about wellbeing support that is available.
• All departments have fans and water coolers to maintain a cool environment.

Performance Management

• Our performance management is viewed as a supportive measure and we value teacher’s ownership over their development.

• Teachers are not graded with ‘old’ terminology and lesson observation format is inclusive with teaching staff, ensuring staff voice is recognised and heard.
• Teachers have opportunity to reach out to their Heads of School for wellbeing support.

Staff Support

• At Roselyn House School we value staff voice and feel every member of staff should be heard.
• We survey staff wellbeing to get honest opinions about how to improve and ask for feedback on our CPD offers to ensure these remain of value.
• Actions are taken as a result of staff voice surrounding workload.
• Stress in the workplace risk assessments are undertaken as required and OH referrals are supported.
• There is a staff suggestions box on each site
• We have a therapist onsite once a week offering 1:1 and group supervision for staff.

Communication and Meetings

• We hold regular meetings for all staff to ensure effective communication and cascading of essential information.
• Our bulletin handouts are available to all staff, and key issues raised are open for discussion during these meetings.
• Where a meeting can be avoided or finish early, this is permitted to support wellbeing and time management.
• We promote an “open door” leadership style.

Professional Development

• We highly value professional development and strive to ensure all colleagues have the opportunity to develop their knowledge.
• We have a vast CPD offer to all colleagues, including external, accredited and internal training opportunities. CPD twilights also include wellbeing support sessions as we regard this highly at Roselyn House School.

Wellbeing Charter

Supporting staff wellbeing at Roselyn House School

What wellbeing support is available to me?

✓ Support from our in house Therapist

✓ Advice on work-life balance

✓ Mental Health support

✓ Practical activities guide to reducing stress i.e. breathing techniques

✓ Job-specific wellbeing knowledge and support.

www.educationsupportpartnership.org.uk

MENTAL HEALTH AT WORK

✓ Guide to workplace wellbeing for employees

✓ Information on how to improve health at work

✓ EveryMindMatters

WWW.MENTALHEALTHATWORK.ORG.UK

Additional website links:

http://www.actionforhappiness.org

http://www.verywellmind.com

http://www.verywellmind.com