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The Still Human Podcast is for teachers, leaders and school staff navigating the realities of working in education today.
Hosted by Julie Liddell and part of Edwin People's wellbeing and culture offering, this podcast features thoughtful conversations with teachers, principals, psychologists, authors and education leaders exploring what matters most: leadership in schools, staff culture, workload, burnout and sustainability.
Each episode focuses on supporting the people behind the roles, because thriving educational communities start with looking after the humans within them.
Still Human delivers training, workshops and strategic support for staff wellbeing and thriving cultures. Edwin People provide strategic leadership and HR services that help schools and multi-academy trusts grow confidently with people-centred solutions. Both part of the Edwin group, we work together to positively impact the lives of young people.
Learn more at www.stillhuman.co.uk and www.edwinpeople.co.uk
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Still Human Podcast, where we dive deep into the heart of staff wellbeing within the education sector. In each episode, we bring to the table a diverse array of guests, including experienced teachers and leaders, experts in psychology, health and wellbeing, as well as thought leaders in the sector.
[00:00:15] Whether you are looking for practical tips, inspirational stories, or innovative approaches to wellbeing, our podcast aims to support, inspire and empower those dedicated to [00:00:25] nurturing the next generation. Tina Farr is the head teacher of St. Ebbs Church of England, aided primary school in Oxford, where she's been leading with passion and vision since 2018.
[00:00:34] With three decades of experience in education. Tina has served in various leadership positions before her current tenure as head teacher at St. Ebbs at the heart of Tina's leadership. Is a deep commitment to fostering curiosity, courage, and connection. Three core values that shape the culture of her [00:00:50] school.
[00:00:50] She believes that education should be joyful, both for children and for staff, and works to create an environment where learning is meaningful. Relationships are nurtured, and creativity is encouraged. Inspired by Sir Ken Robinson's Ted Talk. Do schools kill creativity? Tina is passionate about re-imaging education in a way that brings joy, fulfillment, and purpose to both pupils and teachers.
[00:01:12] And for Tina, joy is not an incidental part of school [00:01:15] life. It is essential. She recognizes that when teachers feel valued and supported, they bring their best selves to the classroom. Creating a ripple effect that benefits the entire school community through strong relationships, a focus on wellbeing, and a belief in the power of education to change lives.
[00:01:31] She's leading St. Ebbs as a place where both children and staff thrive, grow, and find joy in learning.[00:01:40]
[00:01:41] So, hi Tina. Thanks for joining me today. I really appreciate your time. And I'm interested in the work you do about Joy at St. Ebbs up there in Oxfordshire. So it can sometimes feel like a luxury, can't it, in that high pressured environment. So how do you define joy in the context of your school and why is that important to your staff?
[00:02:00] Hi Mary. It's great to be here. Thank you for asking me to talk about Joy. I think [00:02:05] it's been squeezed out of the profession and I know that your organization is very interested in why it is that. Teachers and head teachers in particular become so burnt out. So one of my missions, our missions is that that doesn't happen to any of us here.
[00:02:19] And I certainly feel very joyful in doing my job. I wake up genuinely wanting to come to school in the morning. There's several answers to this, so. Let me know when I'm, when you've had enough [00:02:30] of all the different things I'm gonna say. I think the first thing is that, uh, schools are measured and they measure themselves on a single objective.
[00:02:38] So we measure ourselves just on test results, you know, a and or Ofsted success if you like. And like a lot of schools, we've got a really strong vision, which is wise, compassionate citizens with the power to make a difference. And that. Quite literally can't be measured just with SATs results. So [00:02:55] we take our S SATs results seriously.
[00:02:56] We have to, and we prepare our our year sixes in a compassionate way for them, but it's school for us is about so much more, or education is about so much more than just that single objective. So we can't measure that vision just with that. One of the really key things for us, and this has come from working with my chair of governor, Steve Whittler, who's a huge systems thinker.
[00:03:17] Really, really talented in that area. Really passionate [00:03:20] about it is understanding that the education system is treated like it's a machine. And machine-like thinking leads to hierarchies. And hierarchies lead to fear. And that fear comes from the very top of our education system. And it filters right down through school leaders who I think do their very best to filter that out.
[00:03:38] And that's why they end up so depleted and it can't help but come through to our staff. And then that impacts [00:03:45] on children. And then you get the joy being sucked out of the profession. So we've learned to think about our school as an organic system. So organic systems, plants, cats. Dogs. Humans have machine-like parts that work automatically, but mostly they are alive and they change every day and they respond to the environment that's around them.
[00:04:07] And we've found that that's a much healthier [00:04:10] way to lead a school. It helps us to understand that. There's uncertainty in school leadership. It stops us from falling for that lie that we're told that everything's linear and young people progress along a linear line and they're at this stage at five and this stage at seven and this stage at 11, we know that's not true.
[00:04:27] Education is chaotic and it's messy. So I think we manage our expectations of school by expecting a bit it to be fun of surprises [00:04:35] and some of those surprises are welcome and some, some are unwelcome. That helps us to be realistic about where we are. The other thing, and I think back to my own start in education, which is 30 years ago this September, is that, and this is certainly how I, how I learn to be, is that we are flexible in response to that organic system, to the young people that are in front of us.
[00:04:55] And I think with the rise and rise of pre-written schemes of work and the [00:05:00] temptation to just download them and deliver them, and somehow someone who knows more than you has written something. Brilliant that you should deliver to your class really removes that joy that you have as a teacher when you're responding to the curiosities and the questions that young people bring and that, that open-hearted willingness to learn together.
[00:05:17] So, yeah, that's my short answer to that question is that yes, no, I completely understand everything you said, and I think it's so important that you talk [00:05:25] there about, um, this concept of measuring and this hierarchy. And that was, that was certainly something that I did in my own research actually. It was looking at how you can't measure people, you know.
[00:05:35] Some things just are unmeasurable and I think joy is one of them, which is great. It's great that you're bringing that to your school. So how do you embed that wellbeing culture at St. Ebbs? So we've heard about why you think it's important, which I wholeheartedly agree with, but what have you done to [00:05:50] ensure that you really do embed wellbeing and it's not just a tick box exercise, which can so often be the case?
[00:05:55] So there's a few things. I think firstly, it's about the way that we. Think about wellbeing. I think my job as a school leader is to cultivate the soil in which the young people and. Staff that I lead and myself can learn and grow and flourish and understand that we're all on a, on a learning journey and we [00:06:15] all have the capacity to, to learn and grow and change.
[00:06:17] We thought again about how we think about wellbeing. So I think wellbeing in schools can often be seen as somehow the responsibility of the leadership team to make sure that the staff are well. And I, my personal view is that there's things that we can do to make sure that it's a lovely place to work in terms of how we develop.
[00:06:35] Our culture, but I think it's also important that we understand. [00:06:40] Two things. One, that we understand that happiness and wellbeing comes from really strong human connections, and we can't do that for people. You know, as I said, we can create a lovely culture. We can cultivate the soil where young people and adults can grow and thrive, but people have to cultivate their own relationships with each other as a staff team and understand the, the value in that, and also the relationships that we have with the children.
[00:07:03] That we're teaching. I [00:07:05] also recently discovered Aristotle's definition of happiness, the EU ammonia definition, which I'm sure you are familiar with. And for listeners who aren't, it's about the process of human flourishing and becoming more of the person that you are meant to be. So my views changed on wellbeing.
[00:07:21] You know, I, I still, I still. Crumpets in the staff room, sometimes in donuts, and, you know, we make sure that those things are in place, but that's, that's not enough. You need to [00:07:30] have an environment where people feel that they can grow and change, where they are allowed to make mistakes. And that, as I said earlier, that mistakes are expected because this is a rocky road that we're, we're on when we are, when we're teaching.
[00:07:42] Something that I do as a leader, which has made a big difference. I, I read a lot, I listen to a lot of podcasts. I tend to listen to leadership books on Audible and rabbit hole and rabbit hole from one, from one to another. You know, as different [00:07:55] recommendations come up and, and other people recommend things.
[00:07:57] And I take tiny little snippets and teach them to the staff team. So one was Nia. So I taught them about the difference between eudemonia and head onnia and that idea that happiness comes from, from short term sort of springs of joy. But actually Eudemonia is a much longer term thing. And something I read in a really interesting book called In Everyone Culture by Robert Keegan and Lisa Leahy.
[00:08:18] And there's a quote inside the front cover and [00:08:20] it's, it's something along the lines of in every organization. People are doing two jobs, so they're doing the job that they're paid to do, and the second job is putting an equal amount of energy into hiding their mistakes, hiding their inadequacies, hiding the things that they don't know hiding.
[00:08:34] I thought, well, what would happen if I showed that to the staff team? So I did, and there was a gasp of, oh, that's me around the room. And you know, we all, we all admitted, oh yeah, that's me. Because te teaching [00:08:45] generally attracts people who've been quite good at school, I think, and people who want to please and want to do things well, and perhaps they're perfectionists.
[00:08:52] And the idea of sharing something that we don't know and being honest about it is quite difficult. I think. So actually just by openly saying, well, what, what would happen if we all decided not to do that second job? What would it be like here? And we just decided on that day that we wouldn't do it anymore.
[00:09:08] And I'm not naive enough to think that, [00:09:10] you know, there's, there's times when people don't share things that have gone wrong, but we do share a lot together, and that has to come from me as well. So I'm not up at the top of the pyramid of some paragon of virtue who never makes mistakes. You know, I'm, I feel that I can be vulnerable here in the culture that we've created, and my staff are okay with that.
[00:09:27] They don't see me as as weak if I share something that I'm finding difficult. So yeah, there, there's, there's lots. Really something else that's made a big difference [00:09:35] is we always do our training sessions in circles now, and we call it circle alchemy. And we, we tap into that ancient wisdom of storytelling where we would've.
[00:09:44] Told stories around a fire, and that's how we communicate. We start every single training session with a check-in. So we go round and everybody just gets to say how they're doing and they can share something personal, professional. Sometimes they share something funny from class or something that they're really proud of that's gone well.[00:10:00]
[00:10:00] Sometimes they'll say things are really difficult at home in the moment, you know, my mom's been poorly, or I'm selling the house, and it's horrendous, you know, and it helps us to understand that. Each other are human and that we're all going through different things. So that takes about 20 minutes and I think it's one of the best things that we've done.
[00:10:17] It leaves us around an hour to then go into our training session, but it often, you can feel the atmosphere in the room change because people have had a chance [00:10:25] to just be for a minute and to share and listen to each other. That's so interesting and it is that vulnerability piece We, we are finding a lot that if you really want to embed a culture of wellbeing, you have to have that psychological safety underpinning everything so that you can say, I've made a mistake and something didn't work.
[00:10:41] And it's that sort of safety and vulnerability that you really do need as that bedrock. And unless you have that, people aren't going to tell you what they're doing. Well, that you get [00:10:50] into that blame culture, don't you? I think sometimes of it wasn't me, it was them, because nobody wants to admit. So that's so interesting and really interesting about your circle of alchemy.
[00:10:58] I like that. Very good. So we talked just a little bit about hierarchies and obviously it's good to have a fairly flat system, I think, personally, but we do know that culture change and wellbeing has to be modeled from the top because if the head teacher of the school doesn't value it, [00:11:15] nobody else is going to feel they can value it.
[00:11:17] So what do you do personally to keep your own wellbeing on top form? How do you survive this? Several things, Mary and I've, I've learned, I've had to unlearn a lot of habits, I think. So you know, your first question was around high pressure. School environments and you know, schools really shouldn't be high, high pressure.
[00:11:35] And that's why we've got a lot of the problems that we have. But the response initially to that [00:11:40] is to work as fast and as hard as we can and to do everything quickly. And you know, earlier on in my headship career, I think I made, I made mistakes that could have been avoided if I'd slowed down. A little bit and thinking and, and slept on things, you know, that old dad did sleep on.
[00:11:53] It is really wise advice. One of the best bits advice you can give anybody. A really wise friend, David Lewin, who's head of Wood Farm primary school. He said to me one time as well, if there's a crisis in school, walk to it so that when you arrive [00:12:05] you are calm and you are able to respond in a proportionate manner because the few seconds that you'll save by running to it will leave you flustered.
[00:12:11] And you know, people need to know that when you come, when it's a crisis, you are going to be the person that. That knows what to do and can take control when others are worried or, or distressed. So that's really important. So I've, I've really learned in my more recent years to slow down. I think you have to slow down as you.
[00:12:27] Get older as well 'cause you can't maintain the same, the [00:12:30] same post. But I was like a whirlwind when I started headship and I generally walk slower now. I read quite a bit of Buddhist texts and, and a little bit of Taoism and that's taught me just to slow down and appreciate what's around me. And, and to notice on a practical level, I go rowing once a week, so I come in just slightly late to school.
[00:12:50] One day a week, or I perhaps work at home. So if we are fully staffed and everything's [00:12:55] smooth, I might just take half a day to work at home where I can get the doing bits done of headship. It's not all being with people and building warm relationships. There are doing bits that you have to do, and I find if I work at home for half a day a week, that I can get roughly 10 times as much of that.
[00:13:10] Done. Or sometimes I'll use that space just to, just to think being with people, I tend to notice now in my body if I've, if I've been in the office too much [00:13:20] or I've not been out and about in school. I love what Mary Myatt says about management. By wandering around, uh, leadership, by wandering around is one of the best things you can do for others and.
[00:13:29] Yourself because then you get to notice the warm, loving relationships that are in school and you know, you feel good from that. And the other thing I've learned to do as well is, you know, headship can bring intense interactions either with children or with staff or with parents at times. Not too many these days, [00:13:45] but they do happen.
[00:13:45] And they're necessary because somebody could be experienced and. Something really difficult and I've learnt to read my own body after those interactions and take myself off just for 15 minute walk down by the river just to reset because you never know when the next one's coming and the next person deserves me to be fully present and attentive.
[00:14:04] That's so interesting. It reminds me of the quote, um, of, you can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. [00:14:10] And it's that sort of, you can't stop things happening, but you have to manage yourself and get yourself prepared for the next wave, which is so interesting. So again, you touched on, um, these strong relationships and, you know, walking around schools and.
[00:14:22] Seeing your teams interact and you really get to know a school when you, when you walk round. So how do you foster those strong relationships and how do you make sure that it's a happy place for your team to work? So some of the things I've touched [00:14:35] on earlier, I think sharing some of those common things that we think where we have these deep belief systems that we need to hide our inadequacies and just making it okay to make mistakes and we have a.
[00:14:45] A mantra of no judgment, only learning. So some mistakes happen and we really need to make sure that they don't ever happen again. But if you go into a conversation with a staff member who's been at the center of that, and you go into that conversation with love and you, you go [00:15:00] into it and say, right, there's no judgment here.
[00:15:01] I believe you made the best decision that you could at the time, but this happens. So we need to make sure it doesn't happen again. What can we learn? Together. We also, obviously a huge part of, of being in school is the curriculum, so we have this incredible curriculum of hope. We've just been on a podcast with Rethinking Education, being interviewed by James Manion and David Cameron, along with Deborah Kidd about that, and Claire and I have been, that's my deputy [00:15:25] head.
[00:15:25] We've been involved with the planning of that from the. So when we, the, the projects are really big and ambitious and they grow and change all the time. So when we embark on a new pro project, we always plan it with the teacher, not because we want to control it to an extent. We want to make sure we've got the right factors involved and we're following the same process.
[00:15:44] Because if the project doesn't work, then we can say, well, we all planned that. We're all accountable for it. The teacher's not [00:15:50] left feeling like they've somehow failed because everything they thought was going to work didn't. If the project goes really well, which generally they do, then the teachers. Has the praise for that from the parents and the, and the children and me and, and Claire.
[00:16:01] So I think those things are, are really, really important. And it, it's also given our teachers a really strong sense of autonomy and I think great schools focus on autonomy for their [00:16:15] teachers, for their. Teaching assistants that for every member of staff, and then that filters down to the children as well, because if people feel that they're allowed to be autonomous, I think they're more likely to set a classroom environment up where autonomy from the children is allowed it, you know, is facilitated and you just, again, it goes back to that organic system.
[00:16:34] You just get something that's a lot more interactive and a lot more alive. One of our [00:16:40] three core values is connection as well. We, we named our values after they'd happened, if you like. I don't, I think a piece of advice I would give to a new head is not to turn up at the school and say, right, these are the values.
[00:16:51] I'd say, wait, look at what's really great in the school, and then name them. That's what we did. So we ended up with curiosity, courage, and connection. And I had no idea at the time just how powerful that word connection was going to be for the children and for the staff. [00:17:05] And we use it all the time. The children use it.
[00:17:06] Families tell me it has a ripple effect in their homes. And I talked about the circles as well. Do you think taking the time to ask how you're doing and actually listening, not just that, passing in the corridor saying, you know, you are right. Yeah, I'm all right. You're right. You know, and it doesn't really mean anything.
[00:17:19] It's just a, it's just a greeting, which is fine, but. Actually listening and, and knowing at any one point in time which members of your staff are on fire and have got no issues going on, and are [00:17:30] absolutely fine and which aren't, so that we can all flex and bend to support each other as time goes on. And the team are fantastic here at stepping up when somebody's.
[00:17:39] Down and stepping in and covering or saying, take five minutes, I'll cover the class, or, you know, and I think that that permission to work in that way without asking me if that's okay, is really important. Yeah. I mean, that's amazing. And you just, you, you touched on almost the next question really, [00:17:55] which is, you know, you do have, uh, members of staff that have difficult days and sometimes they need support.
[00:18:00] So how do you help them regain that sense of joy? Because obviously you want your teachers to be joyful to pass that through into the students. So firstly, Mary, something I said earlier about not expecting each day to be smooth, and we teach this to the children as day as well. We teach them that the day will have learning pits in it.
[00:18:18] We're all familiar with growth [00:18:20] mindsets and learning pits and education and it's really interesting, one of that, one of our teachers who's got a class with quite a lot of challenges in at the moment, and that teacher shared in one of our circle. Sessions that, you know, this week's been tough, but I know it will pass.
[00:18:35] I know that I have the skills and we have the resources and the attitude in our. In our school that this will pass. So whilst, yes, I'm really tired this week and it's been really [00:18:45] hard, I know it will get better. So it's that sense of hope. It's not unrealistic. It's, you are, you are grounded in the reality of what's happening, but knowing that it, it won't last forever.
[00:18:54] A bad day is a bad day. Everyone has them. And I think that's a healthy thing to tell, to teach children as well, that we, you know, we can't all have a good day all of the time. That's life and, and how, it's how we respond that that matters. The other answer to that question that. I think I've really had to [00:19:10] unlearn is I thought I was a good listener, and actually I was okay, but I wasn't really listening without interrupting.
[00:19:18] So I, I've learned now when somebody comes to me and says they need to see me and they need to talk to me about something, whether it's professional, personal, whether that's a parent, staff, or children. My only job in the first instance is to listen until that person's finished. Speaking [00:19:35] and they might be upset, they might be angry, and it's to know that that's never.
[00:19:41] Very, very rarely is that about me. That's about how they're feeling. So to be able to suspend any of my own thoughts and just listen, I sometimes make the odd note just so that I don't miss anything. And then when that person's finished, I say, have you finished? May I respond? And then try and pick up on a couple of points and.
[00:19:58] I think that's really important. I think [00:20:00] we, we jump too quickly in school leadership into fixing things. Again, because of the high pressured environment, we want to get things off of our to-do lists, but that can of often cause problems further down the line. Whereas if we just listen in the first instance and we work if, for example, with, um, a parent of a child with special educational needs, that's a really difficult job for a parent.
[00:20:20] And the first thing is that that needs to be acknowledged. That I, I know this can be hard for [00:20:25] you at the time, but I'm, I'm here for you. We are here for you. Let's listen and let's find solutions together is so much better than me just saying, oh, well, let's put a visual timetable in place. Let's do this, let's do that.
[00:20:35] Have you tried this? Just leaving the parent feeling like they failed somehow, when actually what they need is someone to listen and to make solutions together because they know their children best. So it sounds like you've got a very supportive community with not just your staff, but [00:20:50] also with the parents.
[00:20:51] So which wellbeing initiatives specifically have been your little nuggets of joy? Which ones have worked really well? You mentioned your circle of alchemy, which I'm going to use, which is fantastic. So what else have you done that's really practical that other listeners could say, ah, that might be something we could introduce?
[00:21:07] I think going back to the curriculum of. Hope and that teacher autonomy. So because those, without [00:21:15] going too deeply into it, but because our projects have an inquiry question over the top that doesn't have a right answer, our teachers have now started engaging a lot more with that, with the children, and they don't ask me.
[00:21:27] It's very rare that somebody says, is it okay if I, because they. They know the policies, they know what the parameters are, they know where we're heading, should I say, rather than the parameters. They know where we're heading with our vision, so instinctively they'll know that [00:21:40] it's the right thing. So they don't need to come say, is it okay if I teach this instead of this?
[00:21:43] You know, they'll know that it's the right thing to do. I have a mantra of family first as well. We are humans first and professionals second, or those, although those two things are obviously intrinsically linked. But you know, if somebody has a funeral they need to attend that isn't of a close family member, but as someone who's really important to them, then the answer's yes.
[00:22:03] And I think that's important [00:22:05] as well. I think that we are far too inflexible in schools. We have all these perceived rules and policies that don't actually need to be there. They're not even written down anywhere in statute. There's statutory things that we have to do, and to be honest. I think I agree with the vast majority of those, but there's a lot of perceptions out there about things we should be doing in school and I think we can be really rigid.
[00:22:25] So, you know, a small example might be a parent coming to the office saying The [00:22:30] only swimming I could, swimming lesson I could get was at three 30, so I need to pick my child up 15 minutes earlier. The answer's yes. Right. That swimming lesson is more important actually in the grand scheme of things. And I think sometimes we say, no, no school doesn't finish till three 15 'cause we think we're worried about setting a precedent and actually having a mantra of the answer is yes, unless it absolutely can't be for practical or safeguarding reasons, is quite a healthy way to run a [00:22:55] school.
[00:22:55] 'cause we should just be saying, well, even with children's requests, you know, can I present my writing as a PowerPoint instead of a handwritten piece before I say, no, that's not what we're doing. Let me think about the reasons why I'm saying no and why it can't be. Yes. So that's something I've said about no judgment, only learning that mantra is really helpful when you're doing things like book looks.
[00:23:14] So we tend, we do, our book looks now completely in the open and we do them together. So we [00:23:20] have all the books out around the edge of the hall and every subject leader does it at the same time, along with Claire and I, and then we feed back. In a circle again at the end, and we look for common themes and patterns, so it's never done behind closed doors.
[00:23:33] So trying not to do anything that might leave people fearful that they're being judged or talked about it is really, really important. And two other really practical things with PPA. If sometimes teachers like [00:23:45] to plan together and in other weeks they don't need to plan together, they need to go home, like I said, and just work full on and get things.
[00:23:51] Done so people can go home if they need to, if they don't have to ask. They just need to let us know that they're going so we know where they are. And another small thing linked to that as well, with subject leader time. So subject leadership became a much bigger thing in the last Ofsted framework. It is now part of a primary school teacher's job, you know, whether we like it or not.
[00:24:09] And actually I [00:24:10] think in lots of ways that has led to some really good improvements in our school, in in foundation subjects. But saying that. They don't have to wait for me to say, or for my deputy to say, you've got Monday afternoon to do subject leadership. 'cause that might not be the right time actually to say, right Wednesday morning between 11 and 12, I've set my children off.
[00:24:28] They're okay without me for a minute. There's a safe adult with them looking after them, taking care of them. I'm gonna pop down to [00:24:35] year one and see what's happening in my subject then, and, and know that if I ask about that, it's just because I'm curious. It's not 'cause I'm checking up saying, where are you?
[00:24:43] Why aren't you in your class? I think that's so interesting and, and throughout this short interview, it's been clear that you've got a psychologically safe environment where people can work autonomously and be trusted and get support and, and show vulnerabilities as well, which is, you know, critical isn't it, in creating [00:25:00] that culture.
[00:25:00] So that's amazing. Thank you for that. And I'm just gonna ask you my last question, which. Something we always ask and we always say in the spirit of compassion, if you were to offer for listeners a suggestion of one kind thing they could do for themselves today, what would it be? I think the slow down walk.
[00:25:16] Walk slowly, slow down, keep your head up, and notice beautiful things that happening around you, whether that's spring flowers coming through, or a [00:25:25] kind interaction between two children or two adults or an adult to a child, or vice versa. Notice those things and let them fuel you because that's what gives us energy.
[00:25:34] As humans is those, those acts of moral beauty and beauty in nature. So it would be that, I think. Lovely. And those are the things that give you those little moments of joy throughout the day. And we sometimes just walk straight past them and don't notice the sunshine or the flowers or the kids being lovely to each other.