The staffroom was quiet after the bell. A colleague sat, head bowed over a new specification from a new exam board. After five years in teaching, she confided, “I am finding it so hard to explain this content. I do not feel like I understand it well enough myself yet.” The pressure of mastering unfamiliar material and delivering it with confidence had left her overwhelmed. What stood out was not her ability, she was dazzling and warm in the classroom, but the sense that she was navigating it all alone.
I contrasted this with a moment with a colleague a few years ago who had laughingly told me that if he had to teach the same plate tectonics unit to Year 7s again his head would experience a volcanic eruption. He was at the opposite end of curriculum confidence- it was not his expertise (what he taught), but his pedagogy (how he taught) that troubled him. He was disengaged and he knew it was starting to show in the classroom. He was in a small school and felt helpless to change and grow.
This moment captures the delicate balance between professional challenge and staff wellbeing. Just as our students need both stretch and support, so do teachers. They must feel part of a purposeful community while also believing that growth is possible and supported. When either belonging or challenge is absent, wellbeing falters.
Collaborative Professional Development at the Heart of Culture
At my current school, we deliberately changed the meaning of CPD. Instead of Continuous Professional Development, we now speak of Collaborative Professional Development. This shift in language was more than cosmetic. It signalled that professional growth is not an individual burden but a shared endeavour. Staff learn best not in isolation but in community, and this principle lies at the heart of both wellbeing and belonging.
The word ‘belonging’ is in vogue, but it resonates and is being popularised for a reason. Despite it being intangible, it is intrinsic to a community. A wellbeing framework is only as robust as the extent to which staff feel connected to something bigger, valued for who they are, and trusted to contribute.
There is a temptation to go for symbolic gestures. All too often, wellbeing is reduced to surface-level initiatives: fruit bowls in the staffroom, afterschool yoga sessions, or workload surveys that rarely lead to action. These gestures are not unwelcome, but they do not touch the core of staff wellbeing.
Real wellbeing is structural, not superficial. It grows when staff experience genuine belonging alongside professional stretch. It is shaped through systems and cultures, not slogans. We cannot seek excellence while sidelining those responsible for delivering it. Every teacher, TA, and leader deserves both access to growth and agency to shape it.
What the Research Tells Us
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has shown that professional development is one of the most cost effective ways to improve student outcomes, but only when it is well designed and embedded. Their Effective Professional Development guidance (2021) highlights that the most powerful CPD builds knowledge, motivates staff, develops teaching techniques, and embeds practice over time.
For staff wellbeing, these mechanisms are crucial. When CPD builds knowledge and provides clarity, staff feel less overwhelmed. When it motivates by aligning with shared purpose, they feel energised rather than depleted. When it develops practical techniques, they feel confident and capable. And when it embeds practice through sustained processes, they feel supported rather than abandoned after a one off session.
The EEF also cautions against scattergun or performative approaches. Inconsistent initiatives or standalone workshops often leave teachers demoralised, sensing their time has been wasted or their efforts tokenised. By contrast, structured, deliberate, and coherent professional development not only strengthens practice but also reinforces wellbeing.
Creating Space for Collaboration and Camaraderie
Staff do not simply need programmes; they need space. Creating deliberate time for teachers to collaborate is one of the most powerful levers for both professional growth and wellbeing. We learn best from each other. Through conversation, co planning, joint observation, and reflective dialogue, expertise spreads across a school in ways no single training session can replicate.
Collaboration also fosters something less measurable but just as vital: friendship. The camaraderie that comes from working closely with colleagues builds trust and resilience. For many teachers, the longed-for work best friend is not just a source of humour in the corridor but a colleague to lean on in moments of uncertainty. A culture of collaboration does more than exchange strategies; it sustains the people behind them.
When schools design time for shared inquiry, whether through professional learning communities, triads, or informal cross department conversations, they do more than improve teaching. They strengthen the bonds that protect staff from the isolation that erodes wellbeing.
The OECD’s Supporting Teacher Professionalism report (2020) reinforces that where teachers engage in peer collaboration, mentoring, and sustained development, their sense of purpose and job satisfaction rises. Conversely, systems that reduce CPD to compliance or focus narrowly on accountability measures see higher burnout and attrition. Belonging and recognition, in other words, are not extras but essentials.
The OECD’s TALIS surveys and wellbeing frameworks show that staff belonging, collaboration, and recognition are global concerns. In Finland, only 14 percent of teachers report experiencing high stress. Finnish schools invest heavily in collaborative planning time and trust based professionalism. Teachers are not micromanaged but are empowered to interpret curriculum frameworks, fostering both autonomy and wellbeing. In Singapore, the system’s strength lies in structured career pathways and professional learning communities. Teachers regularly observe one another, share practice, and lead inquiry projects. This systematised collaboration improves instruction while also building camaraderie and pride in the profession.
From Frameworks to Flourishing
The wellbeing frameworks I revisited earlier this year emphasise belonging, autonomy, and professional purpose. These align directly with what both the EEF and OECD identify as the drivers of effective practice.
Belonging grows when leaders notice and value the human dimension of staff life.
Autonomy flourishes when professional learning respects teachers as experts and gives space for agency.
Purpose thrives when workload is aligned with meaningful, student centred priorities rather than scattered demands.
When schools combine these principles, staff wellbeing is no longer peripheral. It becomes the soil from which ambitious teaching and learning grow. Our school has an extended staff induction program throughout the first term, every week touching on an aspect of our school environment- EAL context, assessment and reporting, enrichment opportunities, etc.. I was touched to see a photo appear on our New Staff text group of all our new teachers going out for dinner together after a session.. Whether new to the curriculum or new to the country, these staff were helping each other and building that community.
Professional Development as Wellbeing
Professional development is too often seen as a threat to wellbeing, another item on an overcrowded to do list. But when it is collaborative, carefully designed, and coherent, professional development is not separate from wellbeing. It is one of its most powerful drivers.
Collaborative Professional Development fosters belonging by placing teachers in communities of practice instead of isolating them. It nurtures autonomy by trusting them to reflect and adapt strategies in their own contexts. And it sustains purpose by aligning growth directly with the shared mission of improving student learning.
When professional development is reframed in this way, it ceases to feel like a demand. It becomes a source of motivation, renewal, and strength.
Staff wellbeing is not a side project. It is not achieved through slogans or one off gestures. It is the result of deliberate design: cultures that prioritise collaboration, respect agency, and align development with purpose.
Belonging may be intangible, but it is intrinsic. When staff feel it deeply, wellbeing and professional challenge no longer pull in opposite directions. They become mutually reinforcing, creating schools where adults, and through them, students, can flourish.
References
Education Endowment Foundation (2021) Effective Professional Development. London: EEF. Available at: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/guidance-reports/effective-professional-development (Accessed: 6 September 2025).
Education Endowment Foundation (2021) Teacher Feedback to Improve Pupil Learning. London: EEF. Available at: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit (Accessed: 6 September 2025).
Fullan, M. (2020) Nuance: Why Some Leaders Succeed and Others Fail. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Hargreaves, A. and O’Connor, M. T. (2018) Collaborative Professionalism: When Teaching Together Means Learning for All. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
OECD (2020) Supporting Teacher Professionalism: Insights from TALIS 2018. Paris: OECD Publishing.
OECD (2023) Teachers’ Well being: A Framework for Data Collection and Analysis. Paris: OECD Publishing.
TALIS 2018 country profiles: Finland and Singapore. Available at: https://gpseducation.oecd.org (Accessed: 6 September 2025).