Bitesize Research: Keeping A Diary & Teacher Wellbeing

By Jaya Carrier

I hope you’re all having a good final week and wishing you all a lovely summer break when it comes around! For the final bitesize research of the academic year, I was interested to see some research on teacher wellbeing and how keeping a diary can support this.

Objectives: To understand how keeping a diary might support teacher wellbeing.

Summary: 

• The researchers acknowledged that lots of systemic changes would be necessary to overhaul teacher wellbeing.

• However, in their project, the researchers worked with 450 teachers. These teachers were asked to keep a daily diary for either three, six or twelve months. 

• The diary toolkit used was not just a writing tool - it incorporated scrapbooking and audio recordings too if the participants wanted to.

• 70% of participants reported that the diary keeping made their wellbeing improve

• The researchers conclude that keeping a diary helps teachers to navigate their professional and personal lives, and supports them to keep things in perspective.

• The research suggests the following practices of diary keeping that can support with teacher wellbeing:

• 1) Define your wellbeing - write out, in your own words, what wellbeing means to you. 

• 2) Write or draw a wellbeing recipe - create a visual reminder of things that you want to do to prioritise your wellbeing

• 3) Understand what rest means to you - the authors suggest drawing a rainbow, whereby each colour represents a different activity to support you to rest. 

How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflections arising from this that might be helpful to consider are: 

• What is important for my wellbeing?

• What does rest mean to me? How does the summer break support with this?

• Is diary keeping or other reflective practices something I want to try in the new academic year?

• What support do I need for this? 

Please do get in touch if you would like to talk further about this - I’d love to hear from you!