We've become skilled at applying trauma-informed practices to our work with young people. But what about the adults doing this work? Teachers, youth workers, social workers, carers and support staff are wading through water daily, pretending we can do so without getting wet. This book challenges that assumption. Drawing on trauma theory and research, wellbeing science and two decades of frontline experience, Megan Corcoran makes the case that trauma-informed practice cannot be something we apply to others – it must be something we embody ourselves. Beyond Survival Mode offers a compassionate and practical roadmap for professionals working in trauma-affected environments. Through the NEST framework – Notice, Embed, Strengthen, Thrive – Corcoran guides readers beyond baseline coping towards genuine flourishing, even amid challenging work. This book illuminates how trauma exposure, unsafe team culture and systemic pressures compromise practitioner wellbeing, and what we can do about it. It’s not another call for individual self-care; it's an invitation to reimagine what becomes possible when organisations create the conditions for adults to feel safe, valued and supported to do meaningful work together.

Teaching has always been demanding. But somewhere between the staffroom and the school run, the lesson plans and the bedtime routine, it became something else entirely: relentless. Teach, Parent, Repeat says what teachers are thinking but are rarely allowed to say out loud: that the emotional labour is enormous, the expectations are contradictory and the line between who you are at work and who you are at home stopped existing a long time ago. Written by teacher, researcher and mother Emma Derainne, this is an honest, warm and wickedly funny survival guide for educators who still care deeply – and are quietly wondering how long they can keep going at this pace. Through sharp personal storytelling and grounded research, Teach, Parent, Repeat names the invisible load, challenges the myth of endless holidays and offers something genuinely rare: permission to set boundaries, lead with humanity and fall in love with teaching again – on your own terms.

Schools say they value relationships – but do their systems actually support them? The Relational School is for educators and leaders who sense the gap between what their school aspires to be and what it feels like to work and learn there every day. Drawing on decades of experience as a teacher, counsellor and school leader, Sue Chandler explores why well-intentioned relational initiatives struggle to stick – and what it takes to build a culture where connection, accountability and trust aren't just ideals, but everyday practice. Through compelling stories, practical frameworks and honest reflections, this book introduces the Relational Practice Bridge – a systems-level approach to embedding relational culture across leadership, policy and daily interactions. Complete with the Relational Practice Assessment Audit Tool, this is not another quick-fix behaviour management model. It's an invitation to reimagine how schools relate, lead and respond – with clarity, courage and a willingness to align what we say we value with how we actually work.

FAMILY-HISTORY SLEUTHING IS TODAY'S BIGGEST HOBBY WORLDWIDE This unique and practical handbook will help you craft the history of your ancestors in an interesting and rewarding way that other people will want to read. Hazel Edwards addresses the vital issues of how to: interview elderly relatives and people close to the family use anecdotes and record memories do justice to intriguing ancestors structure the drama and tension inject life into a name on a shipping list present the family's secrets diplomatically. This revised edition of Hazel's best-selling guide to writing a family history acknowledges the latest e-formats that writers use, includes helpful tips on how to write history for children or write a eulogy, and covers the growing interest in touring military battlefields and researching onsite material.

Effective instructional leadership doesn't just happen – it's created by design. Research shows it has a greater impact on student outcomes than any other form of school leadership, yet developing this capability remains one of education's most pressing challenges. Instructional Leadership: 15 High-Impact Practices to Develop Instructional Leaders provides a comprehensive framework for building the leadership capability that matters most. Drawing on extensive research and decades of practical experience, Glenn Forbes presents five critical components and fifteen evidence-based practices proven to improve student outcomes. Whether you're a new leader seeking foundational knowledge, an experienced principal developing your team, or a system leader supporting schools, this book equips you with the tools to move beyond administrative management and become an active driver of instructional improvement.

Connecting with Your Students is a simple, practical resource for all educators who want to build meaningful relationships with their students while developing essential life skills that drive academic success. This engaging and effective book contains 40 chapters organised across four school terms, each focusing on a different life skill. Teachers can follow the chapters chronologically throughout the year or select specific skills that align with their students’ needs. Each chapter features inspiring quotes, student-friendly definitions, ten practical classroom activities requiring minimal preparation, and real-life stories illustrating each skill in action. The activities foster positive classroom relationships while equipping students with the tools they need to overcome challenges and flourish. Learning these skills will help your students not only navigate the demands of school life but also thrive throughout their lives.   Preparing developing brains for life. Andrew Fuller Andy shows teachers exactly how to build genuine relationships. Professor Pasi Sahlberg The secret sauce for teachers: relationships before curriculum. Andrew Dalgleish

Leadership in schools goes far beyond titles, as Executive Assistants (EAs) prove every day. Working behind the scenes, EAs straddle multiple departments and functions while creating an environment in which staff and students can thrive. Few people fully understand the challenges, complexities, and rewards of their work. In The Leadership Edge, Kristine Niven draws on her extensive experience as an EA − and founder of EAs in Education − to offer insight into a role that is often marked by ambiguity in schools and the wider EA community. This book provides practical tips, strategies, and approaches to help EAs develop their personal and professional practice, while offering a fresh perspective on leadership that goes beyond hierarchies and salary brackets. Drawing together hard-won lessons from Niven’s personal journey and insights from leaders, thinkers, philosophers, and artists, this book provides EAs with a clear roadmap for developing their own leadership edge.

‘For the sake of humanity’. It's a simple answer to why someone becomes a Humanities teacher, yet it captures the profound responsibility of educators who shape students' empathy, integrity and capacity to make informed decisions about our world's future. Katrina Davey understands this calling intimately – and she also knows the tough situations that can undermine it: out-of-field teachers thrust into unfamiliar subjects, the constant battle for adequate class time and maintaining student engagement during the era of artificial intelligence. Humming Along is Katrina’s response to the challenges facing Humanities education. Drawing from her successful track record of building thriving faculties, she offers practical strategies that can make teams hum – from helping anxious graduates master multiple disciplines to convincing leadership of Humanities' vital role in developing the ‘heart’ that makes students truly human. With concrete tools for curriculum design, authentic assessment and faculty collaboration, this book provides a roadmap for creating engaging Humanities courses where both teachers and students discover the genuine wonder of exploring our world together.

You're not failing. You're just caught in a trap designed for struggle. Modern parenting is drowning us. We have more information than ever, yet parents are more anxious, burnt out, and disconnected than they've been in generations. We're told to manage behaviour, enforce rules, and stay in control – but not how to stay emotionally present during meltdowns or manage the old wounds that get pressed when our children's behaviour hooks something deep inside us. After twenty-five years working with families, therapist Lisa Taylor knows the truth: the real problem isn't your child's behaviour. It's the invisible heartprints from your own childhood – the emotional imprints that still shape how you respond when stress runs high and nothing goes to plan. The Perfect Parent Trap offers something different. Not another technique to master, but an invitation to break free from inherited patterns of control, perfectionism, and fear. When you learn to respond to the child in front of you instead of reacting from the child within you, everything shifts. This isn't about doing more. It's about being more present - with yourself first, then with the people you love most. Your children don't need you to be perfect. They need you to be real.

What does it mean to live a life of good character? And how do we form such character in ourselves and those we teach? Character is how we live our lives as individuals and in community. It's how we strive to belong, fulfil our potential and do what is good and right in the world. It's how we wrestle with ourselves and the world to make a mark and measure up. Through the metaphor of the stonemason's chisel – making marks that are both distinctive and enduring – Dr Phil Cummins reveals character as the wrestling between who we are and who we might become. Drawing on decades of experience working with schools worldwide, he shows how we are formed through this wrestling, always the wrestling, in a life that might come, in time, to be both worthwhile and well-lived. A person of good character can be seen and recognised as one who pursues what is best, who seeks to know, love and do what is true and beautiful in the world. Yet for all our good intentions, we cannot ever quite be the best versions of ourselves, no matter how much we would like this to be the case. We need relationships of character apprenticeship that show us we are not good enough yet – and then help us to grow. Written with clarity, wisdom and a distinctively Australian perspective on equity and excellence, this essential guide challenges educators, leaders and anyone committed to human flourishing to embrace the formation of character for lives of purpose, integrity and service to others.

Driving School Improvement: Practical strategies and tools is designed to support school leaders in practical, adaptable and context-specific ways to advance their school’s improvement journey. The focus of the book is implementation. A broad collection of tools, activities and pro formas are provided, which have been used successfully in a range of schools. School leaders can begin at their school’s point of need and select the path that is most valuable to their setting. This second edition builds on the success of the original resource and, with extensive feedback from the field, delivers significantly expanded, refined and updated research, case studies and techniques to help schools meet the implementation challenge. With the help of Driving School Improvement, whole-school improvement can be embedded so that it becomes truly sustainable, resulting in measurable long-term progress in learning outcomes for schools, teachers and students.

Kit goes to school with her friends Harley and Vanya, and always tries her best at everything she does. Arlo is too loud, too close, just too... much. But when a moving van pulls up next to Kit’s house one weekend, Kit and Arlo find out they have a lot more in common than they thought. Join Kit, Arlo and their friends as they navigate school, home life and friendships, and learn more than a few things about how to get along. Kit and Arlo Find a Way: Stories about consent for 8–12 year olds is a much-needed consent teaching resource for Grades 3 to 6. An action-packed and relatable fictional chapter book, Kit and Arlo is a page-turning journey of upper primary school kids – Kit, Arlo, Harley and Vanya – developing and exploring friendships with plenty of ups and downs. Entertaining and compelling as a standalone narrative, Kit and Arlo’s secret weapon is that it contains all of the complex components of consent and includes respectful relationships education in an age-appropriate format. Teachers and parents can read the story, chapter by chapter, and then use the discussion points and ‘read and respond’ notes to facilitate conversations around consent in child-friendly ways. For schools and families needing a more in-depth consent and respectful relationships curriculum, a dedicated Kit and Arlo resources platform houses evidence-based teaching activities, videos, webinars, podcasts, resource links and lesson plans designed to tie in with the story. Kit and Arlo Find a Way is a vital resource for schools and families doing the essential work of empowering kids with decision-making skills that will carry through to their interactions and relationships later on in life. The Educational Publishing Awards Australia (EPAA) also recognised the importance and quality of this resource, awarding Kit and Arlo Find a Way wins for both the Educational Chapter Book and Outstanding Primary Resource categories.  NSW government schools should navigate to the NSW Department of Education’s Student Wellbeing external programs catalogue here to learn more about accessing this resource.  Key topics include: body boundaries and safety verbal and non-verbal cues developing a sense of self, personal strength and self-determination understanding that the responsibly of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ should be shared understanding that shared activities should have enthusiastic, affirmative and ongoing consent having the courage to withdraw consent understanding gendered stereotypes, coercion and power imbalances learning to have empathy for others managing disappointment when someone changes their mind how to be an upstander when someone is being harmed the keys to respectful relationships and better friendships. Teaching consent to children For schools and families needing a more in-depth consent and respectful relationships curriculum, a dedicated Kit and Arlo resources platform houses evidence-based teaching activities, videos, webinars, podcasts, resource links and lesson plans designed to tie in with the story. Consent is integral to human relationships throughout our whole lives. It is complex and also surprisingly simple. The basic principles of consent must always apply to all of our connections, including with family, friends, work and play.  However, people are complex. In different situations, we can experience a range of different feelings, thoughts and emotions. In order to be sure that someone wants to share an experience with us equally, and that they are giving affirmative permission. We need to make important choices and decisions to ensure we always have and give consent.  Download the resources here.

Play-based learning has long been a means of facilitating teaching and learning in the early childhood years. The Walker Learning Approach, an Australian-designed, evidence-based play pedagogy, provides a solid base and foundation for intentional and responsive teaching in the early years. The program's systems and practices support teams of early childhood educators in a consistent approach that ensures continuity and predictability for children, educators and families. Early Childhood Play Matters provides guidance and many practical ideas on implementing the Walker Learning Approach within early childhood learning practices. Topics include: Intentional teaching How to minimise time spent on planning and documentation while producing clinical and professional records How to set up open-ended play learning experiences to promote skills How to scaffold with intention and purpose for learning How to communicate effectively as an educator How to honour and build relationships with children and families. It also includes organisational ideas and resources, a full-colour section of photographs, templates for planning, assessment and reporting activities, and a bibliography for further reference. Early Childhood Play Matters concentrates on the most formative years of education (birth to six years of age), with intentional, rich and rigorous play-based opportunities for young children. It builds upon the successful work that Shona Bass and Kathy Walker have achieved in play-based curriculum in the early and primary years nationally and internationally. Early Childhood Play Matters Resources Daily/Weekly Record Sheet Individual observation and planning record (IOPR) Statement of intent: Early Childhood Education generic planning indicator

Following the success of Play Matters 2nd ed., Engagement Matters is the next stage of the Walker Learning Approach for implementation with primary students in Grades 3-6. Engagement Matters provides a step-by-step, practical guide for teachers, emphasising student engagement, empowerment and achievement, and importantly, personalised learning. The transition from Grade 2 into the middle and upper primary years is made seamless through the provision of tips, activities and explanatory theory. Engagement Matters will equip schools with the capacity to actively engage students in their learning across all subject areas and diverse contexts. In doing so, Engagement Maters effectively lays the foundations for ongoing engagement and successful learning throughout the school life. The book contains a full colour section of photographs to highlight key themes. Download the Appendices documents for planning, assessment and reporting activities here: Planning Materials Editable Templates

In this highly successful resource, Kathy Walker demonstrates the key principles of the Walker Learning Approach that she has developed over 15 years of observation, participation and presentation in schools and child care centres across Australia. Play Matters provides practical guidance and innovative strategies for teachers working with young children from preschool to Grade 2, through a unique balance of explicit instruction in literacy and numeracy skills and personalised, explorative learning. The book promotes the active engagement of all young children, with an enhanced focus on children from diverse backgrounds as well as children with specific needs. Play Matters is packed with pedagogical features to support implementation in any educational setting. It contains a full colour section of photographs. Organisational ideas and resources are provided, along with a comprehensive bibliography for further reference and advice. Download the Appendices documents for planning, assessment and reporting activities in Word or PDF.    

Teaching is one of the most rewarding professions on earth – and one of the most demanding. So why do we so rarely extend to ourselves the care and kindness we pour into others every day? In this warm, evidence-based guide, positive psychology coach and educator Chris Egan makes a compelling case for self-compassion as the missing ingredient in educator wellbeing. Drawing on 20+ years of robust research, 35 years in education, and the real stories of teachers and school leaders who have transformed their inner lives, this book offers a practical roadmap for moving from burnout and self-criticism towards genuine flourishing. With reflective prompts, innovative practices, and honest stories from the classroom and beyond, this book meets educators exactly where they are – and gently, powerfully, invites them somewhere better. Because the same compassion you give your students? You deserve it too.

Most feedback books teach teachers how to give better feedback. This book teaches students how to seek better advice. You invest hours crafting thoughtful feedback. Students glance at the grade and move on. They skim comments, fix surface details, or don’t engage at all — not because your feedback lacks quality, but because they haven’t learned how to identify what they need or seek the right help. This isn’t a feedback problem. It’s a capability problem. From Feedback to Advice shows how to develop students who actively direct their own improvement. Through six progressive stages, you’ll move students from passive recipients of comments to confident seekers of targeted advice. Students who can: Shift from “Is this good?” to “Here’s what I’ve tried and here’s where I need help.” Identify learning gaps and present evidence of their attempts. Request precise advice and act on it. This isn’t a book about writing better comments. It’s about building advice-seeking expertise, the capability that makes your guidance matter. When students learn to seek the advice they need, they multiply the impact of your teaching, transforming feedback from a one-way exchange into a genuine partnership for growth.

Australian education is caught in a storm. NAPLAN dominates the headlines, 'best practice' has become a byword for compliance, and the data tells a sobering story – falling attendance, disengaged students, and nearly four in ten teachers planning to leave the profession. Yet the system's response has been more of the same: narrower accountability, thinner pedagogy, louder metrics. Empowering Schools asks a different question: what if the problem isn't that we need better practices, but a better way of being in education altogether? Drawing on thinkers including Biesta, Freire, Ahmed and Spinoza, Dr Benjamin C. Zonca makes the case for empowerment as a relational, collective and continuous process – one that cannot be reduced to a checklist but can be cultivated and sustained. Through a clear Framework for Empowerment and eight interconnected Empowerment Practices spanning time, assessment, curriculum design, collaboration, critical literacy and policy, this book invites teachers and leaders to slow down, challenge their assumptions, and build schools where students, teachers and communities can genuinely thrive. Empowerment cannot be given – but the conditions for it can be created.

Leadership has never been more demanding — and too often, it has become heavy, defined by control, compliance, and endurance rather than connection and trust. But the most powerful leadership lessons aren't found in boardrooms. They're found in the wild. Before wolves hunt, they play. Before they perform, they connect. Before they move, they synchronise. Drawing on decades of experience across education, elite sport, and high-performance cultures, Dale Sidebottom, Paul Campbell, and Nick Haywood reveal what wolf packs have always known: trust comes before tactics, connection comes before command, and the strongest teams don't move alone — they move as one. Wolf Logic is a bold, practical guide to Play-Based Leadership — the understanding that joy, curiosity, and connection aren't distractions from high performance, they're the engine of it. Through powerful stories, research-backed insights, and ready-to-use tools, you'll discover The Trust Lab — a five-pillar framework for building psychological safety, creating shared identity, earning trust before demanding performance, and executing with courage and clarity. This isn't a book about being softer. It's about becoming more instinctive — the kind of leader who builds cultures where people feel safe to speak up, take risks, and grow, without ever lowering the standard. The world doesn't need more serious leaders. It needs playful ones.

Teaching Business: A Practical Guide for Secondary School Teachers is an indispensable resource for educators at every stage of their career. Written by experienced Business Studies teacher, HSC Senior Marker and MBA graduate Ben Andersen, this book cuts through the noise of competing educational theories to deliver clear, classroom-tested strategies that genuinely work. Structured around three core actions – content delivery, application strategies and business communication – it offers practical tools to streamline complex content, reduce cognitive overload and develop the kind of flexible business thinking that prepares students not just for exams, but for life beyond school. More than a teaching manual, Teaching Business makes a compelling case for why business education matters. Andersen argues that all life is business, and that teachers of this subject occupy a uniquely powerful position to cultivate personal empowerment, ethical leadership and entrepreneurial thinking in the next generation. Whether you are a first-year teacher handed a syllabus and a dusty textbook, or a seasoned educator looking to sharpen your craft, this book offers the practical mentorship, honest reflection and actionable guidance to help you – and your students – thrive.