Being Well

A few years ago a school I know got involved in a project to improve the 'wellbeing' of staff. It was announced, with some fanfare, that they would participate in a project devised by a consultancy which involved identifying key areas for improvement and developing an action plan with the school. There were testimonials from other Local Authorities as to the efficacy of this initiative. 2 colleagues were trained, 2 staff meetings given over to passing on the fruits of that training, all leading to the entire staff having to complete an online, supposedly anonymous, questionnaire with questions about how they felt about and within the school, with a large section on management. By lying about such things as age, sex, number of years experience etc anonymity was indeed preserved. The completed questionnaires were then analysed by the company which had sold this tosh to the LA – I have no doubt that their motives were pure.

When the analysis came back, accompanied by a couple of suits to explain it to SMT, the results were truly awful, despite being couched in the most sickeningly positive consultant-speak. Management were shocked to discover the low esteem in which they were held, the lack of team spirit and respect for decision makers, the almost universal sense of unfairness, abandonment and thinly disguised chaos. Communication with and between staff was highlighted as a major problem area. The result? after hundreds of hours and thousands of pounds worth of teacher time? the school ended up with a foil covered shoe box, marked ‘suggestions’ in the staff room. It was removed after a week because of the vicious and anatomically threatening nature of the suggestions inserted into it. The shiny new policy, sweated over for minutes by a time-server on SMT, the action plan and indeed the whole project were quietly forgotten about, never mentioned again.

Moral: Ask the wrong questions and you will always get the wrong answers, create the wrong ethos and all your outcomes will be wrong, even if they look right in light of the targets you are working to.