The staff team at Avenue Primary School is a diverse group of skilled professionals who really care about the job that they do. Our staff work really hard for our children and community.
As a school, we want to ensure that staff are supported and encouraged to develop personally and professionally. We recognise that staff are our most important resource and we seek to value our staff through personal and professional support, involvement in school decisions and access to professional development.
As a school we have signed up to the Department for Education’s Wellbeing Charter and we are committed to ensuring the school carries out the 11 responsibilities associated with this. These are:
- Prioritising staff mental health
- Giving staff the support they need to take responsibility for their own and other people’s wellbeing
- Giving managers access to the tools and resources to support the wellbeing of those they manage
- Establishing a clear communications policy
- Giving staff a voice in decision-making
- Driving down unnecessary workload
- Championing flexible working and diversity
- Creating a good behaviour culture
- Supporting staff to progress in careers
- Including a sub strategy for protecting leader wellbeing and mental health
- Holding ourselves accountable, including by measuring staff wellbeing
The school has a Staff Wellbeing and Mental Health Policy which outlines our approach to this area, the commitments and responsibilities being made by Governors, the Senior Leadership Team and all staff. This can be found on the Policies page of the school’s website as well as below.
We recognise that staff need varying levels of wellbeing support at different times. This is categorised into universally available, targeted support and specialist support.
- Some of the provisions available are:
- Weekly thank you sent in staff communication
Weekly mindfulness sessions for staff - Staff coffee mornings
- Positive “postcards” sent to staff to thank for significant contributions of the week
- Weekly session available for staff to drop in and meet the school’s Education Mental Health Practitioner
- Teacher’s weekly ‘Preparation, Planning and Assessment’ time given together as a year group wherever possible
- Staff Social events half termly
- Continued Professional Development opportunities and provision
- Access to supervision, counselling along with other wellbeing services provided by the School Advisory Service
- Signposting to wider NHS support services