Putting Staff First

If we don't ensure that our teachers are physically and mentally well, they cannot be their best for their students.If we do not ensure, first and foremost, that our teachers are feeling physically and mentally well, they cannot be their best for their students. Consequently, a school which does not prioritize staff wellbeing is disadvantaging its own students. �Students first' is a misplaced sentiment: the best thing for students is a happy, healthy, motivated, well-trained, expert staff. By putting staff first you are providing for students the one thing which will help them make good progress in their learning: truly great teaching. Whilst it is easy to say that schools would not exist if it were not for the students, the glib converse is that without truly great school staff, the students would not be taught. What we need - as recruiting subject specialist teachers, school leaders and specialist support staff becomes increasingly difficult - is a revolution in how we treat our school staff. We have to put our staff before our students because it is the only hope we have of securing what our students need most: a world class education. The longer our schools are populated with hypoxic adults, we imperial all our futures.

If we do not ensure, first and foremost, that our teachers are feeling physically and mentally well, they cannot be their best for their students. Consequently, a school which does not prioritise staff wellbeing is disadvantaging its own students. 'Students first' is a misplaced sentiment: the best thing for students is a happy, healthy, motivated, well-trained, expert staff. By putting staff first you are providing for students the one thing which will help them make good progress in their learning: truly great teaching. Whilst it is easy to say that schools would not exist if it were not for the students, the glib converse is that without truly great school staff, the students would not be taught. What we need - as recruiting subject specialist teachers, school leaders and specialist support staff becomes increasingly difficult - is a revolution in how we treat our school staff. We have to put our staff before our students because it is the only hope we have of securing what our students need most: a world class education. The longer our schools are populated with hypoxic adults, we imperial all our futures. What follows is a blueprint for the school system which puts our school staff before students.

In Putting Teachers First, author and speaker Brad Johnson offers tons of invaluable tips for building and maintaining strong, dynamic relationships with your teachers, leading to greater job satisfaction, lower turnover, and improved performance across the board. You’ll learn how to boost teacher morale and drive engagement by providing sincere feedback and recognition, creating incentives for teaching excellence, building trust between all faculty members, and more. Topics covered: The Importance of Teacher Satisfaction Motivating Your Teachers to Succeed Creating a Culture of Appreciation Learning to Become a Selfless Leader Inspiring Teachers to Remember Their Purpose Developing Your Emotional Intelligence Communicating and Connecting Effectively Building a Cohesive Team Celebrating Successes Each chapter includes practical advice as well as inspiring stories and anecdotes to motivate you on your journey.

"This book answers 'why not' and 'how to' for health care accreditation bodies, quality experts, and frontline professionals, moving the reader from timely information, to inspiration, and through patient-centered action with practical tools and potent case studies." Paul vanOstenberg, DDS, MS, vice president, Accreditation and Standards, Joint Commission International "This superb guide from Planetree illustrates that providing high-quality, high-value, patient-centered health care is not a theoretical ideal. The case studies make clear that these goals are attainable; they are being achieved by leading health care organizations worldwide, and there is a clear road map for getting there right here in this book." Susan Dentzer, senior policy adviser to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation "At IHI, we follow the principle, 'all teach, all learn' the idea that everyone, everywhere has something to teach, and something to learn. This remarkable and indispensable guide is as pure an example of this principle as I've come across." Maureen Bisognano, president and chief executive officer, Institute for Healthcare Improvement "The International Society for Quality in Health Care's mission is to inspire, promote, and support continuous improvement in the quality and safety of health care worldwide. It is in this spirit that we welcome this new book on patient-centered care. As in their previous work, the authors demonstrate just how critical it is to develop an organizational culture that puts patients first." Peter Carter, chief executive officer, International Society for Quality in Health Care

This practical and accessible guide tackles the challenges that busy childcare educators face with their mental health in what is a wonderful, rewarding, but often exhausting role. Drawing from "day-in-the-life" experiences and case studies, this book sets out high-quality staff wellbeing practices that can revolutionise the way childcare practitioners approach their job and their own health. Chapters guide the reader through a process of reflection and development, encouraging and empowering them to create a workplace culture that positively contributes to their personal wellbeing. This book: • Focuses on the realities of Early Years education, combining the author's lived experience with examples of real-life practice. • Encourages educators to think and feel positively about themselves; to identify the individual skills, strengths and talents they bring to their work. • Can be used individually or collaboratively by team members, with guidance on creating a positive workplace culture with a shared vision, core values and beliefs. Essential reading for anybody who finds that the job they love can sometimes leave them feeling worn out, stressed and depleted, this book has been written to enrich the lives of all training and practising Early Years Educators.

Brasksamp (emeritus, education, Loyola U., Chicago), along with colleagues at Northwestern and Washington State, discuss their study of how ten diverse church-related colleges and universities (of some 900) prepare their students for life beyond the campus. Through a "4C framework" based on personal investment theory--culture, curriculum, co-curriculum (connecting in-class and out-of-class experiences), and community, they examine the career training, intellectual, moral, and spiritual contexts in which this mission is pursued. Questions are posed about how campuses can support holistic student development.

Schools need to have purchase on the curriculum: why they teach the subjects beyond preparation for examinations, what they are intending to achieve with the curriculum, how well it is planned and enacted in classrooms and how they know whether it’s doing what it’s supposed to. Fundamental to this understanding are the conversations between subject leaders and their line managers. However, there is sometimes a mismatch between the subject specialisms of senior leaders and those they line manage. If I don’t know the terrain and the importance of a particular subject, how can I talk intelligently with colleagues who are specialists? This book sets out to offer some tentative answers to these questions. Each of the national curriculum subjects is discussed with a subject leader and provides an insight into what they view as the importance of the subject, how they go about ensuring that knowledge, understanding and skills are developed over time, how they talk about the quality of the schemes in their departments and what they would welcome from senior leaders by way of support. We have chosen this way of opening up the potentially difficult terrain of expertise on one side and relative lack of expertise on the other, by providing these case studies. They are suggested as prompts rather than the last word. Informed debate is, after all, the fuel of curriculum development. And why Huh? Well, 'Huh?' may be John's first response when he walks into a Year 8 German class but, in fact, we chose 'Huh' as the title of our book as he is the Egyptian god of endlessness. As Claire Hill so eloquently comments in her chapter, “Curriculum development is an ongoing process; it’s not going to be finished, ever.” And we believe that 'Huh' captures a healthy and expansive way of considering curriculum conversations.

A human-centric guide to solving complex problems in engineering management, from sizing teams to handling technical debt. There’s a saying that people don’t leave companies, they leave managers. Management is a key part of any organization, yet the discipline is often self-taught and unstructured. Getting to the good solutions for complex management challenges can make the difference between fulfillment and frustration for teams—and, ultimately, between the success and failure of companies. Will Larson’s An Elegant Puzzle focuses on the particular challenges of engineering management—from sizing teams to handling technical debt to performing succession planning—and provides a path to the good solutions. Drawing from his experience at Digg, Uber, and Stripe, Larson has developed a thoughtful approach to engineering management for leaders of all levels at companies of all sizes. An Elegant Puzzle balances structured principles and human-centric thinking to help any leader create more effective and rewarding organizations for engineers to thrive in.