Creating a Culture of Calm
Hygg-Ed
Creating a Culture of Calm | Menopause in the Classroom | Back to Basics
"Caring for Those Who Care for Others"
Hygge in the Staffroom
Staffrooms have the potential to provide educators with a genuine mini-sanctuary in the workplace. More often than not, however, we’re met with a purely functional space where the best we can do is perch on the edge of a very uncomfortable seat while managing one or two brief sips of a hot tea or coffee before being called back to class, or quickly pouring a drink before heading out for duty.
A big shoutout belongs to the headteachers who have already invested heavily in their staff spaces (Instagram: Journal of a Headteacher).
Feeling valued is something we constantly discuss in terms of the children we teach.Yet, if we as educators do not feel valued, our cups will become completely drained.
In Mental Health First Aid, we frequently refer to the Stress Container analogy. Every single educator walks into school carrying a container that fills up throughout the working day with administrative noise, behavioural challenges, and cumulative structural pressures. If a school does not provide a safe, comforting environment to open the tap and release that pressure, the container inevitably overflows.
Before too long, we simply won’t be in a position to do the job we love because our own batteries are entirely dead.
Bringing a Hygge ethos into the staffroom isn’t about teachers or schools spending lots of money or undergoing an enormous overhaul. It is simply about considering the tools we already have, and restructuring and arranging them so that they work for us rather than against us.