Prioritising teachers’ health: The impact of ‘unstructured wellness time’ on educator wellness

Objectives and Setting: Schools are becoming more and more complex work environments, in turn impacting teachers’ well-being. This study aimed to better understand how one teacher’s well-being could be impacted when offered consistent opportunities to attend to their own personal wellness during school hours through monthly ‘unstructured wellness time’. Design and Methods: Using autoethnography, the research is an account of first author’s personal experiences as an educator. Data collection and analysis was an iterative and holistic examination of critical incidents, reflective journal entries and photographs to allow for ‘meaning-making’ and to convey the first author’s personal experiences throughout the ‘unstructured wellness times’. A Comprehensive School Health framework was also used to reflect on and interpret data throughout this study. Results: Findings showed that being offered consistent time throughout the school year to attend to teacher wellness led to an increase in feeling that first author’s health was of more value within the workplace. Conclusion: Key conclusions drawn from the study contribute to the growing amount of literature on teacher well-being and identify that with the proper supports in place, the concept of ‘unstructured wellness time’ could be an effective tool to improving teachers’ health within school workplace settings.