The Staffroom S05E05

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Elaine Long 

We are programme leaders on the UCL Early Career Teacher programme. Why are we in the Staffroom? We are here because this is where the best professional learning conversations always take place. This is where problems faced by teachers and leaders today can be explored critically, and where meaningful connections between research and practice can be made. 

Mark Quinn 

Over the course of this series, we will hear the voices of different colleagues as they come into The Staffroom – from ECTs to academics and executive leaders. We will talk about all things education – the challenges and the joys. So why don’t you enjoy a coffee with us, perhaps even grab a biscuit, and sit down for an hour of Staffroom

Mark Quinn   

Welcome to The Staffroom, Samantha O'Sullivan. We're delighted to have you in our staffroom. Samantha, we've got some nice seats for you to sit on. Take the weight off your feet. Have a sit down. My job at the beginning of this is to offer you a drink. Coffee or tea, whatever you might like. What can I fix for you?

Samantha O’Sullivan  
Thank you. Just a black coffee. Thank you. No sugar and no biscuits for me.

Mark Quinn  
No biscuits; That's sacrilege in the staffroom, I have to tell you, Samantha, but the black coffee is absolutely the best. That's the way I take it too.

Elaine Long  
Mark, can I have those biscuits that you put aside for Samantha? Because I feel like need a chocolate biscuit this morning. So, I'll have Samantha's share. Thank you.

Samantha O’Sullivan 
OK.

Elaine Long  
And you've already done one thing to help me this morning, Samantha, another thing you can do is tell us a bit about yourself, because I know our listeners will be really excited to hear a bit about you, your career journey, and what gives you the most joy?

Samantha O’Sullivan  
So, I have been in my teaching bit of my life. I was I was a teacher for about 8 years in a primary school, a couple of primary schools, and in 2019 I resigned from teaching primary and began my Ed D at UCL Institute of Education.

 

And whilst primarily being a student, a research student, I also continued teaching. I taught for one year on the OPGTA when the PGTA’s were online, back in those dark days on the MA for Education. And then I've been a PGTA for, I think, 3 three years now for….I should know this that the BA Education Society and Culture.

Elaine Long  
For our listeners who don't know what PGTA stands for, could you just tell us what it does stand for?

Samantha O’Sullivan  
OK. Yes, I it's a postgraduate teaching assistant, so I get to be the teacher in seminar groups for our undergraduate students. So I get to continue with that hat on and I work with a lecturer at the university on their course, but I get to be a teacher still, and it's a really lovely way. I really, really enjoy actually, I love spending my time with undergraduates and the particular module I have been teaching on. Living in a school society is year one, so I get 18 year olds fresh into London. Love it actually, it's really, really good, love teaching.

Elaine Long  
You've gone to both extremes of the age range from primary to undergraduate. Which do you prefer? What do you see as similarities and differences.

Samantha O’Sullivan  
Yeah. Well, Elaine, can I tell you they are more similar than they would like to know?

Elaine Long  
I thought you might say that.

Samantha O’Sullivan 
I spent seven years teaching year three and three years now teaching the equivalent of year 14, I suppose, and they still want rewards for their good work. They still want their voice heard. They still want a really good PowerPoint that's engaging.

Mark Quinn  
Did they still put their hand up?

Samantha O’Sullivan 
They still want me to remember their names.

Mark Quinn  
Did  put their hand up to ask for the toilet as well. Samantha?

Samantha O’Sullivan 
Yeah, they still do that.

Elaine Long  
I would say Samantha that time you made them sit on the carpet. I thought that was a bit a bit strange.

Samantha O’Sullivan  
It's when I ring up their mums. That's why they don't like it.

Mark Quinn  
We've invited you on because you are a researcher into teacher well-being. It's quite contended term, actually well-being so I think that's where we should start. So how do you define well-being?

Samantha O’Sullivan 
So I think it's a good way to describe it's a contending term. I don't think out there in the world, we have a really good grasp of what well-being is. Before I looked into well-being, I honestly thought well-being was, you know, yoga and chocolates and then and we're good. We've got well-being and it's really so, so, so much more. In fact it's not yoga and chocolate at all.

 

In my head, I've rationalised it into firstly types of well-being, you have one type which is hedonism, so hedonism is a short term happiness joy that comes out of an immediate rush and it can be things like, you know, when you think of hedonism, we think of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, we think of having that bar of chocolate. We think of buying the thing that was in our ASOS basket. It’s an immediate, we get that rush we enjoy. It puts a smile on our face. Perhaps interestingly with hedonism, there's often or they're not always something negative that might be associated with it. 

So, if you think the chocolate then is your waistline, the ASOS shopping then there's your bank balance. For alcohol, there's your hangover. There's of not always, but often there's that side to hedonism. And another type of well-being is eudemonic. well-being a eudaimonia is a word, Ancient Greek philosophers Aristotle and Plato use this word and it comes from the phrase, “Well lived life”

And it's about being fruitful and engaged and working to be content and perhaps even tired. But things that create well-being on a more macro scale. And a metaphor I used to describe this is weed in a border. So you're on your knees, your knees are damp. You might have rain running down your back. You might have broken a nail. You're uncomfortable, but you're weeding this border and then later on, you're standing in your kitchen with a cup of tea and you're looking at the weeded board and you're feeling good and over the weeks, you know, the spring and the summer, the flowers come up, the bulbs come up and the flowers bloom and you can kind of feel good about something, and it's something that you continually feel good about over a longer period of time, so we've got that, there's this, this typology of well-being. And then I've just defined it as well within that as different domains and those whilst the typologies of what we see perhaps on the outside, the domains tend to be a little bit more internal and I'm thinking I have to be honest from an occupational well-being, that's where I've been studying. 

So you've got psychological domain and that would be things about our autonomy, our professional development, the communication that goes on in the workplace, our self efficacy, their social well-being or social domain of well-being, which is about our relationships, is that the strength of the horizontal relationships in our workplace and of the vertical relationships that people we report to or those who report to us are the environmental domain, which is, you know, the building, the space that we work in the place we do, our PPA, how good is our parking spots?

 

There's the physical domain is our vitality. Did we get enough sleep? Are we eating? Are we healthy? Are we sick? And then although, in my writing in my thesis I have this as a fifth domain is the subjectivity. It kind of encapsulates all of it because we see that our well-being subjectively, what's good well-being for me, maybe not good for someone else, and I would say, for example, my husband needs to play tennis three times a week for his vitality and his social well-being and his psychological well-being needs that. If I play tennis three times a week, I would be sad and I think this idea of the subjectivity and the uniqueness for each individual is so important in our lives, but definitely from an occupational perspective. That's the way our view well-being.

Mark Quinn   
Well, that that's as clear a definition and a delineation of that word as I think I've heard. Samantha. So, thank you for that.

Samantha O’Sullivan 
It's OK.

Mark Quinn   
And it's clear to me that, so we sometimes think of well-being as that kind of sugar rush, you know, I'm feeling great right now, and that's what I think you've termed the hedonism.

Samantha O’Sullivan 
Yes.

Mark Quinn  
But in fact, we are in the topology of well-being. We're much more interested and we'll pull the threads of this a little bit as we take our way through this podcast, in that eudaimonia, that kind of connectedness with the way we live our lives, that sense of, and you talked about those inner domains that we, that comprise that sense of well-being, that kind of well lived life well-being and it's really interesting that you've hit on those, the social and the psychological and the environmental and the physical and of course it might be one thing which leads to all of that, you mentioned you know that the playing tennis might excite all of those emotions or those responses or it might be several things, right? And that's the key point. The end is that is the subjectivity of it, it's different, it's different for you, it's different for me, it'll be different for one teacher and the teacher sitting in the classroom next door, right?

Samantha O’Sullivan 
Absolutely, absolutely. And this, I was skipping about a bit, but you know, when I read about?
Well-being awards that come externally that that people pay thousands of pounds to be to be plumped into a school, I think it really doesn't speak to the fact that the subjectivity of the individuals within the school and also each context is really different and the well-being, however, it's going to be going to be nurtured and fostered and fostered, I think, has to come from the people in the school, it needs to come from the staff.

Elaine Long 
It's interesting because I've learnt a new word this morning which is eudemonic well-being so, thank you very much for that. And as you were describing the metaphor to bring it to life with the person we doing and getting painful needs, but then later on experiencing the joy of having a beautiful garden, I thought about schools and teaching. And I thought sometimes perhaps maybe we focus too much on relieving the painful knees and the weeding and in doing so, if you like in school, that part of the metaphor would equate to working out isn't teaching, and that the slog of planning lessons, and sometimes we focus a lot on taking that pain away. But sometimes I wonder if that comes at the expense of eudemonic well-being, because actually the painful needs are and the complexity of teaching a part of what lead to that meaningful experience, which is also a huge part of the well-being of educators. 

So, I think that that's quite a powerful distinction for well-being in in schools as well, but it's not simply about reducing workload, it's about thinking about, well, well-being in a much more holistic and complex way. And I know that's a huge part of your research and I wondered if you could just talk a bit about how did you find this out, what was the methodology for your research and what are some of the other insights you had when you were doing your research?

Samantha O’Sullivan 
I came across, well how, I found out about this I suppose well, I went into a MAT and spoke to interviewed 12 teachers and three head teachers. So, about what was there, what were their well-being experiences?

 

I really wanted to do something that was qualitative. I wanted to talk to people. I wasn't really interested in numbers and data in that respect and a lot of well-being research does appear you know, it's a lot of questionnaires and things and counting, and I really wanted to actually get people's stories. That for me was really important. And then when you talk to teachers and the head teachers about what that what's happening and what their experiences are of well-being. You find a really complex picture. It isn't something that's straightforward.

 

Then there isn't a 2 + 2 = 4 and the more you look at it, the more you see that that there's a lack of understanding which really made me go back and go OK what is what is well-being? What is it we're looking at. When I was looking at my data, I used a theoretical lens to support a theoretical framework of the job resource demand theory, which is Backer and Demetrio theory and the job demands resource theory says: That if we have job demands, if you create more job demands on an individual, you will have poorer well-being and worse occupational outcomes. And if you have more job resources or better job resources, you will have more motivated staff who have better well-being and you'll have better organisational outcomes. When I came across this theory I thought, oh OK, so well-being initiatives that happen in schools are going to be job resources and they're going to create better well-being.

 

I just kind of, that was my expectation and then I went into schools and when I'm talking to teachers and head teachers about the well-being initiatives that were there to support and nurture their well-being and create motivated staff and better organisational outcomes. What I was finding was repeatedly, the well-being initiatives were in fact creating demands on the staff and not all of them, not by any stretch, but enough of them were creating demand and actually, instead of improving well-being instead of making helping the staff be more motivated, helping them, giving them the space and skills to do their job, they were doing the opposite.

 

This is why the definition of well-being for me was so important because when you understand what well-being is, and if you understand what well-being is, you're not going to then create something with the name of well-being, but actually isn't. well-being. Does that make sense?

Mark Quinn   
Which picks up on your expression, well-being literacy, I think, Samantha.

Samantha O’Sullivan 
Yes. Yeah.

Mark Quinn  
So again, I'm going to ask for definitions here. What do you mean by that? And I suppose you could take it, you could actually explain to us what might be well-being illiteracy as well as a well-being literacy?

Samantha O’Sullivan 

Well-being literacy, I needed in the thesis I needed kind of a catchall phrase to describe understanding, not just what well-being is. What well-being in an occupational environment looks like, but also understanding how to ask people, how to evaluate their well-being, and an understanding of what well-being initiatives are out there, how to use them in your context in your schools, for example.

 

So, the well-being literacy kind of, as I say, is a catch all for the extent that a school leader can pull together all the strings and all the things that mean well-being. So, when a head teacher understands or any organisational leader understands that is a hedonistic and that is going to be so for example; put in what are they called? You know those little chocolate marshmallows wrapped in silver? Forget what they're called.

Elaine Long 
Tea cakes, I love those

Samantha O’Sullivan  
Thank you. So, we used to have a head teacher, but do you know what? I love them. But the head teacher would come round and she'd put these chocolate tea cakes on your desk during the day.

Elaine Long 
Yeah.

Samantha O’Sullivan 
And I know what she was thinking. She was thinking this is a really nice thing. This is going to make everyone happy, and I would look at this chocolate tea cake that first of all, there was a school policy saying that the children can't bring cakes and chocolate into school anyway. I always felt really uncomfortable about this chocolate tea cake and then I basically have spent the last 20 years on a diet and I don't know about you, but everyone in the staffroom is on a diet. 

They just don't, and this chocolate tea cakes would arrive. I would just, and it was a it was a hedonistic thing. It was done without any evaluation, without understanding my subjective well-being and it was well-being illiteracy was an example of well-being illiteracy. It's something about, it's in that fuzzy place of relationships and care and understanding actually what the people in your organisation needs and it isn't chocolate tea cakes.

Elaine Long 
No, I do agree with you as much as I've been flippant about loving those chocolate tea cakes, because you know, you kind of eat it and then you think, well, now I've broken my diet and I'm still tired and I'm still miserable. That actually in the long term….

Samantha O’Sullivan
Yes, yeah, yeah.

Elaine Long  
…..it's made things worse and you see a lot of that in school, certainly in terms of well-being initiative and sometimes I almost feel like there's a slight gas lighting about it. You know, for example, I've worked in schools, as I said, I go to this yoga class, and I thought, well, if I go to the yoga class, that's even less time I spend with my own family, so that that that's not helping that. But being honest about it's like slight gas lighting, because I've got the problem, isn't they going to class. The problem is that the sort of leadership culture, you know, because it's kind of suggesting the problem rests with me and my management of well-being.

Samantha O’Sullivan 
Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Elaine Long 
Rather than the culture of the school. Did you see any of that level of that misunderstanding?

Samantha O’Sullivan 
Repeatedly, the interesting thing about the yoga which I had, we had yoga and dance classes and all sorts was that that it was that we're going to make you more resilient. So, you can still do this job, but it doesn't matter how we create how what the job looks like, but it's up to you to be a better, better.

As opposed to taking it back to the organisation, there's, one of the things one of the ways I categorised well-being initiatives in the school was using the primary, secondary, tertiary definition from an author called Lamontaine who said says he describes primary initiatives as those that are organisational wide, that are about changing the structure of the organisation in order that the well-being problems don't occur in the first place.

 

Secondary initiatives are things that OK, we've got something a problem and we're going to try and make something think a bit better and then a tertiary initiative really speaks to an individual who has perhaps a kind of burnout stress, you know, really has a problem and it's a kind of well-being first aid there, that kind of that kind of situation and a lot of the well-being I was seeing was in this secondary, is that we're trying to fix this. So, we we're trying to fix your resilience by offering you yoga classes or we're trying to make everyone feel better by, I had one interesting one, which was, what's she call it? Random acts of kindness where post it notes were put on people's desks with different names on. And you had to do something kind for that individual by the end of, I don't know, the end of the week or the fortnight and this. 

And you can see what that school leaders, it was coming from a place of kindness themselves. What I want to do is to spread kindness and love and recognition in my school and I'm going to get all the teachers to do it, really for each other, because that's really warm and fuzzy. And this is a lovely thing that I'm doing. And I can kind of, you know, I can rationalise, I can put myself in the place position of the head teacher, but what actually happens is, I'm working away and I've got the children and whatever's going on and then someone puts a post at night that says Doris on it. And now I've got an extra job to do.

 

And I'm just, yeah, I've got to say, I don't even like Doris. I don't know what she wants. What am I doing for doing for Doris?

Elaine Long  
Yeah, bloody Doris.

Samantha O’Sullivan  
And it's a, it's another thing, one of the teachers said, I'll try and get this quote right, one teacher said, I was interviewing them, said, she said. “It's like they don't understand what's causing our stress. They do these things to pretty up my life, pretty up” and it was just like, oh, that kind of got me in my heart. You know, this idea that they recognise the performativity of the well-being initiatives, they are there to show that I'm doing well-being.

 

Sometimes they're there because I'm trying to do well-being, but it's this complex web of without the well-being literacy, the well-being initiatives they're putting in their schools on are mostly the secondary type of well-being. Instead of trying to change organisational at the primary level, they're mostly in this secondary space which involves, like you say, yoga, and these random acts of kindness and putting chocolates on desks and all of this, and they're not in the primary space where they should be giving someone this organisational.
How would you say it? Developing an organisation in such a way that that they don't need to be putting post it notes on people's desks?

Elaine Long  
It can be easy to fall into that trap as a leader, can't it? I remember in the days where I was on Twitter and I used to see all these things streaming like mug bombs. And I remember I was professional learning in my school. And I remember watching everyone got these bags at the start of the year and they had paracetamol in and chocolate bars and, you know, all the rest of it. And I think, Oh my goodness, should I rush off to Sainsbury's and, you know, pack all these bags together? And then I thought, no, don't be silly because actually the best gift you can give them is a decent professional learning programme that speaks to their motivations and needs and will support them to be the best teachers that they want to be. 

But it is. It is hard not to fall into that trap as a leader because there was a lot of pressure coming from, you know, those sorts of things on Twitter, not to fall into. I guess there's more hedonistic initiatives.

Samantha O’Sullivan  
Yes. Yeah. So, those are those are rooted in I think 2 things. Firstly, that this lack of well-being literacy, but also this desire to. So, we've got, I think it's 2019, Ofsted added a line into how to be an it's outstanding management and leadership and it was something like “Show evidence that staff are continually supported in their well-being”. It was phase something that's not exact.

 

And when that's added into a document like Ofsted into the bit that says outstanding.
It immediately gets translated, the mechanisms in the brains of the people who are running the schools are, I now need to show I am doing this so when Ofsted come round they can see like you say Elaine, the bag of goodies. Look at this. You can see I'm supporting well-being. I gave everyone a paracetamol. They can see they can see on the timetable every Tuesday morning we do yoga, I'm supporting well-being and it immediately becomes performative, there's no, it's almost like it cannot do anything else and because whilst Ofsted want and I don't deny they want great well-being for all the teachers, the mechanism of adding it as a as a policy or adding it as a line of something you're going to measure and tick and watch for means that school leaders are obliged to give them something to look at. They're obliged to offer something up and in that that space, with the well-being illiteracy and this policy of Ofsted demands, it becomes performative. 

It’s almost as if there's no alternative. Headteachers are doing their best. I've never met a head teacher, I mean well, I'm probably never is probably stretching it, but I've never met a head teacher who wasn't working really, really hard, really, really valued their staff really, really wanted the best for their children and without their own education, they will fall into the traps of providing well-being in a way that perhaps isn't effective.

Mark Quinn  
So, so we should we do that? Should we speak up for the poor, much maligned during this podcast school leader?

Samantha O’Sullivan 
Yeah, absolutely.

Mark Quinn   
Who's been mistakenly placing tea cakes on our desks and inviting us to yoga classes on Tuesday mornings.

 

If we assume as you have just in your last answer, assumed that these school leaders, many of them, do listen to this podcast, are really doing their best, are really doing their best, you know, they genuinely want happy, healthy, well motivated staff because we know that will lead to good outcomes for the school generally and for the young people there.

Samantha O’Sullivan  
Yes.

Mark Quinn  
So, I think we've explored what they've been doing wrong.

Samantha O’Sullivan  
Yes.

Mark Quinn   
And by, you know, by putting up things and by resorting to hedonistic forms of well-being as we've explored. What can they do right, Samantha? What one or two things do you feel that these school leaders could pivot towards which would actually make a more substantial difference to their well-being.

Samantha O’Sullivan  
OK, It’s both a simple and complex answer with anything that's you know that's worthwhile.

Mark Quinn  
Sure, sure.

Samantha O’Sullivan  
The teachers I spoke to and I spoke to teachers in three schools, it was a repeated pattern very quickly is they want effective and quick recognition from when they're doing things they want to be recognised.

 

They mostly want to be recognised publicly, but with a caveat that if you forget something that they've done, and if your recognition tool is your newsletter or something? If you forget someone, that can be challenging, but they want to be recognised, they want appropriate CPD, they want to be trained at the appropriate level for where they are and they want the next steps and that is the thing that needs to come from both the school leaders and from mentors and from the individual as well.

They want the time to be able to do their work and this was big, this was really loud for me. The most successful well-being initiatives that teachers liked the most was one that was called a “planning” day where they were given full time staff, pro rata, one day per half term out of school where they could plan newsletters, school trips, get deep into their data. All of those things that were going to happen anyway, but usually on a Sunday, they were given a day where the they felt respected and trusted as a professional to have to, they knew they had to do this job, everyone knows it, and these tasks and they were given the time for that. Time is what they need and I use the word time as opposed to management of workload.

 

The people I spoke to weren't, you know, and it's two sides of the same coin. No one complained about their workload. They just complained about the time to get it done. And when you say workload, it sounds so pejorative. But time does not.

So, you've got recognition, CPD time, autonomy and this sits, this is kind of with CPD a little bit, but they want to have the autonomy to run their classrooms the way they want that gave them the good feelings.

 

And then and good relationships. People want good relationships with their colleagues. They want good relationships with the people they report to, and this goes with communication and care and that kind of thing. So, this is where this is what the teachers want and that's what they were. They were calling from this is that these are things that they were appreciating in terms, and they don't sound like well-being when you say autonomy. That doesn't sound like well-being, but actually it is well-being. It is the thing that feeds into this eudaimonic well lived life, I'm given the space to think about how I run my classroom.

 

It speaks to the psychological self-efficacy. It speaks the strength of your relationship. So, when you look back at those well beings definitions I gave in the beginning, these things all speak to those.

Mark Quinn   
Yeah, and they're all achievable, right? They're all, I mean, everything you said is going on in every school, right? So, every school has ways of, you know, newsletters or, you know, recognising.

Samantha O’Sullivan 
Yes. Yeah. OK.

Mark Quinn  
Recognising extra effort that's gone in or whatever it might be, every school has a CPD plan. Every school knows, you know, has a work schedule and can create spaces and times. When teachers can work together or work off site if they need to.

Samantha O’Sullivan 
Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Mark Quinn  
Every school has the opportunity to build those good social relationships and you know, you know, that's why we call this podcast The Staffroom, Samantha, because we think that's a really important part of a teacher's well-being. And so, it's all achievable, but perhaps, maybe, maybe it would help if for school leaders to realise that those are the ingredients.

Samantha O’Sullivan 
Can I just stop you there, Mark? It's not just them. If you've got Ofsted saying we want to, you know, tacitly saying we wanted to see well-being, if Ofsted don't understand that that's well-being, they're going to be doing other things as well, because if I've got the inspector in and they said well, show me examples of well-being and I say Oh well, it's a reconditioned CPD it's I'm giving them time. Well that's not, well let's just I'll work and you say yes that is just our work and I think we overcomplicate it by saying I want to see, I want examples. I want. I want you to evidence, I want you to show how you are supporting. 

Good leadership is what's supporting well-being and the idea of the paracetamols and the chocolates, that’s not what,  you might want to do all of that, but the core that the centre of it is this culture of good strong leadership, which is, I genuinely think for the most part is there.

 

There's bits around the edges and it's and if the school leaders had the well-being literacy to be able to turn to someone and say this is what well-being is, I know that this is what it looks like in my school, in my context. And I know that. I trust myself, and I think perhaps there's some lack of trust in what they're doing, they don't from kind of this idea of well-being literacy or illiteracy, and that creating these performative things that people are upset in to look at.

Elaine Long 
Yeah, I mean, what I hear is it's almost like well-being is the outcome of all your school policies. It's not a policy in its own right. It's the outcome of effective leadership. And I feel the same when we're planning leadership development programmes and people say, well, where's your section on well-being? And I'm like, well it’s in the bit where we talk about relational drugs, it's in the bit where we talk to leaders about how they create a culture of autonomy. It's in the bit where we talk to leaders about how they lead professional learning and how autonomy is so integral to that so.

Samantha O’Sullivan 
Yes. Yeah.

Elaine Long 
You know, I think it's a really powerful message. Sadly, we are running out of time, but we always end our podcasts with a post it note. So I'm going to pass your post it note and you can write anything you like on the post it note and you can stick the post it note anywhere you like. So, you could stick it on Doris's desk or you could stick it on a wall at the DfE or you could stick it in every leader's planner.

Samantha O’Sullivan 
OK. OK. OK.

Elaine Long  
The choice is yours. What would you like to write on your post it note and where would you like to stick it?

Samantha O’Sullivan 
I think, Oh dear. OK. Please, may I have two post it notes. I would like to write on one that good well-being comes from firstly evaluating what's going on in your schools right now, but trusting in your good leadership of the schools and I would like to send that to the DfE.

 

I'd like one for them and then I would like a second one, and this one I'm going to have on my desk for me, and I'm going to continue banging the drum for this and spreading, spreading this knowledge. I really want the idea of well-being literacy to be something that we all know about in the same way we have, you know, numeracy and literacy. I want everyone to know about this. This is important.

Mark Quinn  
I think you can hear the bell. I can hear the bell. The bell is telling us that the time that we talked about as being an element of good well-being is up for us. We need to clear out of the staffroom. I need to take that coffee mug out of your hand Samantha and clear up the biscuit crumbs from around Elaine and call an end to this this episode for one more time. Thank you so much. Samantha, for being with us, and I recommend anybody read your doctoral work, because it's a good place to start if you want to improve your well-being literacy.

Samantha O’Sullivan 
OK, it's a pleasure.

Elaine Long  
Thanks so much, Samantha.

Mark Quinn   
Our thanks go to Samantha O'Sullivan for sharing a coffee, but no tea cake with us this week in The Staffroom.

Elaine Long  
Please do get in touch if you would like to be part of the conversation, click on the link at the bottom of the UCL Staffroom web page.

Mark Quinn   
If you've enjoyed this episode, there's more where that came from. Search IOE podcast from wherever you get your podcasts to find episodes of the stuff from as well as more podcasts from the IOE.

Elaine Long  
A quick favour before you go if you're listening on Apple Podcast or Spotify, we'd really appreciate it if you could give the IOE podcast a rating. Five stars would be nice if you're enjoying the show and that will help us to reach more people who are interested in hearing what the staff room is all about.

IOE announcer 

Thanks so much for downloading and listening to this IOE podcast.