This article provides guidance on how to introduce Skodel to your teaching staff
For the purpose of trialling Skodel initially, you won't need many staff on board. Find a few strong advocates for student wellbeing and ask them if they would like to trial Skodel with you, or you can even start this journey on your own with your students. Use Skodel's Trial Plan and review the data after 8 weeks.
This group can make Skodel a great success on their own beyond the trial. However, it does help to have positive involvement from more staff and senior leadership. As with students, not all staff will engage with Skodel and that is ok. Below are some ways you might like to introduce Skodel to staff members.
If checking in with staff members
To encourage participation, it's important to communicate with all teachers that you are introducing Skodel. Here is a template email that you can adjust and send to staff or use at a staff meeting so they are aware of Skodel and how it can assist them.
Email to team members
Subject line: Supporting your wellbeing at SCHOOL NAME
Hi all,
It would be an understatement to say the world has been an interesting and challenging place of late. For many, I am sure there's been a range of different emotions and I know that it's not always easy to communicate this in the workplace. Whether it be feeling stagnant, having worries about workload or something non work related, we want to do our best to ensure you have a comfortable outlet to share how things are going. We also want to do our best to acknowledge this and play a supporting role where you feel we can.
To help with this, we are introducing Skodel. Skodel offers a simple way to check in anonymously so you can share how you're feeling and the reasons behind that. By introducing Skodel, we aim to achieve the following:
- Give everyone an outlet to share how they're feeling: We want to make sure you have an outlet to share how you're going openly and honestly. Your responses will be anonymous and you can view how Skodel protects your anonymity here if you'd like
- Provide insights and resources to assist in managing these feelings: You can use Skodel to track your feelings over time and access reflective resources from leading psychologists to assist you in navigating those tricky feelings or situations we all experience in the workplace. E.g. frustrated and confused with the communication
- Help us understand what's working well and where we can adjust: Whilst we know that everyone will go through uncomfortable times at work, we want to do everything we can to build on what's working well, i.e. what's causing people to feel good at work, and make adjustments to improve, i.e. what's causing people to feel uncomfortable at work.
How to get started
The first check-in will be sent on DATE and we will aim to check-in every 6 weeks. You will receive an email with a link to check-in and will not be required to activate an account or set a password. The check-in will take 30 seconds to 1 minute. You can check-in at any time on Skodel to confidentially share how things are going and access their resources and coaching support
Helpful links to learn more about Skodel
- Here is what the check-in experience looks like for you
- Here is what team leaders and leadership will be able to see
If you have any questions, please feel free to email me directly or your team leader.
Tip: Include an action plan to respond to the data and make changes. For example - On the first Monday of each month we will send out the check-in. The next day on Tuesday, Tina (Principal) and James (Head of Wellbeing) will review the data and send out a thank you email that day to everyone with changes we will make moving forward. All data is completely anonymous. Participation is up to you as well.
Supporting staff in introducing Skodel to students
Subject line: Supporting student's with their wellbeing
Email: Dear all...
As part of our ongoing commitment to student wellbeing, we would like to introduce Skodel. Skodel offers us a simple and engaging way to check in with students and supports students on their wellbeing journey. By giving students an opportunity to share how they are going in a safe space, we aim to achieve the following:
- Build Stronger Relationships: By driving more meaningful conversations in our school community, we are able to build stronger relationships with students, families and our School's values and culture.
- Identify Students That Need Support: It can be hard for students going through a challenging time to speak out. Our aim is to give students a medium they feel comfortable opening up on so we can best support them.
- Encourage Self-Expression: We want to ensure each student has an outlet they feel comfortable with to voice how things are going. This helps students discover themselves and gives our teaching community a chance to get to know them on a deeper level so we can better support them through the tough times and share in the moments of joy and achievement.
Our first check-in with students will commence on (date) and we will continue to check in with them periodically after that. I've attached a guide to Skodel for you. How involved you are in this is up to you but I believe your support will really amplify the impact of students checking in. If you have any questions, comments or concerns then please feel free to share them with me.
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