Live Well, Teach Well: A practical approach to wellbeing that works
18.34
Pros
- Easy to read – This book is written in the form an ideas list so each idea is given in short concise sections allowing you time to put down and reflect before moving on.
- Provides a range of ideas for different people at different points of their careers. Meaning it is a good go to book, to reread at different points in your career.
- Useful suggestions and examples of these in practice in real life situations, proving how they would work within the school environment.
- Makes you reflective and evaluate your current practice. Raises professional questions for you to discuss if you have concerns and offers sensible solutions.
- Accessible for anyone within an educational setting.
Review compiled by: Carrie Old
Supported by: Bloomsbury Education Publishing
Live Well, Teach Well is a must read for new and old teachers in a wide range of educational settings, it is a practical and helpful guide to help professionals and learning establishments to create a good working environment for all with the key focus still on learning.
The book is accessible for those even with the busiest of life, as it is written in an accessible manner and has lots of great suggestions and ideas. It is a pickup, read, reflect and change kind of book, with quick fixes as well as long-term mind shift suggestions. A book you will revisit many times over your career for many different reasons.
As well-being is high on the political agenda this book comes in good time, I believe it would be a great starting point for a well-being committee or Senior Leaders meeting within a school to open the conversation on what establishments should expect from staff in order to maintain a work life balance and ways in which this balance can be addressed to benefit all stakeholders.
Some of the suggestions are based at secondary school level teaching but could be adapted to the primary environment. Within primary school, lots of the suggestions regarding planning, assessment, data and report writing would need to be discussed with the Head Teacher or SLT, but again if you have a well-being committee this would be the way to do this. The ideas are focused on developing the person and the school and are shared in a very positive way. The book reassures you that small steps make a huge difference, and would be especially useful at those times when teaching becomes all-encompassing and sometimes overwhelming. Abbie has written the book in a realistic manner that realigns your thoughts to the priorities and helps you to find your way in dealing with the demands of teaching. There is a balance of quick changes that help individuals and ideas that once embedded will help the many.
The books practical nature means it is very solution focused and gives reasons for the change which would help when presenting ideas to change things within your working environment. It also has lots of suggested links and hashtags to follow to ensure new ideas are shared and a wider community is built to support and encourage each other.
Live Well, Teach Well helped me reflect on my own current practice, allowing me to investigate ideas I could easily implement leading to a better work life balance. It also helped me to come up with some suggestions to take to our well-being team that could have a whole school benefit – so well worth the read for me!
I would recommend this book at whatever stage of your career you are from an NQT to the Head Teacher and Chair of Governors, even if you don’t think that you need to look at your work life balance, and especially if you are concerned about the well-being of yourself or your team, there is something for everyone.
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