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Holly Little, Head of HR Operations – Cabot Learning Federation

 

The wellbeing of education staff has emerged as a key focus for Multi-Academy Trusts and schools in recent years.

In 2024, 78% of education staff reported feeling stressed, [i] so it is paramount that MAT leaders implement wellbeing strategies to ensure their teaching talent is retained.

Staff retention has never been as important as it is now. I’m sure like many other Multi-Academy Trusts, we don’t want to be constantly recruiting new staff. It’s essential our students have consistency. If you have high staff turnover, it can be unsettling for students and disruptive to their learning.

Wellbeing & Retention

 

There is a strong correlation between staff wellbeing and retention. Wellbeing is important to staff, if they feel they are in a workplace that isn’t supportive of their wellbeing or is contributing to poor wellbeing then that is going to be a reason to leave. Adopting wellbeing initiatives and creating a supportive environment go a long way towards avoiding high turnover and increasing retention.

 

This is why we appointed a Wellbeing Lead, from our Exec Team, who is responsible for the overall wellbeing sub-strategy. It is the responsibility of all Leaders and Principals across Cabot Learning Federation to ensure the wellbeing sub-strategy is implemented in their academy.

Learn more about CLF's vision

Data-led Initiatives

 

The importance of wellbeing is woven into everything we do. We include wellbeing in our manager documentation and training sessions and it is always part of the conversation. Stakeholders complete wellbeing check-ups regularly through both informal check-ins and more formal one-to-ones.

 

Our Exec Team meet with all Principals fortnightly at the Leadership forum. This allows Principals to highlight any wellbeing concerns to the Exec team, whilst ensuring Federation-wide initiatives are communicated to academy staff.

 

Discussions at the Leadership forum and data from exit interviews, sickness reports and employee surveys allow us to identify key trends and build into a wellbeing strategy and Federation action plan.

Mental Health and Wellbeing Leads

 

Every academy has a dedicated Mental Health and Wellbeing Lead. It is their responsibility to support the delivery of Federation-wide wellbeing strategy across their academy. A mental health awareness content calendar is built alongside the strategy to provide consistent messaging to the workforce.

 

It is important that we not only provide mental health awareness and allow our staff to speak to their Line Managers, but we give them the resource to be able to seek support. We offer an Employee Assistance Programme, which has been an invaluable resource for our workforce.

Wellbeing & Continuous Professional Development

 

I believe there is also a link between CPD and wellbeing. Following an employee survey, we identified that most non-teaching staff wanted more development. As a result of this, we ensured that 10% of the weekly work time was dedicated to CPD.

 

Our teachers also benefit from our institute where they have access to learning resources and training. Having this internal resource has impacted the progression of our staff with 83% of leadership roles are filled by internal candidates.

Review, review, review

 

Wellbeing and retention will always be a key focus for the Federation. It’s so important that we are looking at what more you can do especially in a competitive market.

 

At CLF we do things above and beyond. We have recently increased our maternity leave policy beyond the national standard. We offer generous salaries where we can include the maximum amount for teachers, under the teacher pay and conditions. CLF are currently benchmarking our non-teaching roles and comparing them with the market.

 

The work to supporting our staff wellbeing and increase staff retention will never cease. Our strategy may adapt as we continue to collect staff feedback and analyse the data.

 

Learn more about Cabot Learning Federation