Prioritising Teacher Wellbeing, Development and Workload Management is not simply about reducing tasks or adding wellbeing activities to the calendar. In a thoughtful chat from The School Improvement Conference 2026 On Demand, Jonathan Ferstenberg, School Improvement Partner and Leadership Coach, speaks with Tracy Goodyear, Director of Teacher Development at The Mercian Trust, about why sustainable school improvement depends on the people doing the work every day.
What follows is a conversational summary of their discussion: a back-and-forth exploration of policy, practice, retention, agency, leadership, and the conditions teachers need to thrive.
Setting the Scene: Why Teacher Stress Remains Persistent
Jonathan Ferstenberg: Tracy, teacher stress and workload have been policy priorities for years. Yet many teachers still experience high levels of pressure and report that work leaves too little time for personal life. Why has this issue remained so persistent?
Tracy Goodyear: One of the key complexities is the gap between policy and practice. The sector is not short of policy, and many policies are well-intentioned. But what matters is how those policies are experienced by people on the ground, particularly when schools are managing limited resources, tight budgets and wider system pressures.
Tracy draws on the idea of “street-level bureaucracy”: the people closest to the work often determine whether policy succeeds in practice. Teachers, leaders, teaching assistants and support staff interpret and enact change in real time, often under pressure. That means a policy only works if it genuinely helps people do their jobs better.
Tracy: The people work is the work. Underneath every successful school improvement initiative is the quality of how people are supported, listened to and treated.
Prioritising Teacher Wellbeing, Development and Workload Management Means Looking at the System
Jonathan: Are we facing a retention crisis? Workload dissatisfaction and the possibility of teachers leaving the profession are major concerns. How serious is the problem?
Tracy: It is not a new problem, but it is a slow-burn attrition problem. We need to ask how we keep people in the profession over time. A major part of this is agency. When people feel their agency is taken away in the name of school improvement, their motivation and willingness to go the extra mile can be affected.
For Tracy, teacher retention is not only about workload volume. It is also about whether teachers feel trusted, valued and able to make meaningful contributions. If staff feel that change is constantly “done to” them, rather than developed with them, engagement suffers.
The Leadership Challenge: Add Less, Think More Deeply
Jonathan: Schools need systems, expectations and resources. But teachers also need agency and support. How do leaders do both at once?
Tracy: This is a leadership challenge. Leaders need to hold the complexity. When we introduce something new, we must ask: what will the benefit be, and what will the cost be? We also need to apply the staff lens. What do we need to de-implement as a result?
Tracy warns against the sector’s tendency to add more in response to challenge. Schools are driven by moral purpose: they want to improve outcomes for children and support families. But that moral purpose can lead to initiative overload if leaders do not deliberately create space.
She argues that wellbeing cannot be reduced to surface-level activities. A massage afternoon or a one-off wellbeing event may be appreciated, but it will not solve the deeper issue if teachers are still facing unsustainable marking loads, duplicated processes or unclear expectations.
Tracy: We need to move away from false economies of care. Wellbeing has to be connected to the actual work people are doing.
From “Done To” to Co-Created Change
Jonathan: So the answer is to involve staff more meaningfully in shaping systems?
Tracy: One hundred percent. The expertise is in schools. Staff need to be genuinely involved from the beginning, not asked to comment on something that is already almost finished.
Tracy shares an example from appraisal review work within her trust. Rather than presenting a finished policy and asking for minor adjustments, leaders began with stakeholder questions and open discussion. Staff had the opportunity to share what appraisal felt like in practice and what would make it more developmental.
The result was not just a revised process, but a cultural shift. People were more invested because they understood the purpose of the change and had helped shape it.
Tracy: Even the act of genuinely listening can be a position of strength. It requires vulnerability from leaders, but it builds trust and engagement.
Why Iteration Matters More Than Perfect Policy
Jonathan: Once a policy is co-created, how do you sustain it? Staff change, contexts shift and new pressures emerge.
Tracy: No policy is a one-and-done thing. We need to see policy as iterative. Writing a report or launching a process is not the end of the work; it is part of ongoing development.
This is a crucial point for school leaders. Workload management is not solved by a single survey, a new document or a one-off INSET session. It requires continuous feedback loops, honest reflection and a willingness to adjust when something is not working as intended.
For Tracy, this is where the street-level lens matters again. The line managers holding appraisal meetings, the teachers attending them and the staff implementing processes are the people who reveal whether an idea is working in practice.
Getting to the Root of the Problem
Jonathan: Why do you think more leaders do not already take this approach? Most leaders are well-intentioned and working under real pressure.
Tracy: I do not think anybody is to blame. What I am advocating for is a change in the lens through which we look at school improvement, development and people.
Tracy describes working with a senior leadership colleague reviewing a homework policy. Initially, the plan focused on increasing the number of pupils completing homework. But through questioning, it became clear that this was only a proxy measure. It did not yet identify the root problem.
Her preferred approach is the “five whys” technique: repeatedly asking why a problem exists until the deeper issue becomes clearer. Without that, schools risk solving symptoms rather than causes.
Tracy: If we do not get to the crux of the problem, we build new capacity on old dysfunction. The work may be well-intentioned, but it may not create lasting improvement.
Actionable Questions for School Leaders
For leaders reflecting on their own settings, the conversation offers several practical questions:
- What are we asking staff to do, and what are we removing to make room for it?
- Have we understood the root cause of the problem, or only its symptoms?
- Were staff involved early enough to shape the solution?
- How will we know whether this policy is working in real classrooms and meetings?
- What feedback loops will help us refine this over time?
What Gives Hope for the Future of Teaching?
Jonathan: We began with teacher stress, workload and retention concerns. What gives you hope when you look at the future of the profession?
Tracy: People give me hope. Education is full of truly remarkable people doing remarkable things for young people.
Tracy’s optimism comes from the teachers, leaders and support staff who continue to show commitment, courage and care despite the pressures they face. She argues that when schools create the right conditions for vulnerability, collaboration and honest professional dialogue, they can tap into the excellence already present in the system.
Jonathan: The best reason to join teaching is that you work with the greatest people in the world: teachers and students.
Conclusion: Prioritising Teacher Wellbeing, Development and Workload Management Starts with Listening
Prioritising Teacher Wellbeing, Development and Workload Management requires more than a programme, policy or wellbeing gesture. As Jonathan Ferstenberg and Tracy Goodyear explore in this discussion, sustainable improvement begins when leaders listen deeply, understand the real problem, involve staff from the start and keep refining the work over time.
For schools and trusts, the actionable takeaway is clear: before adding another initiative, pause and apply the staff lens. Ask what needs to be removed, where agency can be strengthened and how professional development can support teachers as real people doing complex work. To watch the full session, you can access The School Improvement Conference 2026 On Demand.