Staff Wellbeing Challenge

Term 1 had been extremely busy as we developed new curriculum structures and collaborative ways of working all whilst continuing to design great learning experiences for our students at AGE. Our teachers at AGE were starting to feel the strain of this as we approached the end of term. In recognition of this, I shared Te Whare Tapa Whā with the staff and talked about the need for maintaining all aspects of our wellbeing.

Image via Te Ara

For the holidays, I set a challenge for us all to think of what we could do to work on our physical, spiritual, mental and social wellbeing. Here’s how I set about rebalancing my hauora/wellbeing over the recent school break.

Taha Tinana – Physical health

The trusty steed parked at work

In the first week of school holidays I took advantage of the long end of Summer/fine start of Autumn to ride my bike to work each day. Having a bit less time pressure made this an easy way to add more exercise into my week. It isn’t a long bike ride to work but I really enjoyed starting and ending my day by cruising past clogged traffic as I rode along a mix of roads and bike paths to reach work. Now, I just have to find a way to make this happen more during term time! Continue reading

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Lessons from Term 2

While playing with family over the first week of these holidays I have been reflecting back over last term. This reflection has led to me finding 5 key takeaways to remember in future.

1. Name the Elephant in the room

If you can name the issue/concern that is bugging you at the time it arises it allows your team to move forward together much quicker. An effective team has healthy working relationships and can deal with these situations, not get stuck on taking things personally.

2. Take the time to get students defining the problem

An extremely important step in problem solving is actually defining the right problem at the start. So often students are given the problem by the teacher. This term Pete McGhie and I really found out how powerful it is to get students defining the problem themselves. More time consuming but incredible learning ensued!

3. Teach less and teach it better

Page 34 New Zealand Curriculum

Page 34 New Zealand Curriculum

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