The Teacher Wellbeing and Resilience research cluster provides the opportunity to explore aspects of wellbeing and resilience for all those involved in teaching. This includes trainee teachers, NQTs, subject coordinators, senior leaders and ITE tutors.
Research interests of cluster members include growth mindset, wellbeing and resilience on school placements, wellbeing and resilience of primary and secondary trainee teachers, transition between phases of the profession, pastoral support, mindfulness, mental health issues for trainee teachers, and emotional awareness and intelligence.
Members
Associate members
- Karen Rhys Jones (Glyndwr University)
- Alison D'Amario (Education and Child Psychologist, Trustee of Bee-lieve Foundation)
- Chris Attoe (Head of Research & Development, Maudsley Learning)
- Marta Ortega Vega (Research Assistant, Maudsley Learning)
The Teacher Wellbeing Award
The Teacher Wellbeing Award is being developed by St Mary’s University and Maudsley Learning based on our respective expertise in teaching and wellbeing, and our mutual drive to improve people’s lives. The award aims to provide individual teachers and whole schools with a framework to reflect and subsequently develop their current practice in order to support teacher wellbeing.
We are currently in the pilot phase of the award development and are looking for teachers and school leaders to join us in developing our process to showcase best practice around teacher wellbeing. If you or your teaching colleagues would like to learn more about the Teacher Wellbeing Award, please contact the team at twa@stmarys.ac.uk.
Child Bereavement Awareness
It can challenge the wellbeing and resilience of teachers when they need - often unexpectedly - to support a child or young person who has been bereaved. The School of Education at St Mary's is collaborating with the charity, Child Bereavement UK, and St Mary's Centre for the Art of Dying Well to increase awareness of, and confidence in, supporting children and young people who experience bereavement. The works includes bereavement awareness training for all primary and secondary trainee teachers at St Mary's, with the option to explore other areas (e.g. Bereavement and children with additional needs) in greater depth. The bereavement awareness sessions are also open to all teachers.
Bereavement Awareness Training
The importance of this work was recently recognised by Sky News when they visited St Mary's and one of our partnership schools, St Claudine's in NW London.
This podcast from The Art of Dying Well will also be of interest to teachers.
The next step for this collaboration will be a small-scale research project, January - July 2022, to begin to measure impact of the child bereavement awareness training on the knowledge, skills, understanding and confidence of early career teachers joining the profession.
PhD students
All research degree students at St Mary’s are part of the Doctoral College.
Latest news
- Professor Anna Lise Gordon from St Mary's University and Tracey Boseley from Child Bereavement UK will be presenting a session on Child Bereavement at the Universities' Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET) conference on 3rd November 2021. The presentation will include research context for our work, as well as an update on the positive benefits of collaboration, and some examples of the training sessions. We hope to inspire other initial teacher education providers to consider bereavement awareness as a necessary part of the curriculum for early career teachers.
- Jennifer Murray and Marta Ortega Vega have been invited to present their work on the development of the Teacher Wellbeing Award at the Universities' Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET) conference for teacher educators on 2nd November 2021. The presentation will include background research, process, report on pilot and initial findings.
- Professor Anna Lise Gordon has an article in the Journal of Education for Teaching (December 2020, Vol 46_5): "Educate – Mentor – Nurture: Improving the Transition from Initial Teacher Education to Qualified Teacher Status and Beyond". The article focuses on Gordon's research in England and Australia with early career teachers.
- Jenny Murray and Dr Julie Pearson have been invited to contribute to Advance HE’s Mental Wellbeing Symposium being held virtually on 17 February 2021.
- Jenny Murray and Associate Professor Christine Edwards-Leis have been invited, with Dr Alesia Moldavan of Fordham University, to present at the 65th Annual Conference of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES 2021) in April: Well-being in teacher education: Leveraging a digital platform in global contexts. They are also presenting their work to Birkbeck University on 20th January 2021 5-6pm as part of their seminar series.