Ballyclare High picks up top industry award

Gill Fairly, Investors in People Practitioner presented the award to Year Eight pupils and biology teacher, Nikki Craig, who is the senior teacher in charge of staff development at the school.

Nikki said: “We were the first post-primary school to secure this award three years ago and are delighted to have our continued focus on the health and wellbeing of our people endorsed once again through this industry standard. This time the assessors looked at all we were doing and awarded us the highest possible level.

“We believe health and wellbeing are the pillars upon which we build a caring and creative community. Staff members who are more able to cope with the demands of school life are, in turn, better able to role model positive wellbeing behaviours for our children.”

The award is measured at developed, established, advanced and high performing levels and Ballyclare High was judged to be at the optimum high performing level. The criteria, which the school had to meet, included; health and wellbeing practices are in place and understood; people are actively engaging and participating; the activities are generating positive outcomes and the approach to health and wellbeing is embedded in the school’s ethos and always improving.

Principal, Dr Rainey, said: “We’ve extended our focus on health and wellbeing within the school and have created the NI Wellbeing Academy, a partnership with 17 primary and post primary schools. We supported these schools through a programme of workshops, which covered coaching conversations, baselining wellbeing in the workplace, building resilience, change management, self-care strategies, time management and managing workload effectively. “