Dr Denise Quinlan shares insights on what really works for whole-school wellbeing
In a new video interview, international wellbeing expert Dr Denise Quinlan offers practical, grounded advice for educators who want to make a meaningful difference in their school communities.
In just a few minutes, Denise shares:
- Why wellbeing is more than a program, it’s a culture, a curriculum, and a campus
- How school leaders can support staff wellbeing without adding to their workload
- The one wellbeing myth that’s doing more harm than good
- What she’d love to see change in girls’ schools next year
This is just a preview of what Denise will bring to the Educating Girls Symposium in Christchurch on 5 September. In her keynote, Building Whole-School Wellbeing: Potential, Pitfalls, and Practical Advice, she’ll take educators deeper into the structures and practices that genuinely support staff and student wellbeing.
Earlybird registration closes soon – book now to join Denise and hundreds of colleagues at Rangi Ruru Girls’ School for a day of connection, insight, and practical learning.
Interview Transcript
Kia Ora, I’m Dr Denise Quinlan and I’m looking forward to meeting you all at the symposium in Christchurch in September, organized by the International Coalition of Girls’ Schools.
I’ve been asked to give my take on a number of questions that schools often ask about well-being.
So here they are.
What’s one common mistake schools make around wellbeing?
I think the most common mistake that schools make around well-being is thinking that it’s something that it can be done once and then it’s over, so that it can be taught once to students and teachers.
And forgetting that school culture practices and traditions also play a powerful role in shaping well-being. And we need to be intentional and deliberate so that they are shaping well-being in a positive way.
We often say that well-being is caught and taught.
And in the next edition of the Educators Guide to Whole School Well-Being, we add a third factor. We say well-being is taught, it’s caught, and it’s wrought.
In other words, as well as being shaped by teaching and by culture, well-being is shaped and influenced by the environment, by the buildings, by the way that people are able to come together or not.
One way school leaders can support staff wellbeing without adding to their workload?
One way that school leaders can support staff well-being without adding to their workload is to be aware of and shaping the powerful drivers of workplace well-being that are always at work in the workplace.
These, and I want to share a number of them with you, these are drivers that can either be tipping us towards burnout or preventing burnout and supporting well-being and high performance.
And the ways that school leaders can influence well-being in a positive way include valuing contribution, letting people know the positive impact their work has on others and sharing that with them.
Creating fairness and making it visible to people, that decisions are fair, the rationale for things that’s shared.
This helps reduce fear and anxiety and build trust.
The third is providing clarity around roles and responsibilities, and I mean you can feel the fairness one kind of merging in with this one too.
But giving people clarity on why things, what priorities are, why decisions are being made, etc. helps enabling autonomy.
We know that purpose really matters for well-being, and when we enable autonomy we help people grow their sense of purpose.
Also, being micromanaged is a driver of burnout, so allowing people to have some autonomy over how they do their role and what they bring to it can really support well-being.
And the last one is a big one, and we often think we can do nothing about it, but there are small things we can do that will make a difference. This last one is managing workload.
Even if we can’t significantly reduce people’s workload, what we can do is be really clear about priorities.
Effect of prioritization and clear communication of priorities allows people to better manage their workload. I think it also helps us identify the low-value work that we shouldn’t be doing, and it makes it easier for that to fall off the list or to agree to take it off the list.
What’s one wellbeing myth you wish we’d stop believing?
One well-being myth that I wish we’d stop believing is, well, I’m going to share it too, it’s that a single well-being program will work for everyone.
Well-being is personal and well-being is plural, i.e. it’s made up of different pillars or components, and so different things are going to work for different people, and we have to enable people to find what works for them and give them the space to do it.
The second myth that I really wish we could get over is the idea that looking after well-being at home in the evening and on the weekend will prevent burnout.
The drivers of burnout are workplace-based, and we need to address well-being in the workplace as well as at home.
One wellbeing change you’d love to see in girls’ schools next year?
The one that I would really love to see, I always have two always spring to mind, so I’ll give you two. The first one is asking the question, where can we reduce the load on students and on staff?
Acknowledging that the workload really impacts well-being for staff and students, and then looking, exploring, reviewing the calendar, the assessment load, and what that workload that creates for students and staff.
I think it’s really helpful to question the way we assess, and I know in some New Zealand State schools they have decided to opt out of NCA Level 1, particularly where their students already tend to complete Level 2 and 3.
The second thing that I would love, second change, I would love to see in girls’ schools next year, would be an increase in self-compassion, and more encouragement and support from school leadership and teachers to embrace reality, embrace real not perfect, embrace getting it done rather than having it perfect, and the fact that we can learn and grow and be compassionate towards ourselves rather than expect ourselves to always achieve unrealistically high standards.
I’m looking forward to seeing you all in September.
Until then, take care.