Dr. Helen Kelly
Dr. Helen Kelly is an exceptional educational leader and former school principal, author and renowned keynote speaker focusing on wellbeing in schools. She provides practical support for schools and school leaders and has just launched The International School Wellbeing Audit, a blueprint for community wellbeing in international schools.
Helen, in collaboration with the UK-based company School Improvement Tracker you have released your International School Wellbeing Audit. Can you tell us more about this pioneering project?
Over the past year, many educators and leaders from international schools have asked me if there is a tool to help schools evaluate, monitor and improve international school wellbeing. The International School Wellbeing Audit is specifically designed to account for the unique needs of international schools in a range of contexts and includes a focus on all stakeholder groups including students, staff, leaders and parents. The audit provides recommendations for schools to improve community wellbeing in the following areas;
Positive School Culture
Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Anti-racism
Physical and Mental Health Awareness and Support
Staff Recruitment, Roles, Workload and Professional Development
Student and Staff Conduct and Behaviour
Orientation and Transition
This is the only evaluation and tracking tool currently available that provides such a comprehensive guide to wellbeing in international schools. It is completely research-based and represents best practice in the field of school and workplace wellbeing. It takes account of the standards of all major international school accrediting agencies. It is basically everything I know about school wellbeing available in one place and so it is very exciting for me to be able to launch this. You can book a demo here
During the last two schools years, school communities around the world have been dealing with the global pandemic. How can schools move forward?
Schools around the world have spent the last 15 months in crisis management mode. It is still hard for many of them to look forward but there are some schools that are forward planning and are making the most of the opportunity provided by the pandemic to rethink how they do things. There are two trends I see emerging. The first has come from discussions about how we ensure students catch up with their learning while also addressing their wellbeing needs. Pioneering schools understand that this is not just a short-term issue to be resolved, while we deal with the fallout of the pandemic, but that wellbeing is in fact at the very core of effective learning. Academic success and wellbeing are not competing forces, rather they go hand in hand with each other. Pioneering schools are focusing on building strong relationships among all stakeholders as a foundation for wellbeing but also empowering students to take ownership of their learning to ensure they are fully engaged and experiencing both a sense of meaning and a sense of accomplishment at school.
The second trend I see emerging relates to staff wellbeing. Most schools have struggled to balance student needs with teacher needs during the pandemic and teachers in schools all over the world are exhibiting worrying signs of burnout. Staff wellbeing initiatives, while well-intended, are often piecemeal and lack impact. Pioneering schools are taking a more strategic approach to staff wellbeing and working with their staff to understand what they need and put plans in place to implement meaningful changes, over time, that will not be swept away once things return more to normal.
School leaders have been under enormous pressure to keep learning going and look after the wellbeing of their communities at the same time. What support needs to be given to school leaders, what can be done to increase their wellbeing?
I have spent the past 15 months engaging daily with school leaders from hundreds of schools globally and I honestly believe that the situation regarding their wellbeing is very bleak. The challenges that school leaders face around the world are pretty universal, high levels of expectation from government and parents to maintain quality learning for students while ensuring everyone remains safe; supporting the mental health needs of multiple stakeholder groups; dealing with the financial fallout of the pandemic, all with very little support from the government or from their professional organisations. In my 2020 report School Leader Wellbeing During the COVID 19 Pandemic I made a number of recommendations, including improved communication from the government; the development of COVID task forces across clusters of schools; ring-fencing of budgets to support school leader wellbeing through initiatives such as one-to-one coaching, the development of leader networks and crisis management and mental health support training and finally the provision of proper recovery time for leaders at weekends and during school holidays.
What other projects are you working on right now?
I have a publishing contract for my first book, which will be about school leader wellbeing, so I am very busy with that at the moment. It should be out early next year, which is very exciting. I also have a few conferences and webinars coming up where people can catch me.
Thank you, Helen and good luck with your first book!
Find out more about Helens’ inspiring work: www.drhelenkelly.com
