Across the education landscape, we are seeing the same emotional and systemic strain repeating itself:

1. Staff are working beyond capacity

2. Students are presenting with increasingly complex emotional needs

3. Leaders are balancing impossible demands, and

4. The emotional toll of sustaining these pressures is becoming increasingly visible.

 

And yet, despite this urgency, the sector has lacked a holistic, psychologically grounded approach that looks at wellbeing across the entire organisation, rather than as a series of disconnected initiatives. We need something deeper, clearer, and more actionable, that’s where the 8WiseED® approach comes in, starting with the 8WiseED® Education Wellbeing Audit Service and the partnership between Dalton Wise Consultancy Ltd and Skills and Education Group.

 

Together, we combine:

• the 8WiseED® approach, grounded in psychological insight through the 8Wise® Method

• Skills and Education Group’s trusted voice, reach, and engagement across education for over 100 years

• a shared belief that education wellbeing must be measurable, strategic, and sustainable

 

Why This Partnership Matters

This partnership has been shaped first and foremost with one intention:

to ensure that schools, colleges, and educational organisations working with Skills and Education Group have access to a wellbeing service they can trust, one with clarity, consistency, and genuine psychological integrity behind it.

 

Rather than navigating the overwhelming marketplace of wellbeing products and promises, this collaboration provides a clear, reliable route for accessing organisational wellbeing support, one backed by lived experience, psychological insight, and sector knowledge through 8WiseED® and the 8Wise® Method.

 

For Skills and Education Group members, customers, and clients, this means:

• confidence that the wellbeing support they are engaging with is credible

• access to best practice that evolves with shared sector learning

• trusted relationships between SEG, Dalton Wise, and institutions

• standardised methodology ensuring consistent outcomes across settings

• sector-supported wellbeing provision grounded in collective expertise and shared learning

 

The aim is not to make wellbeing exclusive, but to make it accessible, dependable, quality-assured, and sector-relevant.

 

This partnership ensures that organisations have a consistent, endorsed, psychologically informed route into the 8WiseED® Audit. It protects the integrity of the methodology while giving institutions confidence that the work is rooted in psychological depth and systemic understanding.

 

This partnership ensures that institutions working with Skills and Education Group have a trusted, guided, and direct route into the 8WiseED®Audit experience, delivered with clarity, consistency, and integrity.

 

A Whole-System Approach That Delivers Real Insight and Real Change

The 8WiseED® Education Wellbeing Audit is not a survey, a wellbeing gesture, or a quick morale exercise. It is a structured, evidence-informed exploration of the emotional, cultural, cognitive, relational, and environmental realities that shape life inside your organisation.

 

It is built upon the 8Wise® Method, a clinically informed, evidence-aligned wellbeing framework that we apply through a strategic and proprietary process. We don’t simply apply a model; we examine how the lived reality of working and learning in your organisation shapes daily experience. This includes exploring:

• how psychological wellbeing shows up in day-to-day interactions

• how emotional load is carried, often invisibly, by staff

• how communication patterns affect trust and psychological safety

• how leadership culture sets emotional tone and expectation

• how the physical and sensory environment influences stress response

• how cultural norms and expectations impact mental health

 

Crucially, the audit is mapped to:

• the core 8Wise® Method components of organisational and individual mental health and wellbeing

• the most common mental health pressures affecting the education sector today

• current Ofsted expectations around workload, emotional safety, and staff wellbeing

 

This ensures that the insight produced is both meaningful and context-aware, grounded in the realities of modern education rather than abstract theory.

 

We look beyond individual resilience and towards the institution’s ecosystem. Instead of asking whether a staff member is coping, we examine whether the structures, systems, and expectations they’re working within are helping or hindering their ability to thrive.

 

What the 8WiseED® Audit Actually Is and What Organisations Can Expect

The 8WiseED® Audit begins by exploring what the organisation is already doing to support mental health and wellbeing, for staff and students alike. We gain an understanding of the initiatives, strategies, daily practices, relational dynamics, and cultural patterns already present within the organisation. This is not about finding fault, it’s about understanding the existing foundations of wellbeing.

 

This allows us to see how wellbeing is currently being approached, not only in policy or programme form, but in everyday interactions, emotional dynamics, workload expectations, and lived experience.

 

From there, the audit helps identify where wellbeing efforts are effective and where there may be gaps, missed opportunities, or unmet needs.

Using this understanding, we then hold the existing practice up against three key perspectives:

• the psychological principles of the 8Wise® wellbeing framework

• the real wellbeing and mental health challenges faced within education

• current Ofsted expectations around staff wellbeing and organisational culture

 

This produces a clear, evidence-informed gap analysis, highlighting strengths, revealing pressure points, and identifying practical areas for development.

 

Crucially, this is not a critique of what an organisation “should have done.” It is a process of compassionate clarity. The recommendations provided are designed to refine and strengthen existing systems, not replace or undermine them. The support that follows is collaborative, offering insight, practical suggestions, and implementation support that fits your context.

 

Based on the conversations we’ve had with leaders and the exploratory audit work already undertaken, the 8Wise® approach is consistently received as refreshing, clarifying, and deeply insightful. It enables organisations to see the full picture of their wellbeing culture, often for the first time, and supports a more coherent and psychologically grounded approach to embedding wellbeing into everyday practice.

 

Why This Work Is So Urgently Needed

We are living in one of the most psychologically complex periods in modern education. To state it plainly: the emotional stamina of staff is stretched thin, leaders are carrying increasing responsibility, and students are presenting with greater emotional, behavioural, and cognitive needs than ever before.

 

And despite all of this, the situation is not hopeless. Colleges are not failing. People are not broken. What they need is structure, clarity, and psychologically informed support. That is exactly what the audit provides.

 

OFSTED & Legislative Context

There is now a greater emphasis than ever on:

• staff wellbeing

• emotional safety

• leadership accountability

• inclusive and psychologically safe environments

• supportive behaviour frameworks

• SEND-sensitive culture

 

OFSTED explicitly states:
“Leaders must take account of the workload and wellbeing of staff and avoid unnecessary burdens.”

 

The 8WiseED® Audit gives organisations the clarity, evidence, and language to genuinely act on that expectation, not just nod to it.

 

The Human Cost of Doing Nothing

When wellbeing remains unaddressed, consequences ripple through the organisation, performance decreases, relationships deteriorate, absence increases, communication suffers, and ultimately, students feel it.

 

But when wellbeing is approached strategically and compassionately:

• staff feel valued

• students feel safe

• leaders feel supported

• trust strengthens

• communication opens

• resilience grows

• culture stabilises

 

A regulated community learns and works better. A depleted community cannot.

 

Empowering Teams and Organisations

The 8WiseED® Audit supports EVERY layer of the institution, students feel seen and safe, teachers feel supported, support staff feel valued, leaders gain clarity rather than criticism, and governing bodies gain evidence for meaningful decision-making.

 

The audit does not blame individuals, it reveals patterns. It highlights structural pressure points, cultural contributors to stress, and opportunities for meaningful change. It creates psychological safety rather than defensiveness.

 

My Passion and My Why

Everything I do within 8Wise® and 8WiseED® comes from a deeply personal belief: mental health support should never be a luxury, it should be embedded.

 

I’ve sat in rooms with teachers on the brink of tears, leaders balancing emotional weight they haven’t had time to name, and support staff who feel invisible in the emotional landscape of the institution. I know these experiences. I’ve witnessed them. And I care deeply about changing them.

 

People do not struggle because they are weak, they struggle because the system is strained. 8WiseED® was built to support people and systems simultaneously, to create environments where wellbeing isn’t an add-on, but a foundation.

 

Working with Skills and Education Group means that this work can scale responsibly, ethically, and with national reach.

 

Looking Ahead: The Vision

Through this partnership, we hope to:

• support institutions nationwide

• improve staff retention and morale

• equip leaders with emotional literacy

• meaningfully support neurodivergent learners

• build emotionally regulated classrooms

• improve attendance and engagement

• strengthen trust and communication

• decrease crisis management

• increase preventative practice

• influence sector expectations and wellbeing norms

 

In time, I believe this work will help shift the sector from coping to thriving.

 

A Call to Leaders Who Care

The 8WiseED® Education Wellbeing Audit is more than a wellbeing check, it is the beginning of organisational transformation. I am deeply proud to deliver this work in partnership with Skills and Education Group and eager to see its impact on leadership confidence, staff health, student experience, and educational culture in the years ahead.

If you are reading this as a leader, teacher, governor, or someone who cares about the human side of education, thank you. You are part of a movement that matters.

If you would like to explore what the 8WiseED® Audit might look like for your institution, the team at Skills and Education Group will be happy to guide you through the next steps.

Together, we are reshaping the emotional foundations of education, one institution at a time.

 

Kim Rutherford Bio

Kim Rutherford is a Wellbeing Consultant, Registered Psychotherapist, keynote speaker and author of four books on mental health and wellbeing, including 8Wise Ways to a Healthier, Happier Mind. She is the creator of the 8Wise® Method and 8WiseED®, practical frameworks used across the UK to reduce stress, improve staff wellbeing and prevent burnout. With over a decade of experience in mental health and organisational wellbeing, Kim partners with colleges, schools, employers and national organisations to deliver wellbeing audits, strategy development and training that build healthier, high-performing workplace cultures. Her mission is to make mental health and wellbeing support practical, accessible and sustainable for everyone and improve the mental health and wellbeing of the education sector.