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Show staff appreciation

Measuring Impact and Success

To demonstrate the impact of this benchmark, you will need to gather feedback from a range of staff to identify the extent to which they feel acknowledged for the work they do. You could:

  • Use a staff survey using Google Forms or similar, asking questions such as ‘To what extent do you feel appreciated by the school for the work you do?’ with a rating scale from 0–10 where 0 = ‘I never feel appreciated’ and 10 = ‘I always feel appreciated’. This could be followed by an open question, such as ‘What could the school do to increase its appreciation for the work you do?’
  • Involve non-teaching staff when gathering staff perceptions. They often speak of being overlooked or not included. Their role sometimes leads to them being in and out of classrooms, especially in the secondary setting, and the pace of the school means that thanking them for their support is sometimes forgotten. Repeat the survey after a term or its equivalent. Progress can be determined by comparing the baseline assessment with the end-of-term assessment.

You can also conduct staff interviews or hold focus groups to find out how staff feel about this issue.

Remember in each case to describe the impact of your actions (that is, what difference they made) and not just what you did.

Overview

 

This benchmark is about appreciating and acknowledging staff for the work that they do. This includes support staff, admin staff and ancillary staff. A lack of appreciation from the DfE and government is often identified by teachers as affecting their morale – only 15 per cent of teachers and education staff felt appreciated by the UK government during the pandemic.

The impact of being thanked should not be underestimated. Teachers know how important and powerful it is when praising children. The effect on staff is similarly motivating. When staff are thanked and praised for their work, their self-belief and pride in themselves increases. They are more positive about their job and are less likely to be negative or cynical about the school. Schools that acknowledge their staff in this way also have lower staff absence due to stress and fewer staff want to leave the school.

Showing appreciation can be divided into:

  • formal appreciation, such as announcements in staff briefings
  • informal appreciation, such as saying ‘Thank you for…’ person-to-person in the corridor
  • person-to-person semi-formal appreciation, for example, when the headteacher asks a member of staff to call into their office to thank them.

 

Intentions

Intentions are actions you intend to take in order to improve your provision in this benchmark. Choose three intentions to focus on.

Thanking staff publicly for a job well done sends a clear signal to those members of staff that they are valued by your school. Having a regular staff award – such as ‘teacher of the week’ or ‘staff member of the month’ – is one way of both raising the profile of appreciating staff and making it part of the culture of the school.

You can allow staff or teams to be nominated by fellow colleagues or pupils. Set up a nomination box in the staffroom or corridors with printed slips for the nominee’s name and the reason why they are being nominated. Slips could also be available online in the school’s shared area if staff do not wish to be identified by their handwriting.

Your school might decide to accompany the thanks with a meaningful prize or perhaps just a certificate signed by the headteacher. Make the presentation a regular feature of a weekly assembly or other ceremony. Involving parents in these events can be a powerful way of drawing parents’ attention to the work that staff do and bringing parents and staff closer together. You could also add the winners’ details to your weekly letter or highlight photos of the ceremony on your website.

In the case of awards that represent significant contributions to the school community, a member of staff could hold the award for a defined period before passing it over to the next award winner, for instance, at the beginning of each term.

Top tip

  • A note of caution. Everyone likes to feel appreciated and taking the time to thank colleagues and offer praise for good work can be as effective with adults as it is with children. However, be careful that the awards do not become perceived as patronising and therefore counterproductive. Gauge the reactions of your staff and react accordingly. 

Further resources

This intention seeks to recognise staff for contributions to the school community outside their formal role. ‘Going the extra mile’ should be formally acknowledged in the same way as staff who contribute through their formal role. This could be for:

  • coordinating a charity event, such as a charity run or a sponsored book read or delivering food parcels to needy families
  • organising an event, such as a school fair
  • supporting other staff, for example, baking biscuits or cakes for special occasions
  • organising staff socials
  • running a weekly exercise session or class, such as learning to play an instrument
  • helping backstage in a school production.

It should also include staff who go beyond their role to support other members of staff. For example, the headteacher’s PA frequently stays beyond their contracted hours when the head is under pressure.

School staff should be able to submit nominations via a nominations box with printed or online slips. Especially in large schools, someone’s contribution to the school community might go unnoticed if it is not overtly public or if the person contributes unassumingly. Ensure that you include support staff, ancillary staff, site staff and admin staff in the process.

There are several ways of thanking staff publicly for the work they do voluntarily:

  • in a staff meeting or briefing, for example, at the start of the day
  • by the chair of governors in a briefing or staff meeting
  • by an awards committee on the school’s behalf
  • by pupils in an assembly
  • by the parent-teacher association in a briefing or staff meeting
  • in a staff and/or parent newsletter.

Top tip

  • Why not set up an award for ‘Exceptional contributions to the school community’, where one person is identified each term or each year and holds an award of a cup or plaque for a period of time before passing it to the next award winner?

 

So many staff undertake personal learning and development projects in their own time that can often go unrecognised within the school community – such as:

  • writing books, blogs or articles
  • completing higher learning qualifications
  • taking part in sport or fundraising challenges.

All too often, teachers celebrate their students’ achievements but forget to do this for themselves.

In large schools, this might go unnoticed, apart from the small number of staff who work closely with the person and it is common for staff not to realise that one of their colleagues has another talent apart from teaching. This is sometimes revealed when they take part in the staff pantomime or production or when they are leaving the school for another post! Your school should regularly gather information from the staff on their talents and accomplishments and celebrate their achievements.

You could establish different types of recognition:

  • one to recognise professional development – such as qualifications related a teaching or support role
  • one to recognise personal development – such as an aspect of their lives unrelated to school or related only obliquely to it (for example, running a marathon or raising money for charity).

Top tip

  • Communicate your pride in their achievement via the school newsletter or a web page of your school website.

Everybody likes to be appreciated. A staff ‘shout out’ board is a board that gets covered in positive notes and compliments to staff, written by other members of staff. It can be used to help boost morale, show gratitude and bring lots of positivity to your team. It can really help staff focus on the positive things that are going on every day that might easily go otherwise unnoticed.

Put the board up in your staffroom and encourage staff to write positive comments about each other – someone they might want to thank for helping them out or someone who has had a great week or done something really positive. Pin up the comments and take time to notice what’s being said.

Top tips

  • Be creative with the board and make it as fun, colourful and appealing as possible.
  • Provide pre-printed slips to make it really easy to fill in the ‘shout out’.
  • There’s lots of inspiration on Google if you want to see what a board can look like.

Further resources

Showing your staff how much they are appreciated through ‘wellbeing gestures’ is a great way of building morale, as well as further enhancing staff wellbeing.

The following are a few ideas, but you can introduce any that fit your school and staff circumstances:

  • Introduce ‘wellbeing days’ so staff can take a day off to attend their own wellbeing.
  • Introduce staff perks – coupons, vouchers, cinema tickets, free gym membership.
  • Consider a ‘Golden Ticket’ day – where staff get a day off work for long service.
  • Organise wellbeing goodies as weekly or end-of-term treats (for example, ‘Treat Tuesday’).
  • Arrange meetings with wellbeing breakfasts for a healthy start to the day.
  • Set up a dedicated staff wellbeing room (maybe even put in a massage chair!).
  • Offer pamper packages (for example, different kinds of therapies/massages).

Top tips

  • Set aside some budget for staff wellbeing gestures and ask staff what they would like to do with the money.
  • It’s also a good idea to monitor reactions to these gestures, to make sure they are being as effective as you’d intended. If not, don’t be afraid to try something new.

There is any number of benefits that your school could potentially offer to staff to demonstrate appreciation, including:

  • healthcare
  • gym subscriptions
  • breakdown cover
  • interest-free loans or season ticket loans
  • childcare vouchers
  • cycle to work schemes.

What’s most important though is that these benefits are meaningful to your staff. Ensure you consult with your staff as to what they really want, understanding that many will be at different places in their lives. 

Further resources

Reflection

If a policy for appreciating staff does not exist, should a policy be created or could you include guidance in another policy, for instance on staff development or human resources?

At first, consciously thanking staff might seem to lack authenticity, especially if your school has not routinely done so in the past. In time, showing staff appreciation will become part of the culture of the school.

Further resources

 

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