Wellbeing & Support
While incredibly rewarding, your teacher training year can also be demanding and challenging at times. And so, from your very first day at Ark Teacher Training, we maintain a focus on teacher training wellbeing and support to ensure that you have a fantastic experience on the programme.
Helping children and young people to progress and reach their full potential in life is an amazing gift; we therefore see it as our responsibility to ensure that our trainee teachers are protected, supported and take care of themselves on this incredibly selfless journey.
Of 152 trainees who responded to our 2021 Spring Term Survey:
– 99% feel their wellbeing is well supported by the Ark Teacher Training team.
– 97% feel they receive the wellbeing support they need from their schools and Ark Teacher Training.
– 95% said they know the key stakeholders who they can connect with if they need support.
5 Ways to Wellbeing
with Ark Teacher Training
Connect
Touch base with loved ones.
Be Active
Keep moving.
Take Notice
Never forget the positives.
Give
Devote some time to others.
Keep Learning
Keep your mind active and stimulated.
How We Support Your Wellbeing
We’re dedicated to the welfare of our trainees.
The teacher training year is an immensely busy one, therefore looking after ourselves is key in to avoiding burnout and ensuring that we give our best to our pupils!
All of the wellbeing support that you receive during your teacher training year is based on the ‘5 Ways to Wellbeing’. We help you to practice and embed evidence-informed methods and strategies (such as mindfulness, resilience building, emotional self-assessment, and identifying personal early warning signs of emotional overload) to not only improve wellbeing in the workplace but also in your daily lives.
Explore the ways that we support your wellbeing below:
Ongoing Support
Wellbeing is a key feature of trainee 1:1 check-ins with their tutor, in which they’re asked to reflect on how they’re doing emotionally and mentally and share the challenges they face. Trainee welfare is also an important agenda item when your tutor meets with in-school Ark Teacher Training Leads.
If trainee teachers feel their state of wellbeing is not balanced, the tutor and trainee work collaboratively to create actions that the trainee can take to mitigate the issues raised. These actions form a Wellbeing Plan, which the trainee and tutor discuss fortnightly to reflect on the trainee’s progress.
The Wellbeing Curriculum
We have a dedicated Wellbeing Curriculum strand at Ark Teacher Training that begins with a wellbeing session on your very first day of Summer School and life as a teacher trainee.
We recognise that wellbeing and personal organisation are linked, and so our curriculum supports trainees with their organisation over the course of the training year.
The curriculum further provides practical strategies that trainee teachers can use to support their own wellbeing and develop positive personal organisation habits. A focused curriculum booklet is also provided, which trainees use throughout their year to complete tasks and guide their practice. We have streamlined this to support trainee workload, and share upcoming tasks and deadlines to allow you to organise and manage your time in advance.
Your Timetable
To support trainee teacher wellbeing, tutors work together with in-school Ark Teacher Training Leads to design teaching timetables that reflect the progress of the individual trainee. Your teaching load will gradually increase over the course of the year as you become more confident leading lessons.
Common Concerns
Managing Classrooms and Behaviour
We know that managing classrooms and behaviour is one of the biggest concerns for teacher trainees and Early Career Teachers. While we recognise that establishing a positive classroom environment can be challenging, we don’t expect you manage everything on your own; classroom and behaviour management is a collective, school-wide responsibility that continues even after you’ve become a fully qualified teacher.
Connecting With Your Pupils
One of the key ways to create a purposeful classroom environment is having positive relationships with your pupils. We therefore teach communication techniques that will help you to form great relationships with your students so that they understand your instructions, feel that they’re able to progress in your lessons and make mistakes, and feel seen in their progress and their struggles.
Developing Your Classroom Authority
At Ark Teacher Training, we debunk the myth that some people have a natural teaching authority, and are able to better manage behaviour as a result. Classroom authority with Ark schools is developed by breaking down behaviours and body language. We practice teaching techniques that trainees are encouraged to use in and out of lessons so that authority in the classroom becomes second nature.