July 2023 – Happy Schools

The Benefits of Staying In Your Own Lane

July 27, 2023

In the dynamic and demanding field of education, staff who work in schools are often confronted with various challenges and obstacles that can distract them from their main focus. It is not uncommon for teachers (and other staff who work in schools) to find themselves immersed in the problems and struggles of their colleagues and this inadvertently impacting on them and their own well-being. Whilst schools are filled with caring staff who want to help others, focusing too much on the issues that others are having can be counter-productive. There are numerous benefits to ‘staying in your own lane’ by shifting the focus inward and prioritising one’s own workload over the problems of others. Getting the balance right is important.…

Attitude Adjustment Hour- Part 2

July 20, 2023

Stevef

Effectiveness

In part 1, I wrote about the importance of reflecting on our attitude and adjusting it, if necessary, through an Attitude Adjustment Hour. I challenged you to get some feedback from your partner or children about the attitude you display when you get home each day. I’d suggest it might be a good exercise to have a few attitude adjustment moments each day. Perhaps on the way to school, become conscious of what you are thinking about work and your day. Do you have a positive or negative attitude? Are you feeling enthusiastic or bored? Consider what sort of attitude or thinking you could choose instead? Perhaps at lunchtime, spend a few minutes listening to yourself and the quality of…

Attitude Adjustment Hour- Part 1

July 13, 2023

Stevef

Effectiveness

Most of us would be familiar with the term ‘Happy Hour’ (also known in some places as ‘attitude adjustment hour’) used by many hotels to promote their half price drinks between 5pm ish and 6pm ish. How awful that we link alcohol with attitude adjustment but the concept of attitude adjustment is great. ‘Attitude’ is defined in the dictionary ‘posture of the body; settled behaviour as showing opinion’. The thesaurus uses these words – ‘stance, type, kind, pattern, frame of mind, mood’. It seems to me that attitude refers to the way we perceive things in life; what we filter all our information through; the ‘glasses’ through which we look at the world; the way we taint, colour or tint…

Are Mindless Habits Contributing to Working Longer Hours?

July 6, 2023

Stevef

Efficiency

Getting distracted at school can cause us to lose focus. This has a negative impact on our ability to get things done and can result in us spending longer hours at school. Whilst distractions such as interruptions, are beyond our control, some distractions come from mindless habits that are sabotaging our productivity and often we repeat them instinctively. The first step to breaking a habit that isn’t helping us, is to identify it. Here are some of the most common mindless habits to watch out for, according to Monica Torres in the Huntington Post. You constantly check your phone when there is a lull. We often operate at such a frantic pace that any sort of lull in our day…