Well-Led Schools

Most schools agree that staff wellbeing is a joint responsibility. Staff nod along when it's presented. Yet across our national dataset of over 4500 educators, only 50% report positive morale, and only 57% say their workplace positively affects their mental health. When good intentions are everywhere, but the numbers remain stubbornly flat, the issue isn't buy-in; it’s operational clarity about who holds what, and in what order.

This term, three principals in different states and sectors asked me a version of the same thing: staff expect the school to fix things, so what part do they play? That question made me reflect on how my answer has evolved since I first wrote about this debate in 2022. Since then, studying the psychosocial Code of Practice, alongside thousands of hours of data collection and consultations with school communities, has brought sharp clarity to the sequence required to create genuine change.

In this solo episode, I explain why "everyone's responsibility" so often becomes nobody's, why leaders have to make the first move, and why clarifying joint responsibility sits at step three of the Six Steps to Becoming a Well-Led School: not too early, not too late.

In this episode

• How my thinking on joint responsibility has evolved since 2022, and what changed it
• The three camps: personal resilience, workplace conditions and the system, and why they all need each other
• The Staff Wellbeing Sweet Spot, and why emotions and morale are contagious in teams
• Why "everyone's responsibility" ends up resting on the most passionate person in the school until they burn out
• Why schools jump to wellbeing days and EAPs, and what the Code says about those controls
• The principal who opened a staff session with an apology, and what happened next
• Why clarifying joint responsibility is step three, and what goes wrong when it comes too early or too late
• The three layers: the school, the team and the self, with consultation running through all of them
• Changing the work before helping people cope, at every scale

LINKS AND RESOURCES

Poster: Psychosocial Safety Is the School's Duty. Everyone Is Responsible for the Work https://mailchi.mp/9070de001570/psychosocial_safety_duties_poster

Article: Psychosocial Safety Is the School's Duty, but Everyone Is Responsible for the Work https://adriennehornby.com.au/psychosocial-safety-is-the-schools-duty-but-everyone-is-responsible-for-the-work/

Article: Who Owns Staff Wellbeing? Why Leaders Must Make the First Move https://adriennehornby.com.au/who-owns-staff-wellbeing-why-leaders-must-make-the-first-move/

Join this term's FREE online training, Psychosocial Risk Management: A Practical and Authentic Approach https://adriennehornby.com.au/training/

Connect with Adrienne

Website: https://adriennehornby.com.au

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/adrienne-hornby-a4126a205

Email: [email protected]

Well-Led Schools Partnership Program: https://adriennehornby.com.au/school-partnerships

Across Australia, the perception that leaders build trust sits at just 58%, and the staff carrying the most did not ask for less work. They asked for better communication, better people management and leaders who hold the line on below-the-line behaviour. When we look beneath the surface of workplace strain, the data points at people skills.

This week I’m joined by Jenny Cole, leadership coach, self-described “recovering principal”, and author of Teach, Lead or Leave. Jenny spent twenty years in special education before walking out of a crisis meeting and never going back. Her advice to leaders is unpopular, and she knows it: once you step into leadership, stop going to courses on curriculum and behaviour. Your job now is to lead people, and nobody trains you for that.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why trust comes before results, every time
• The professional learning leaders actually need (and where to find it)
• The five people every school leader needs around them
• Why norms don’t stick, and the two-minute meeting practice that fixes it
• Above and below the line behaviours and personal accountability to notice when you dip
• What makes frameworks last beyond the staff meeting
• A one-page user manual for every staff member to unlock hidden strengths

About Jenny

Jenny Cole is a leadership and executive coach, facilitator and educator. After twenty years as a teacher and principal in special education, she founded Positively Beaming and Beam Consulting, and works alongside school leaders across Australia to embed the leadership practices that make a difference to staff wellbeing and culture. She is the author of Teach, Lead or Leave (2026).

LINKS AND RESOURCES

• Book: Teach, Lead or Leave by Jenny Cole https://www.teachleadleave.com.au/
• Jenny's webinar Series: https://www.teachleadleave.com.au/webinarseries
• Tune into her Podcast, Positively Leading: https://positivelybeaming.com.au/podcast
• Brené Brown, Dare to Lead: The BRAVING Inventory: brenebrown.com/resources/the-braving-inventory 
• Article: Who Owns Staff Wellbeing and Why Leaders Must Make the First Move  https://adriennehornby.com.au/who-owns-staff-wellbeing-why-leaders-must-make-the-first-move/ 
• Report: State of the Nation: Staff Wellbeing Across Australian Schools (2026) https://mailchi.mp/adriennehornby/band-report-full

Connect with Jenny

• Website: https://positivelybeaming.com.au
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennycole-beaming/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/positivelybeamingjenny/
• Email: [email protected]

Connect with Adrienne

• Website: https://adriennehornby.com.au
• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/adrienne-hornby-a4126a205
• Well-Led Schools Partnership Program: https://adriennehornby.com.au/school-partnerships

Women make up 72% of Australia's school workforce, and every one of them will navigate perimenopause and menopause. Many do so during peak leadership years, carrying symptoms easily mistaken for burnout. With one in two educators reporting burnout and fewer than half feeling encouraged to discuss health at work, this is a psychosocial safety issue, not just a health conversation.

If you are a male leader or early career educator, do not skip this. Building sustainable, psychologically safe schools requires understanding what impacts nearly three-quarters of our colleagues.

To open Term 4 and mark Menopause Awareness Month, I am joined by Mary Coustas. Best known for her iconic character Effie, Mary is also an acclaimed author and advocate. After a decade-long IVF journey, Mary met menopause immediately upon entering motherhood. It didn't just hit her; it king hit her. She wrote MaryPause to make sense of it, then co-founded UnPause, a digital health platform connecting women with menopause-literate doctors, now partnered with Teachers Health.

In this episode, we explore:

• Mary's story navigating IVF, motherhood, and sudden menopause
• The three biological phases and when to pay attention
• Symptoms beyond hot flushes, from rage to imposter syndrome
• Why women are misdiagnosed with depression when depleted
• How burnout and perimenopause work in cahoots
• What genuine organisational support looks like in schools
• Streamlined clinical care via UnPause and Teachers Health

About Mary

Mary Coustas is an iconic Australian actor, writer, and comedian, celebrated for her Logie Award-winning character Effie, who debuted in Wogs Out of Work before headlining the television sitcom Acropolis Now. Alongside her extensive stage and screen career, Mary is an accomplished author. Her memoir, All I Know, documented her decade-long journey through 23 rounds of IVF, the loss of her daughter Stevie, and her path to motherhood.

In 2025, Mary published MaryPause, transforming her experience into an open, national resource. That same year, she co-founded UnPause, a digital health platform that gives women direct access to specialised clinical care, symptom tracking, and ongoing midlife support. Mary continues to tour nationally, currently performing in her stage show Frigid to Feral, using comedy, candour, and lived experience to dismantle systemic stigmas.

LINKS AND RESOURCES

• UnPause: Telehealth Menopause Care, Australia-wide: unpause.com.au/?srsltid=AU7gw4U4aYsznwkcQbC1DqoW2qCZr-cUvrYox_hO1QSRsKsJFI4lEpNz
• Book: MaryPause by Mary Coustas: unpause.com.au/marypause?srsltid=AU7gw4WF_tP9kOwEzuNzrM_F_cL3zqJFqF65ihU1yNQi-PE08aC3iNTD 

Connect with Mary

Websites:

• www.maryandeffie.com
• unpause.com.au

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mary-coustas-43347938b/?isSelfProfile=false

Instagram

• www.instagram.com/mary_coustas/
• www.instagram.com/unpauseposse/
• www.instagram.com/effiegoodthanks/
• www.instagram.com/unleashed.show/

Connect with Adrienne:

• Website: adriennehornby.com.au
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/adrienne-hornby-a4126a205
• Staff Wellbeing Survey: adriennehornby.com.au/staff-survey
• Well-Led Schools Partnership Program: adriennehornby.com.au/school-partnerships

Only 57% of Australian school staff report that work positively affects their mental health, and 1 in 2 are currently experiencing burnout.

When I sat down to write the Staff Wellbeing Across Australia report, I originally set out to produce a concise 10-page summary. One hundred and ten pages later, the data made one thing undeniably clear: we cannot keep treating systemic workplace conditions as individual coping failures.

In this solo episode of the Well-Led Schools Podcast, I walk you through the key findings, surprising insights, and critical takeaways from our analysis of over 4,500 educators across ICSEA bands.

We move beyond broad national averages to examine the actual psychosocial hazards driving the erosion of morale in our schools, and more importantly, what staff are actually asking for to fix it.

In this episode, I share:

• Why a short summary turned into an extensive national breakdown and the specific numbers that led to the deep dive into the state of staff wellbeing in each setting
• How breaking data down by ICSEA bands reveals the true, nuanced reality of workplace stressors
• Why resilience and wellbeing workshops and training ranked at the bottom of staff requests, and what educators actually want instead
• An honest look at the demand, capacity, and leadership challenges in below average ICSEA secondary schools and specialist settings
• Why 67% morale and 77% positive culture in one specific setting proves that workplace conditions are changeable
• How moral injury and self-determination theory explain who is leaving the profession and why
• How to take radical responsibility, conduct your own staff assessment, and use this report to drive meaningful change

LINKS AND RESOURCES

Read the full report: https://mailchi.mp/adriennehornby/band-report-full

Read the summary report: https://mailchi.mp/adriennehornby/band-report-summary

Connect with me via:

Website: adriennehornby.com.au

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/adrienne-hornby-a4126a205/

Email: [email protected]

School Partnerships: adriennehornby.com.au/school-partnerships/

Conditions in primary schools are more likely to be reported as positive according to our State of Staff Wellbeing in Australia report. Above-average ICSEA primary schools recorded the strongest results in the national dataset, with 67% of staff reporting high morale and 77% a positive culture. However, below-average ICSEA primary settings carry a very different load characterised by severe resourcing constraints, complex student behaviours and needs, and intense support demands.

But across every primary band, we see a common pattern where a school’s culture and overall wellbeing inevitably rise and fall with the person leading it. This leaves us with a critical systemic gap that is rarely funded, timetabled, or surveyed: who is holding the leaders?

This week I’m joined by Elsie Clelland, who spent more than thirty years in Western Australian education, including twenty as a principal across four primary schools and four very different regions. A Foundation principal of a brand-new school, WA Primary Principal of the Year, Harvard Fellow and former Executive Director, Elsie now works directly with school leaders through her consultancy, Flourishing Leadership, specialising in resilience first aid.

Elsie candidly shares what those twenty years cost her, unpacking how high visibility came at the expense of strategy and long hours, the warning signs she rationalised away, how unhelpful coping strategies crept in when no support structures were holding her, and how the fear of judgement prevented her from asking for help.

This conversation examines what it actually takes to build sustainable leadership practices while carrying heavy organisational weight.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Why highly relational leaders often default to being visible for everyone else, while neglecting their own capacity
• How to release the unrealistic expectation of performing exceptionally across every domain at once
• Why school leaders routinely run on empty, in ways they would never allow a car to run
• What happens when unaddressed stress leads to hidden coping strategies and a culture of masking amongst principals
• How practical boundaries actually work, and why advice like “just close your door” fails without context and self-management
• How stepping off-site and giving yourself explicit permission to stop, reflect and seek support protects long-term leadership sustainability
• The importance of establishing a trusted, peer network to debrief on challenges and who hears your real answer to “how are you going?”
• Communicating boundaries to your community as a whole-school expectation, not a personal apology
• How leveraging appreciative inquiry and highlighting existing wins helps protect staff morale and build organisational hope

“If anything in this episode raises something for you, support is available. Lifeline 13 11 14.

Connect with Elsie: 

Website: flourishingleadership.com.au/ 

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/elsie-clelland-4806222b1/

Connect with Adrienne:

Website: adriennehornby.com.au

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/adrienne-hornby-a4126a205

Staff in below-average ICSEA secondary schools reported the toughest conditions in the State of Staff Wellbeing in Australia report, with poor leader-staff communication at an average of 71%, staff shortages at 63%, and lack of trust amongst staff sitting at 58%.

The data tells a clear story of stacking stressors, incivility and leadership churn. In these complex environments, capable leaders are constantly being pulled into reactive mode, away from what their school needs most: relational connections.

But I am reluctant to encourage these leaders to “be more relational,” as the complexities in these schools make that part of the job more challenging. Instead, I want to explore real, practical ways to build relationships and trust amidst strain.

This week, as part of our Band 1H spotlight, I am joined by Sue Chandler, educational consultant, mediator and author of The Relational School.

Drawing on over three decades of experience across teaching, counselling, school leadership and conflict resolution, Sue partners with schools to design relational frameworks and build cultures where both wellbeing and engagement can thrive.

Together, we unpack why a relational culture in complex schools is part of the core infrastructure that everything else depends on. We explore why real cultural change doesn’t live in a wellness workshop, but in the small, repeated organisational moves leaders make every day.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Why Sue rejects the term “behaviour management”, and what shifting “behaviour development” actually asks of school leaders
• Why relying solely on restorative practice arrives too late if we fail to proactively solve the underlying problems driving behaviour
• How staff exhaustion is directly fueled by bolting relational approaches onto fundamentally compliance-based systems
• How to find the sweet spot by balancing high relationships with high accountability, rather than trading one for the other
• Why the exact same relational skills must be applied consistently across students, staff and parents to build true whole-school alignment
• How to build relational culture into a school’s architecture so it survives leadership churn and system disruption

About Sue Chandler

Sue Chandler is an education consultant and author of The Relational School. She works with schools across Australia to help leaders build cultures where relationships, professional thinking and organisational systems work together to support both staff and students. Sue is passionate about helping schools move beyond behaviour management towards lasting cultural transformation.

Connect with Sue Chandler:

Website: www.transformativeschools.com.au 

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/suechandler/

Email: [email protected] 

Connect with me via:

Website: adriennehornby.com.au

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/adrienne-hornby-a4126a205/

School Partnerships: adriennehornby.com.au/school-partnerships/ 

Most schools have spent years working on staff wellbeing. They’ve written policies and frameworks, funded programs, and scheduled wellbeing days. And yet the workers' compensation data reports that education now sits among the worst-performing sectors in the country for psychological injury claims, alongside healthcare and first responders.

In this episode, I sit down with Jason van Schie, organisational psychologist and founder of FlourishDx, to unpack why. Jason has worked in psychosocial risk management since 2007, in his words “before it became cool,” and he is one of the clearest voices in the country on what it takes to create work that is genuinely good for people - for staff’s wellbeing and efficacy, and the greater good of the school community.

Together, we name the shift schools are being asked to make from an ad-hoc wellbeing model (yoga, free coffee, the occasional wellbeing day) to a systems lens that looks at the design and conditions of the work itself. We dig into why prevention has to come before the wellbeing layer, why broad consultation and leader commitment are the heartbeat of the process, and why you cannot manage psychosocial risk without measuring it.

If you have ever run a staff survey and watched nothing change, or rolled out a wellbeing program that landed flat, this conversation explains what was missing and what to do instead.

Guest Resources

• Flourish DX Academy  ISO 45003 Foundations Course: https://www.45003.org/enroll/1423388 
• Psych Health and Safety Podcast: https://www.psychhealthandsafety.com/ 
• PHSCON — Psych Health and Safety Conference: 8-9 September 2026, Hyatt Regency Sydney https://psychhealthandsafetyconference.com/ 

Connect with Jason van Schie

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonvanschie/ 

Website: https://flourishdx.com 

Connect with me via:

Website: https://adriennehornby.com.au

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrienne-hornby-a4126a205/

School Partnerships: https://adriennehornby.com.au/school-partnerships/

Most school leaders understand that psychosocial safety is a legal obligation. Very few have figured out how to make it feel like anything more than a compliance activity. 

In this solo episode, I unpack the gap between obligation and opportunity, and what it actually takes to move psychosocial safety from a four-step process on a page to something genuinely woven into how a school leads, communicates and operates.

Drawing on data from almost 80 schools and thousands of staff, I walk through common psychosocial hazards in Australian schools, why they are connected rather than isolated, and why the four-step risk management process, while important, is actually the easiest part of the whole process.

The real work is not in the paperwork. It’s the leadership commitment and authentic ongoing consultation that determine whether any of it sticks.

What I cover in this episode:

• What is missing from the four-step risk assessment process in many schools
• The national data: the most common psychosocial hazards in Australian schools and why they compound each other
• Why good communication underpins the entire process, and how to ensure your messaging lands
• How to embed wellbeing into your school’s way of doing and not let it be an initiative layered on top of others
• Leadership commitment as the foundation: why it falters, what it actually requires, and the personal and professional skills that make it land
• Why the hardest feedback can be the most important data you will ever receive
• What the Safe Work Australia Code of Practice actually requires of school leaders, and why most schools are not quite there yet

Resources and links mentioned:

• Article: The Wellbeing Weave: The Three Phases of Addressing Staff Wellbeing in Well-Led Schools adriennehornby.com.au/the-wellbeing-weave-the-three-phases-of-addressing-staff-wellbeing-in-well-led-schools/  
• Article: Embedding a Sustainable Wellbeing Ecosystem: The Key to Psychosocial Safety and Staff Wellbeing
• adriennehornby.com.au/designing-a-sustainable-wellbeing-ecosystem-the-key-to-psychosocial-safety/  
• Podcast: Creating a School Culture Where Staff Feel Seen, Heard and Valued with Daniela Falecki https://adriennehornby.com.au/creating-a-school-culture-where-staff-feel-seen-heard-and-valued-with-daniela-falecki-season-3-episode-10/
• Waverley Christian School Case Study: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/adrienne-hornby-a4126a205_most-school-wellbeing-initiatives-fail-or-ugcPost-7465421290833805312-QVL9/?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=member_desktop_web&rcm=ACoAADQvl1EBSRJtRkz0cewFH4TjXfHExS9B0F4

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.

What if the one thing that would make the biggest difference to your wellbeing, strategic clarity and positive school culture as a school leader isn’t another strategy or initiative, it’s simply more time to think?

In this episode of Well-Led Schools, I’m joined for the third time by Aimee Presnall - leadership coach, TEDx speaker and founder of Wellnest. After more than 16 years in education, Aimee built her career around one observation that kept repeating itself: brilliant school leaders burning out while the systems around them kept asking for more.

Aimee’s recent TEDx talk landed on something leaders feel in their bones but rarely hear said out loud: that we’re treating the shadow, not the source; that when leaders don’t have time to think, everything downstream suffers, their clarity, their team’s culture, and ultimately their students.

We go deep on what actually changes when leaders are given space to develop the human skills needed to lead people well, why one-off PD rarely shifts anything, and what it takes for schools to build a genuine coaching culture rather than a tick-box one.

In this episode:

• Why leaders don’t need more things to do, but rather need more time to think
• Clarity vs certainty: what staff want vs what leaders can actually give
• Why giving yourself dedicated time to think feels so difficult
• How recognising your default, high-pressure habits creates the fastest leadership shift
• What one-off PD misses in comparison to navigating the “messy middle” of long-term coaching
• The three pathways into middle leadership (aspiring, accidental, anointed), and how they shape your mindset

LINKS AND RESOURCES

Connect with Aimee Presnall via:

Wellnest: www.well-nest.com.au 

TED Talk: youtu.be/qjGM4esebQU?si=5eyFpR_-0KbUngty 

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/aimee-parkinson/ 

Connect with me via:

Website: adriennehornby.com.au

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/adrienne-hornby-a4126a205/

Email: [email protected]

School Partnerships: adriennehornby.com.au/school-partnerships/ 

Most schools have wellbeing programs or initiatives. Very few have wellbeing embedded into the way they function and flourish. That is the difference between bolting something on and creating real, lasting change.

In this episode, I am joined by Justin Robinson, co-founder of the Wellbeing Distillery and formerly the founding director of the Institute of Positive Education at Geelong Grammar School. Justin has worked with hundreds of schools across Australia and internationally, and his approach is built on the idea that wellbeing has to be embedded across the whole school community, not delivered as a series of disconnected initiatives.

We unpack what it actually takes to move from add-on programs to embedded practice, and why so many schools get stuck in the cycle of doing more without seeing more results.

In this episode:

• Why a collection of programs is not the same as embedded wellbeing
• The four partners every school needs to engage: leaders, staff, students and families
• The most common mistake schools make when rolling wellbeing out across the whole community
• How adopting the mindset that "wellbeing is a shared responsibility" changes the way you design your whole approach
• Practical starting points for schools that want to shift from doing wellbeing to being a wellbeing-led school

LINKS AND RESOURCES

• 7 Habits of Wellbeing-Wise Families: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18SmHYlVuY60XGq_g3b8bMYkUrmq5AdAE/view?usp=drive_link  
• Wellbeing Compass Brochure: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L_GRARsSBWpkcTN3rrCaQJOS2qY-uZ8F/view?usp=drive_link 

Connect with Justin:

• Website: thewellbeingdistillery.com
• Email: [email protected] 
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jrobinson-wellbeing

Connect with Adrienne:

• Website: adriennehornby.com.au
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/adrienne-hornby-a4126a205
• Email: [email protected] 
• Staff Wellbeing Survey: adriennehornby.com.au/staff-survey
• Well-Led Schools Partnership Program: adriennehornby.com.au/school-partnerships