In February, a national wellbeing survey of Australian schools conducted by Tes found 55% of teachers lack a good work-life balance and manageable workload.
The survey also found that just 28% of staff believe they are given a voice in how decisions are made in their school, with more than 44% of respondents say that they are not.
To address these issues, the company behind the study has launched a new online tool to help schools manage staff professional development in a way that aligns with their organisational goals while reducing administrative workloads.
The Standards Tracker – developed by UK company Educate and acquired by Tes – offers a single dashboard and platform that manages staff self-evaluation, development, appraisals and employee engagement, as well as continuous performance management and career development.
Tes CEO, Rod Williams, said schools continue to struggle with managing the process of staff professional development, highlighting issues such as multiple data sets, unclear goals and often inefficient paper-based processes causing confusion and wasted time.
“Tes’ Staff Management solution provides best-in-class tools for schools to connect the needs of staff and staffing challenges,” Williams said.
“By adding Standards Tracker, it will allow us to continue to improve the support and connectivity of staff objectives, training needs and achievements as teachers progress through their careers”.
James de Bass, co-founder, and CEO of Educate said the Standards Tracker is “very complimentary to how Tes already supports schools, and they have the ability to take it to the next level”.
“That makes this an obvious choice for us. Having a company like Tes, who is so passionate about school wellbeing and standards, makes us feel proud to see how this will now move forward”.
As staff and student mental health issues persist in the wake of the pandemic, there are calls for schools to undertake considered, logical, collaborative and inclusive planning that includes continuous feedback from staff about how they are feeling and coping.
Tes Australia education expert Tim Waley said leadership groups need to be on “a continuous pathway” to developing flexible approaches that will suitably prepare staff for whatever eventuality arises or that demands changes or adjustments in the school’s approach to delivery.
“Staff professional development and support is fundamental for such planning and will in turn assist develop confidence and a sense of genuinely focussed concern for developing their skills and capacities, and thus for their wellbeing,” Waley told The Educator.
“There remains significant data in this report that also affirms positive staff feelings across a number of areas that can affect their wellbeing, so there is still much to feel optimistic about in terms of teacher and leadership resilience.:
Waley said the COVID experience has not truly acknowledged or given credit to the significant contribution parents have made towards assisting children and teachers through the enforced home learning demands.
“This provides leadership with yet another area worthy of their attention in planning for a more informed, knowledgeable, flexible, yet critical aspect of the support fabric in considering approaches to developing such a key resource to support student learning,” he said.
“Collaborative home/school approaches can only be a positive catalyst for building improved wellbeing outcomes in this domain.”