Learning from lockdown - teacher well being

Description

The COVID-19 stage four restrictions in Victoria last year imposed a swift move to online learning. The first wave provided a short but sobering taste of the inherent challenges for teachers, students and families. In response, The Knox School, an independent co-educational K-12 school in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, drew on existing relationships with academics from Monash University to research what teachers learned from this initial experience.

Online focus groups with 50 teachers, across all levels of the school, revealed three key areas of change: teacher agency; school community collaboration; and, teacher wellbeing. This final reader submission in a three-part series draws from the experiences of middle leader Melodie Matheson and explores how teacher wellbeing became a transformative influence on her leadership.