WELLBEING Techniques to help plan your future


In his regular column for Education Today this month, Mark Solomons - creator of triple ERA Award- winning Welbee, an online evaluation and staff wellbeing improvement tool - author of ‘What Makes Teachers Unhappy and What Can You Do About It?’ acclaimed speaker and wellbeing expert with over 14 years’ experience developing leadership and culture in education – discusses using backward design to plan future change.


• What were you able to do during the school week to maintain a healthy balance, and what activities did you enjoy undertaking?


Then think about any other questions you can ask yourself, ones that will highlight all the positive steps and actions you took. You now have a list that underpinned your success.


Step 2:


Now perform the second exercise. Imagine once again it is January 2025, but this time you are not in the position you would like to be in, 2024 did not work out to be the year you wanted. Perhaps it just continued along with more of the same, with too high levels of stress or maybe even burnout.


N


ew year is often a time for reflection and planning. Looking forward to 2024, what would you like to achieve? What changes would you like to make? Although we may have little control over external challenges, such as education policy and funding, we can invest in some personal time for ourselves, and focus on self-managed change – after all, the person most vested in a different future for you, is likely to be you!


The latest statistics continue to show increases in stress and burnout, while recruitment remains challenging and too many people continue to leave the profession. Recent surveys and reports, including the 2023 Teacher Wellbeing Index from Education Support, once again highlighted many of the key challenges facing those working in education - teachers, leaders, and support staff. The headline results from the Index, show: • workplace stress at an all-time high, with 78% of education staff, 89% of senior leaders and 95% of headteachers experiencing it


• 21% of teachers and 24% of leaders reporting acute stress


• 39% of staff had mental health issues due to work, 35% of staff and 40% of senior leaders also reporting signs of burnout - once again levels reached an all-time high


• 55% said their institution’s culture negatively impacted on the mental health and wellbeing of staff.


If 2023 wasn’t the year you would have liked it to be, what can you do to stop 2024 being a repeat. What can you do differently to make 2024 a better - or perhaps an even better - year at work?


If you want to make self-managed change, one approach is a technique called backward planning


or future perspective. Some may be familiar with a similar model used in curriculum design – ‘Backwards by Design’, Wiggins and McTighe, where assessment of learning goals and skills provides the basis for how the content is taught, rather than the more traditional content-based design. The model is considered more intentional. Its more akin to a tennis or other sports player visualising the game they want to play and their technique, and then working with their coach on how to get there.


On a personal level, backward planning involves undertaking a short three-step exercise. It’s not always easy and for some it will be uncomfortable - just give it a try.


Step 1:


Imagine its January 2025, you are one year on. Picture where you would like to be - the work and home life you want – jump straight there, don’t think about how you got there. Now look back over the past 12 months of 2024, and start to work through everything that made it successful.


Think of what you achieved along the way (remember we are a year ahead and looking back) that made it your best year yet – better still, make a list of them on a tablet, phone, or piece of paper. Ask yourself the following questions: • How were you able to achieve each success and what challenges did you overcome to make it such a good year?


• How did you remain calm and what actions did you take to overcome stressful situations, for example in managing workload, behaviour, or other people?


• Which colleagues helped and supported you and how did you make a difference to them?


• Outside work, what friends were you able to connect with, what events or trips did you go on?


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January 2024


Now ask questions about what stopped you succeeding, and list out actions and activities that hindered, rather than helped you. This might include workload (if so, be specific), a difficult colleague, change that you didn’t want to accept, a lack of flexibility – write them all down.


Step 3:


Use these two lists to plan for 2024. Against each of the items listed, think about what you will do to ensure all the actions, activities, and conversations you have on your first list happen. Then address the issues (work, people, behaviours) identified on your second list. Here’s an example, if ‘having a better work- life balance’ was one of the areas identified, and you recognised you could improve the balance by reducing the time worked outside school by 5 hours each week, then the steps to achieving this could include: • committing to stop work at 6pm three nights a week, whatever the situation


• prioritising the most important tasks, having a clear method to do this, and completing any outstanding work on the following day.


Planning backwards can be a powerful technique to help increase performance and mentally prepare for the future and the outcomes you want to achieve. When you plan forward, in the traditional way we all tend to do, it is easy to get bogged down in the detail, immediately creating barriers. We start to think of all the reasons why we can’t do something, or the difficulties we will face.


Like everything, to become effective, backward planning takes practise – but it may be helpful if you want 2024 to be different. Why not give it a try?


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