About Us
Our Vision at Welbee
At Welbee, we strongly believe that the way to deliver the best outcomes for pupils and students is to put staff first. Happy teachers and support staff create happy classrooms.
When your staff are energetic and driven, they share this motivation with children. When teachers have resilience and confidence, they help students believe in themselves.
Your staff are your best and most expensive asset, and there is strong evidence that improving staff wellbeing increases school results, including exam performance.
We help school leaders to transform their workplace culture, so their staff always feel heard, valued, and supported. We share insights, expert knowledge, and processes for world-class leadership, to keep teachers in the classroom. and all staff in school. We make wellbeing simply part of what happens every day.
At Welbee, we strongly believe that the way to deliver the best outcomes for pupils and students is to put staff first. Happy teachers and support staff create happy classrooms.
When your staff are energetic and driven, they share this motivation with children. When teachers have resilience and confidence, they help students believe in themselves.
Your staff are your best and most expensive asset, and there is strong evidence that improving staff wellbeing increases school results, including exam performance.
We help school leaders to transform their workplace culture, so their staff always feel heard, valued, and supported. We share insights, expert knowledge, and processes for world-class leadership, to keep teachers in the classroom. and all staff in school. We make wellbeing simply part of what happens every day.
Our Values
We are passionate about schools, staff, pupils and students and our values underpin our vision. Putting staff first is the only long-term way we can provide all children with the best and broadest education.
Our passion for staff wellbeing doesn’t stop at our office door and is deeply embedded in the foundations of Welbee and the way we work.
Our team works with integrity, curiosity, and empathy. We are always honest about what we do and how we feel, while understanding and respecting individuals. We are open to feedback and when we make mistakes, we will own them, put them right, and learn from them.
We are proactive and considerate in our approach to each other and our schools, making sure that we meet our goals, while listening to the opinions of others and considering everyone’s work and home life balance.
We aim to be role models for what we teach and use our knowledge of staff wellbeing to constantly improve and build on the way we work.
Our Story
Our founder, Mark Solomons has always had a strong interest in education and a knowledge of leadership that inspired him to found Welbee in 2018, and begin supporting the transformation of workplace culture in schools.
Mark has always been an advocate for outstanding teaching and learning and understands the many barriers that make it hard for schools to deliver this. His mum was a teacher and this has encouraged him to take an active role as a Governor and Trust Chair in Primary and Secondary Schools for over 20 years.
His first career was in retail banking and as an operating board member and Retail Director, he led a large national and cross-functional team in a joint venture that incorporated three different organisational cultures. This is where he first realised the importance of putting staff first in any workplace and the need for inclusion. He experienced first-hand the impact staff wellbeing and engagement has on an organisation and its results.
His desire to support education led him to leave retail banking in 2009 to work with school leaders. He co-founded a national charity, using Olympians and the ‘Be the Best You can Be’ programme to develop work and life skills for students as part of the 2012 Olympic Games.
Following this, he used his knowledge and experience of leadership, line management and culture to deliver workshops and coaching sessions with school leaders around the country, to help support the improvement of staff engagement, wellbeing and performance.
Mark realised that one major reason why schools he worked with weren’t achieving their goals, was the way leaders within education were developed. Many school leaders receive little training in how to lead people, in comparison to other industries, such as the extensive training he received to secure his senior role in banking.
He realised it was vital that school leaders had the right skills, tools and support to manage staff and as a result, improve their wellbeing. He wanted to help give staff a bigger voice and enable school leaders to put the right actions in place quickly, so staff wellbeing could become a natural part of their school life. This is how Welbee was born.
Over the last year, Welbee has continued to grow and help more and more schools understand how to make the biggest impact for their staff.
As a result, leaders have raised their results, increased staff retention, and put staff wellbeing at the forefront of their workplace culture. Putting staff first is the best way of ensuring pupils achieve the best outcomes.
We are delighted that former Headmaster of Bilton Grange (until 31st August 2021), Alex Osiatynski has joined the expanding Welbee team, as we look to better support those in the independent sector
Alex Osiatynski joins the Welbee team
Alex Osiatynski, stood down at the end of the summer term 2021 from Bilton Grange Prep School in Warwickshire, where he had served as Headmaster since 2013 and has joined Welbee in an advisory capacity.
Alex holds a Masters in Educational Leadership from the University of Buckingham, is a highly regarded educator with over 20 years’ experience in the sector. He was until recently a Director of IAPS (The Independent Association of Prep Schools) and held a public role as a teacher conduct panellist for the Teacher Regulation Agency.
He is also an experienced manager, having acted as CEO for Bilton Grange Trust, where he oversaw a successful school merger, and is a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership and Management.
As an inspector for the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI), the Oxford-educated expert brings extensive knowledge of the demands and challenges of the independent sector to his new role.
Having Alex onboard will add to Welbee’s extensive pool of expertise in school culture and staff development, and his experience in the international education market as well as a TEFL qualification, will also play an integral role in developing Welbee’s expanding international offer.
Alex said;
"I am passionate about values in education and in Welbee I see a business that shares many of my beliefs. The best way to build an effective school culture – be it in the independent, state or international sector – is by looking after the wellbeing of staff.
Happy teachers tend to produce better educational outcomes for their students and this in turn brings benefits for the whole of society. Welbee is doing wonderful work around educational wellbeing and I am looking forward to introducing more colleagues to the Welbee team over the coming weeks and months."
