Well Teachers
teach well.
‘If Twinkl is for resources, Well Teachers is for people.”
We are education professionals doing something to join up Professional Development and Teacher Wellbeing.
Well-being for teachers isn’t always straightforward to address.
For a start, there isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ solution for teacher wellbeing or professional development.
And there are lots of other reasons affecting these two key areas for teachers.
But here are some common issues - ones that teachers from all around the world talk about:
Little time for guilt-free rest.
Teachers, more than most, tend to find guilt-free rest to be a huge challenge (let alone actually finding the time to rest).
The workload, the demands and the constant negotiations are unmatched with teaching. In another profession, you could probably take a day off if you're not well. In teaching, you need to do a lot of work to prep the cover for your class if you aren't going to be there.
The pushback to arrange it all often makes it feel less stressful to just push through and teach despite being unwell. And then your students don't get the best of you.
We try to keep teacher morale up with cupcakes, pizzas and samosas. But...
Even when you can rest, there is varied and perpetual pressure, like:
Bullying.
Burnout.
Workload.
Workplace politics.
Feeling under-valued.
Disrespectful salaries.
There seems to be this pressure to teach, teach, teach: all while navigating tricky office politics, bullying (parental, school, even sometimes from students), handling your personal matters, as well as navigating global crises - all of which undoubtedly affect your students and community.
The pressure comes at you from parents, management, and on and on.
...And we haven't even mentioned a most important pressure:
That of the energy and focus required to meet the various, complex and often challenging needs of your learners.
You have to wade through this and bear significant pressure before you can actually get to enjoying what you signed up to do:
Teach!
This is why Well Teachers is about joining up both Professional Development and Teacher Wellbeing.
Because just like with our learners, when you feel well, you're more likely to teach - and learn well.
But how often have you attended a workshop that is squashed onto the end of an already packed day of teaching?
Given how much wellbeing affects ability to learn well, teacher well-being should be given the same kind of focus and investment that teacher training gets.
But how do you do actually take care of both teacher wellbeing and professional development?
Lots of research identifies teacher wellbeing is important and affects learner outcomes significantly. But few provide practical steps that schools or individual teachers can implement to get started with taking care of teacher wellbeing.
At Well Teachers, we’ve found that having these four things in place helps with nurturing both personal and professional growth:
Nudges, containers, systems and tools.
As you click to expand and read through each of these four areas, there are some prompts to help you consider the ways in which your community or school helps you with your well-being & professional development:
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Gentle nudges at the right time can change your life. In the same way we consistently nudge our students to make sure they're getting things done in a way that helps them prepare for their future and their growth, we also need nudges from time to time to help us make sure we're taking care of things.
Nudges at Well Teachers might be a ping you get in the form of an invitation to join a month-end Wrapper personal well-being session in The Well. Or it might be a post you see from a member seeking a buddy to help do an accountability sprint to build a new habit. It could also be a post from Well Teachers that you see about financial well-being, which prompts you to take action on, say, getting your emergency cash fund sorted. Nudges are vital.
How does your school or community help nudge you to take action on your personal or professional development?
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Containers are spaces, workshops and events created to help contain learning or experiences around specific topics.
At Well Teachers, containers come in different forms: they are found in the boutique, bespoke workshops on pertinent topics designed specially for a school. Or, in The Well, where there is a space we created with a private forum for learning about how to navigate current world issues with settler-colonialism and genocide. Logging onto social media can be too triggering, but having a safe, private forum to learn and unlearn at your own pace with safe people is one way to help navigate this crisis. Other containers are, for example, the private forums in the platform for The Well that are specially for helping build CVs, cover letters and navigate careers. Another container might be a short course or workshop that allows you to focus and go deep into something, like a workshop on Getting Started with AI.
What kind of containers does your school help set up for you to focus and learn about specific things?
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Systems are an all important part of a holistic well-being and professional development provision.
At Well Teachers, the systems in place contribute to creating a structure sustained support with well-being and professional development.
Some systems at Well Teachers include the Well Teachers' monthly well-being curriculum, curated specially to provide sustained learning around personal development throughout the year.
Another system is in having fixed gatherings each month for members of The Well. We have a month-end Wrapper, and a PD Workshop relating to the theme of the month. This is akin to meeting at 'The Well' to take care of our personal and professional growth together. Members in The Well receive around 10 hours of focused PD and Wellbeing opportunities throughout the year.
Historically, 'Wells’ have always been a place where communities gather to see each other, to know how each other is doing and how they have been. The Well is a vital part of a community’s system. It nourishes and supports. The Well is made up of teachers who are intrinsically motivated to continue growing and learning.
As James Clear puts it: 'We don't rise to the level of our goals - we fall to the level of our systems.'
What systems do you or your school have in place to help ensure you have sustained Professional and Personal development and growth opportunities throughout the year?
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Tools, in general, are made to help you carry out a specific function.
At Well Teachers, there are various tools available to help with professional and personal development: from decision matrixes, to editable templates for varied aspects of Personal Development. There are editable workshops and worksheets (all available over in the platform - some are free, and some are part of The Well). There is something to help you get from where you are to where you want to be. The 'Figure Yourself Out' workbook and accompanying videos are one of the first tools available for teachers just getting started at Well Teachers.
What tools do you have in your life or at school that helps you the most?
With nudges, containers, tools and systems, we can tackle wellbeing and professional development in a sustained way.
At Well Teachers, this means you can find learning opportunities and experiences that help with both personal and professional development.
And when nudges, containers, systems and tools are in place, this sets the way for collaboration, bonding, learning and growth.
All of which are so vital for personal and professional wellbeing.
But how does this look in reality? In a school day? For you, a teacher with a packed schedule?
Firstly, imagine PD sessions that weren't squashed at the end of your workday.
Where you were surrounded by other teachers who love learning and aren't joining just because their attendance has to be logged.
And imagine if those learning opportunities were even… fun?
What if you could meet up with new and familiar professional friends from other cultures, other schools, maybe even other countries, to pursue hobbies and relaxing or creative activities together?
And what if you were surrounded by a powerful network of like-minded educational professionals worldwide who could just 'be there' for you? To see, hear and understand you?
Sometimes that's just the boost you need.
The Well Teachers Curriculum
The problem with most PD and Wellbeing events is that organising them internally can be difficult when there is so much else to get done.
What’s more, organizing budgets, speakers, and topics can feel like a last minute rush.
As Teachers, we know how helpful it is to have a guiding direction and well-considered themes when it comes to learning and growth.
That’s partly why our curriculum at Well Teachers is designed with themes of the month, thoughtfully curated to fit alongside the seasons of a school year.
This helps add structure to the systems we have in place at Well Teachers (like the monthly PD sessions in The Well) that help us centre and focus our learning and discussions in a consistent way throughout the year.
Along with the Founding Members of The Well, we’ve selected themes specially based on several factors, one of which is aligned with teachers in international education. For example: in the summer months our themes explore fun, hobbies and rest, which fits in well with that time of the year as many teachers are off. While you’ll find we spend August focused on many pertinent issues like office politics, classroom setup, and getting back into teaching mode.
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Focused on how we can apply metacognitive strategies to our own learning as well as our teaching practice.
For more details, check the curriculum page at:
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Focused on how we can be fair and inclusive in our classes, and how we can understand our own needs.
For more details, check the curriculum page at:
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Exploring ideas about personal finances in the wellbeing theme, and AI in the teaching skills theme.
For more details, check the curriculum page at:
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Focused on fun and rest - learning about, and exploring different hobbies we can pursue.
For more details, check the curriculum page at:
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Thinking about our roles as part of educational and school systems and how to negotiate power dynamics ethically and confidently.
For more details, check the curriculum page at:
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Exploring the foundations of facilitation and shifting between being the ‘guide on the side’ and the ‘sage on the stage’.
For more details, check the curriculum page at:
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Exploring identity, heritage, matters of race and privilege, and how to centre and situate oneself in educational organisations.
For more details, check the curriculum page at:
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Understanding and overcoming the challenges of making new friends as adults and professionals.
For more details, check the curriculum page at:
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This month has a theme on deep planning and reflection for the calendar year, in preparation for 2025. Some members may be attending the Planning Retreat in Chitral.
For more details, check the curriculum page at:
In step with this curriculum, here are some of the practical ways we weave together nudges, systems, containers, and tools to help you take care of teacher well-being & professional development:
Teacher Workshops:
The most requested Book a boutique workshop & learning experience for your team or school.
Teacher fun:
Have an adventurous travel ‘give and getaway’ in Chitral, Northern Pakistan.
Teacher hobbies:
Try a new hobby: dabble in learning Mandarin, or learn to ski in Swat, Pakistan.
At Well Teachers, we’re in the way of caring.
Well Teachers is for educators who know teaching is not a one person job.
We need support in facing the grittiest parts of teacher problems while making sure we're still developing our skills, growing our careers, and in good, safe company.
At the core of Well Teachers are the educators, facilitators and professionals who join in and contribute to the workshops, and the private and public community spaces we are growing together.
Our beliefs, nationalities, cultures and more may differ, but our values remain alike. We are a bunch of like-valued educators caring for one another.
And ‘care’ - this simple word with a big meaning - is at the heart of both teacher well-being and professional development.
It is also one of the most powerful things we can do for educators at this precise point in history, too.
(You can read more about that in the apartheid page.)
For now, continue reading to learn a little more about who wrote everything you’re reading on this site, and where Well Teachers is based.
I’m Sumbella. Also known as Sumbal.
I’m a Facilitator and Community Lead for The Well, the private membership part of Well Teachers.
There’s more about me in the ‘Community Lead’ page, so I thought I’d start with my name here. I think you can learn a lot about someone by understanding where their names come from, so I’ll share something about mine here.
There are two variations of my name (actually, there are many).
But these are the two official ones. Sumbal. And Sumbella.
When I was growing up in central London, my original name, Sumbal, felt impossibly uncomfortable to me. My Pathan grandfather chose it.
My family on my father’s side are from Pakistan, Dera Ismail Khan, and my mother’s side are English.
In London, it felt constantly like nobody could pronounce ‘Sumbal’, let alone me. So I sat in this discomfort for years until we went on a family holiday to Egypt.
There, I found the Egyptians refused to call me Sumbal.
‘La la la’ (no no no) they said flatly.
They taught me that Sumbal is the masculine version of the root word in Arabic, ‘Sanabul’, which is the wheat flower.
And then they informed me they’d be calling me the feminine version of the word instead:
‘Sonbula’.
I loved it, instantly feeling better about the pronunciation of it.
After some ideation and months of deliberation, I finally settled on the variation ‘Sumbella’ , which carried options for pronunciation and that I felt suited me much better. And I officially changed my name to this variation.
Years passed, and I made efforts to integrate and reconcile my identity, and to understand my mixed English and Pathan roots.
And at some point, I finally came to be quite content and at peace with who I am, and with my root name too.
These days, I happily go by either or both variations.
I share this because I’ve found that matters of identity, culture and doing introspective work on yourself helps build a solid sense of well-being.
And often, figuring those things out can all begin with understanding the answer to the question:
What’s in a name?
Apparently, if you dig enough, names will invariably take you places.
And mine takes us to Chitral, in Northern Pakistan, where I hop between worlds to work on Well Teachers. Scroll on to know more.
Well Teachers:
Brought to you from Dubai. And Chitral.
The two couldn’t be more contrasting. One feels like you’re speeding around on a high tech (and highly manicured) jet stream, and the other is a rural adventure into the challenge of working with and around nature and her ways.
After a period of research, trial and error, I licensed Well Teachers in the UAE. The UAE as a country has exceptionally supportive tax measures in place to help new initiatives get set up, with exemptions on tax until a certain threshold.
This is a big deal for Well Teachers, since I am also doing my best to avoid paying or contributing to systems and funding that will perpetuate genocide and war.
After almost a decade working in education in the Middle East and North Africa being based out of Dubai, I quit my job (read more about that here), and I now hop between Pakistan and the UAE while I navigate my post-corporate working ways.
Well Teachers is the result of following my hunches that what teachers really need are more teacher-led movements that invest directly into the teaching community. And more focused, in-depth professional development that isn’t hap-hazard or constantly attached to sales of products or services.
Being in the first year of working on this, to help with keeping costs low and the runway long, I’ve taken concerted efforts to reduce my lifestyle and living costs.
I am enormously privileged to have dual Pakistani and UK citizenship, which enables me to have a base in the mountains of Chitral, up in the North of Pakistan. Among so many other things, a big thing Palestine has taught me is that there is really something precious and priceless about visa-free living on your own patch of land.
While Dubai is a place that feels like a jet stream for speed and efficiency, and undoubtedly helps Well Teachers function efficiently, Chitral is a place with a pace that helps me slow right down, and gives me access to some things that make my days feel like a success: being able to step out into nature, life with animals, daily walks in good fresh air, and impromptu cricket matches with children atop mountains.
To my delight, the educators who are a part of Well Teachers so far, especially those in The Well, are also a nature adoring, tree hugging, freedom seeking, justice loving bunch.
So if you find yoursef resonating - I really hope you will join in with some part of Well Teachers, because we must join up.
Whether around Well Teachers, on a workshop, a hobby course, in The Well, or maybe even in Chitral or Dubai, I hope we’ll meet soon.
Keep well,
Sumbella
P.S. I include here a couple more pictures from Chitral, including a smaller version of this famous tree in the background of this text, so you can see the magnificence of it and the view too. And yes - that is a chapli kebab I’m eating up atop the mountains in the Gol National Park. I often daydream about being in that spot one day surrounded by a bunch of magical, inspiring teachers. How cool would that be?
Well, Teachers:
If you read all the way down to here, let’s summarise:
Teacher Wellbeing is complex, and impacts teacher development.
At Well Teachers, we are doing something about issues related to this. As a member puts it:
If Twinkl is for resources, Well Teachers is for people.
Click to expand each area we provide for to continue learning more.
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Book a boutique workshop & learning experiences for your team or school.
These are boutique learning experiences facilitated and designed to consider teacher wellbeing and weave it into professional development experiences.
Workshops can be delivered in person and virtually for schools all around the world. Topics are varied - reach out to learn more.
View the menu here.
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Have an adventurous travel ‘give and getaway’ in Chitral, Northern Pakistan.
The first of these give-and-getaways held in Chitral, is coming up in December.
A summer getaway that features relaxation, adventure plus a voluntary teaching exchange component is in the works for 2025.
Places on these getaways are limited, deliberately small, and given on first preference and priority to members of The Well.
Find out more here.
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Try a new hobby in a boutique sized cohort of friendly education professionals::
There are two hobby courses coming up:
Learn Mandarin from Scratch - Online
Learn to Ski in Swat, Pakistan!
The benefits of taking up a hobby are immeasurable for teachers. It not only gets you back in the learner seat - it reignites your curiosity to learn again, and helps you bond with other teachers and make new friends.
Members of The Well get priority access to booking spots on these courses.
Find out more here.
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This is the inner circle - our private membership space at Well Teachers.
Be part of a worldwide group of supportive educators in our teacher membership area of Well Teachers.
Receive invitations to monthly get-togethers, priority access and behind the scenes co-creation of what we do at Well Teachers.
Learn more about the membership here.
