A conversation with Billy about leadership, reform and hope. 

This episode marks the final conversation of Changing Conversations, a podcast that began in June 2020 during lockdown, born from a desire to create space for thoughtful dialogue in education.

In this closing conversation, Billy reflects on his journey from secondary headteacher through the pandemic to his current role as Head of Children and Young People at Scottish Action for Mental Health (SAMH).

We explore what he’s seeing nationally in relation to children and young people’s mental health, the realities behind the word “crisis,” and what gives him hope. We talk about curriculum, reform, anxiety, belonging, neurodivergence, attendance, AI, teacher wellbeing — and the human threads that connect all of it.

What’s Next

While Changing Conversations comes to an end, the work continues. Over the coming months, Sarah’s podcast Space to Think will become Space to Think – Conversations in Education, bringing together reflective dialogue, research, lived experience and courageous thinking about education as it is lived, led and felt into one coherent space. 

You can continue listening, reflecting and connecting there. You can also join Sarah on Substack, where she shares longer-form writing on leadership, learning and wellbeing (https://spacetothink.substack.com/).

In this episode, Sarah chats with Maggie Farrar about presence in leadership. Maggie has worked in Education for many years as a teacher and as a leader, and found that her personal mindfulness practice was a cornerstone of her leadership practice.  Having trained as a mindfulness practitioner, her work with leaders focuses on supporting others to cultivate mindfulness in life and work. 

We explore how mindfulness practice and wellbeing, in general, have become more acceptable to talk about and how well they integrate into leadership practice and development. Maggie has a wonderful way of honouring the tradition in which her work sits and sharing it in a way that engages and supports busy, tired and often overwhelmed leaders. 

In 2022, Maggie published her book Leading With Presence, It’s An Inside Job. Her experience of leadership programmes was that they tended to focus on the outer world of leadership, leaving the inner world of leaders neglected and unexplored. She hopes that her book helps to re-dress the imbalance and supports leaders in cultivating awareness and practical ways of developing mindfulness and presence. 

Find out more about Maggie’s work - https://www.empoweringleadership.co.uk/ 

Connect with Maggie on X - https://x.com/FarrarMaggie 

Read Leading With Presence, It’s An Inside Job

In this episode of Changing Conversations, Sarah is joined by Katrina and Sean for a rich and reflective discussion inspired by their book Tackling Poverty and Disadvantage in Schools.

Drawing on their work within the Tees Valley Education Trust, Katrina and Sean explore what it means to take a genuinely place-based approach to school improvement, one that recognises the complexity of poverty, values lived experience and sees schools as part of a wider ecosystem rather than the sole solution.

Together we explore:

• Their approach to being “furiously curious” 

• Why education alone cannot address educational inequality

• The importance of dignity, relational work and deep social listening

• How co-production with children, families and communities reshapes practice

• The difference between collaboration as a slogan and collaboration as design

• How values, place and policy intersect 

• What brings hope

Katrina and Sean share concrete examples from their context, from co-produced community magazines and uniform access, to partnerships with funders, charities and local organisations, all illustrating how small, intentional design choices can reduce or remove barriers and build belonging.

Throughout the conversation, there is a clear invitation: not to replicate their work, but to reflect on your own context, values and assumptions and to ask what might be possible if we gang up on the problem rather than on one another.

This episode will resonate with school leaders, educators and system leaders who are grappling with complexity, seeking hope without false optimism, and looking for ways to lead with integrity in uncertain times.

Useful links: 

Connect with Katrina and Sean on LinkedIn.

• Book insights & discount code here.
• Read and download the PLACE: Our Journey So Far Impact report.
• Tees Valley Education Trust website (including the community magazine mentioned in the conversation).
• Child of the North: more information about their campaign work as a movement and resources/reports for colleagues to download.
• Substack: Sean’s personal Substack with obvious implicit and explicit links to the work of Tees Valley Education Trust and contained in the book.

In this episode of Changing Conversations, Sarah is joined by Professor Haili Hughes - teacher, leader, writer and academic. This is a slower, more reflective conversation. It’s the kind of conversation you fall into, where the threads of experience, identity, leadership and belonging weave together in ways you can only see with hindsight.

Together we explore:

• Haili’s unexpected journey from journalist to teacher, leader, academic and author and how values like truth and justice have always guided her choices.

• The realities of returning to school leadership after several years in national and international roles.

• The tension between alignment and agency in professional development, and how Haili is working to rebuild teacher autonomy through shared mental models and intentional space to think.

• Living in liminal spaces and how that shapes the kinds of relationships Haili builds and the leaders she feels drawn to support.

• Psychological safety, trust and radical candour as the foundations of belonging for staff, students and families.

• Human-centred leadership, what it looks like in practice and why small acts of humanity matter.

• Teacher identity and retention, including early insights from Haili and Sam Gibbs’ research into why teachers stay, not just why they leave.

Connect with Haili on LinkedIn or Substack

Books referenced:

• Ready to Teach An Inspector Calls(with Miriam Hussein)

• Coaching for Decision Making (with Sarah Cottingham & Adam Colbrook)

• Clearing the Path for Leadership (with Michael Child)

• English Teaching Hacks (with Stuart Pryke)

• Mentoring In Schools - How To Become An Expert Colleague

In this episode, I’m joined by Anne-Marie Duguid, creator of Enabling Leaders and long-time collaborator in leadership development across the UK and internationally.

Across the conversation, Anne-Marie shares the story behind creating a new model of leadership learning, one that moves away from “done to” programmes and toward something deeper, more intentional and impactful. With honesty and clarity, she discusses why many leadership initiatives struggle to create lasting change and what it means to build something that leaders can use, own and grow.

We explore:

• Why traditional leadership programmes often fall short and what’s missing in the evidence of impact.

• The jigsaw analogy - understanding the pieces, the conditions and why the final 10% matters.

• The importance of language, culture and precision in developing strong leadership identities.

• How the model works in practice, from strategic insight meetings to creation days, framework development and precise professional conversations.

• Why 90-minute conversations about your own leadership can be unexpectedly transformative.

• What it means to design an approach that is done with leaders, not done to them.

• Stories of impact from schools and systems where the tool has taken on a life of its own.

• The challenges that can “kick the jigsaw,” and how to build stickability.

• The joy and necessity of talking about leadership with clarity, intention and depth.
  

You can find out more about Enabling Leaders through their website (https://enabling-leaders.com/) or connect with Anne-Marie on LinkedIn. 

In this book-filled episode, I sit down with Kathryn Morgann to explore three powerful reads that together form a kind of trilogy for purpose, restoration and reclamation:

• Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman

• Phosphorescence by Julia Baird

• Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Through the lens of teaching, leadership and life, they weave a conversation about doing good work without losing yourself in the process — about rooting deeper, not just striving higher.

Books We Explore

Moral Ambition — what does it mean to be ambitious about doing good? How can educators reclaim a sense of moral purpose and agency in systems that often prioritise efficiency over empathy?

Phosphorescence — the healing power of nature, stillness and awe. Julia Baird’s reminder that to sustain our light, we must protect it through quietness, kindness and connection. 

Women Who Run with the Wolves — reconnecting with our wild, creative instinct as the source of vitality and joy. How can we honour that part of ourselves in work and life?

In this episode: 

• Ambition isn’t the enemy of morality — it’s morality’s missing energy.

• The classroom is already moral work: shaping minds and hearts that might change the world.

• Restoration isn’t indulgence — it’s repair.

• The strongest trees don’t stand alone; their roots intertwine.

• The most radical form of moral ambition for women today might be to rest, to be wild, to protect your own light.
  

In this episode, I’m joined by Simon Breakspear to explore what it means to elevate the quality of professional conversations in schools. We discuss why simply spending more time together doesn’t guarantee better collaboration and how schools can make the most of the time they already have.

Simon introduces the idea of weary talk, those moments when teams power down and connection fades and offers simple, sustainable ways to move from weary talk to conversations that energise and build culture.

In this episode:

• Why every collaborative conversation either moves culture forward or stagnates it.

• The signs and causes of “weary talk” and how to notice when it’s creeping in.

• The role of structure and facilitation in creating trust and shared ownership.

• Seven practical tools to guide professional conversations from empathy mapping to stop/start/continue.

• How new leaders can use these tools to build confidence and avoid over-preparing.

• Why preparation isn’t just about slides, it’s about preparing your state, presence and mindset.

• The threads connecting Elevated Conversations, Teaching Sprints and The Pruning Principle.

• Simon’s reflections on the creative process, self-doubt and finding the courage to share your work.

Resources:

• Simon’s website 

• Elevated Conversations – book and free tools

• Teaching Sprints

• The Pruning Principle

You can get 20% off Sarah’s book - Creating a Trauma-Informed Classroom until 31 December 2025 using the code 25EFLY3 at https://www.routledge.com/ 

Teacher and author Sarah Lathan joins me to unpack what a trauma-informed classroom looks like in practice. Drawing on 15 years across additional needs and mainstream contexts, Sarah explains how understanding child development, the brain and the nervous system translates into day-to-day decisions about routines, responses and relationships.

We get into what “trauma-informed” actually means, we tackle common misconceptions (“isn’t this just being soft?”) and make the case that staff wellbeing and school culture are the real enablers. From practical tools to system conditions, this episode is about moving beyond quick fixes and committing to the steady, relational work that supports all learners.

In this episode

• Sarah’s journey through teaching to writing Creating a Trauma-Informed Classroom

• What “trauma-informed” really means 

• Why safety is both physical and emotional, often located in people, not just places

• Holding boundaries without abandoning nurture; dispelling the “softness” myth

• Practical tools

• Pupil voice as genuine agency (not a tick-box) and simple ways to surface it

• Primary vs secondary realities: time, relationships, developmental lens and phone policies

• Culture and values: trust, communication, non-exclusion approaches, working with families

• Staff wellbeing as a condition for relationship-led practice

• Playing the long game: prevention, patience and accepting natural “dips in the graph”
  

Referenced in this conversation

You can get 20% off Sarah’s book - Creating a Trauma-Informed Classroom until 31 December 2025 using the code 25EFLY3 at https://www.routledge.com/ 

• Nurture principles 

• The Resilience documentary

• Pixar’s Inside Out (Joy, Sadness & Bing Bong clip for emotions coaching)

• LEGO “Build to Express”-style activities for pupil voice

In this episode of Changing Conversations, I am joined by Kathleen Johnston - Education Manager, doctoral student and former Quality Improvement Manager for the Northern Alliance. Together, we explore what it really means to collaborate in education and what gets in the way.

From the promise and challenges of the Regional Improvement Collaboratives to the tension between policy intention and system reality, this is a conversation that opens up the complexity of working together in meaningful ways. Kathleen reflects on what she’s learned from both practice and research and how schools, leaders and systems can better create the conditions for collaborative improvement.

In this episode:

• The evolution and aims of the RICs in Scotland

• What meaningful collaboration looks and feels like

• The structures and relational dynamics that enable or inhibit it

• The role of research and reflection in understanding what works

• Why time, trust, and process matter

• Leading with bravery and clarity in busy, demanding systems

• What we can all learn by “unravelling collaboration” in our own contexts
  

Referenced in this conversation:

• Viviane Robinson – theories of action and engaged vs bypass models. Listen to an earlier conversation with Viviane here. 

• Jenny Donohoo – collective efficacy. Jenny also joined us for a conversation on this topic back in September 2020.