FEATURE FOCUS: RECRUITMENT & RETENTION
Putting our people first: how West Lea’s ‘magic formula’ positively impacts wellbeing and outcomes
Everything that we do at West Lea School is anchored by our values of Community, Inclusion, Learning for Life, Innovation and Kindness. These are lived, taught and modelled across our whole school community and backed up by our vision, “we believe in a world where everyone can flourish”. To do this successfully, we identified four pillars that underpin all our work to help us create an extraordinary school; a great place to work; a great place to learn; and life-changing communities.
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n our second look this month at recruitment and retention we hear from Renee Flourentzou, Director of Education at West Lea School, who explains how the school’s ‘magic formula’ has created a flourishing learning and teaching environment for the whole school community.
We recognised that in order to give our learners the best opportunities to flourish, we first needed to start with our people. And so, our ‘magic formula’ was created: flourishing people = flourishing pupils = flourishing communities. This formula is not revolutionary, in fact, it’s been tried and tested across many sectors. For example, take customer service. Leaders will build teams focused on excellent service and communication. For commercial entities, the key is to build a happy workforce, which in turn creates happy customers, resulting in good profits and happy shareholders. This begs the question as to whether we’re missing a trick in the education sector? While statements like ‘putting children first’ are commonplace – with all the right intentions – should we in fact be considering that the best way to deliver an exceptional educational experience for pupils is by prioritising the people supporting them. It can only be
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achieved through our people and with our people – after all, education is a people business, people helping other people.
Helping our people to flourish This ethos of putting people first underpins our entire strategic framework and is based on Robert Greenleaf’s ‘servant leadership’ approach. This is a non-traditional concept of leadership that sees leaders prioritise the growth and wellbeing of the people and communities they serve. This doesn’t simply span those working within education but is a notion that can be carried across all sectors and organisations. We want our people to be inspired to truly believe in our mission at West Lea; something that can only be realised through leaders who encourage their teams to be the very best they can be.
Prioritising our people’s own personal development in this way in turn supports their wellbeing and active participation in the school’s mission. Not only do the learners benefit, as engaged staff and teachers engage learners, but we create an atmosphere that is motivating, fulfilling and rewarding. A place where our people actively want to work, develop and stay for the long-term.
By encouraging and supporting our staff to lead by example and display positive behaviours and mindsets, our learners can gain far more academically and socially; breaking down barriers
March 2024
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