In schools around the world, a crisis is growing: students are disengaging, teachers are burning out, and communities are fracturing under competing priorities. Despite overwhelming evidence that meaningful connection underpins both academic success and wellbeing, schools continue to treat relationship-building as a "nice-to-have" rather than essential work. Author Matt Pitman calls this The Connection Conundrum – the paradox of knowing connection matters yet consistently prioritising everything else. Like any great endeavour, success in education depends on trust, collaboration, and shared purpose. Pitman shows how educators can navigate the challenges of modern schooling by placing connection at the centre of everything they do. Written for teachers unwilling to wait for permission to lead change, this follow-up to The Connection Curriculum offers a practical roadmap through the 4Cs – Culture, Communication, Collaboration, and Curiosity – that transform disconnected classrooms into thriving learning communities. Matt Pitman empowers educators to lead from where they are, providing actionable strategies to build relationships, foster belonging, and sustain meaningful connection, even when formal leadership hesitates. The Connection Conundrum is an urgent call to action for anyone who believes schools should put people first – offering the tools to make that vision a reality.

Today’s school leaders are faced with the increasingly daunting task of leading their schools to improve, to innovate and to become ever more responsive to change. There are many resources to help schools to engage with improvement frameworks, but few that directly address the complexity of the challenges that inevitably arise along the way. Based on extensive research in the field, including the outcomes of a five-year project on school improvement and professional learning in Australia and New Zealand, Leading Professional Learning: Practical strategies for impact in schools identifies the challenges that school leaders face when leading professional learning and development in their schools as part of an improvement agenda. Renowned professional development expert, Helen Timperley, has collaborated with a team of prominent authors, including Fiona Ell, Deidre Le Fevre and Kaye Twyford, to uncover the reasons underpinning these challenges and to provide practical strategies on how to address them. Case studies, excerpts from real teachers’ experiences and step-by-step examples of useful strategies, including the spiral of inquiry, give school leaders the tools they need to tackle complex challenges in teaching, learning, curriculum delivery and pedagogical practice in both primary and secondary settings. Leading Professional Learning: Practical strategies for impact in schools is a hands-on resource for school leaders to identify specific professional learning and development issues that accompany the learning and change process and to overcome them in their schools.

Teachers, Students and the Law is an indispensable pocket-sized resource that guides primary and secondary school teachers through the many complex legal issues that can arise in school environments. Covering key topics including duty of care, cyberbullying, discrimination, privacy and family law, among others, the book provides concise, plain-language information in an easy-to-use format.This fifth edition incorporates revised and expanded information and references, including online learning and pandemic advice, with an up-to-date directory of national contacts and services.

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.

School leaders have ready access to assessment data, motivating efforts to improve the numeracy outcomes of their students, but it can be difficult for principals to decide how to achieve these goals within their school’s existing strategic plans and policies. Emeritus Professor Peter Sullivan brings his decades of experience and research in mathematics teaching and education to a carefully curated selection of proven practices and effective approaches that will help primary and secondary school leaders empower teachers and achieve improved numeracy outcomes for their students. With links to high-impact teaching strategies and the OECD’s Future of Education and Skills 2030 framework, the book gives school leaders insights into professional learning opportunities and practices that can align improvement visions and goals with effective classroom approaches. Quality learning experiences, lesson structure, learning sequences, classroom culture, collaborative planning and effective teaching are addressed in ways that will help school leaders improve not only students’ numeracy and mathematics outcomes, but also their critical and creative thinking skills, enabling classroom learning to be transferred to real-life contexts. Leading improvement in mathematics teaching and learning provides a framework for a set of high-impact strategies that individually and together can be the focus of teacher professional learning, school improvement and student numeracy achievement.

School leaders have ready access to assessment data, motivating efforts to improve literacy outcomes of their students, but it can be difficult for principals to decide how to achieve these goals within their school’s existing strategic plans and policies.Associate Professor Robyn Cox brings her decades of experience in language and literacy education to this handbook for school leaders. The book supports principals’ understandings of the intricacies of teaching literacy and the best ways to improve practices and subsequent outcomes in each school’s unique context.With an opening chapter focusing on using and interpreting evidence, Associate Professor Cox outlines strategies for addressing the key areas of oral language, grammar and writing, vocabulary and early reading as well as providing advice around diagnostics and tailored intervention for students who require further support. She includes reflections from school leaders on each topic and pays particular attention to the needs of students from non-English speaking backgrounds.Leading improvement in literacy teaching and learning provides a framework for a set of high-impact strategies that individually and together can be the focus of teacher professional learning, school improvement and student literacy achievement.

More than ever before, the wellbeing of students, staff and the school community must be a priority for principals and school leaders.Leading Improvement in School Community Wellbeing provides a framework for a set of high-impact strategies that individually and together can be the focus of improving wellbeing across the school. The book provides school leaders with key research-based school improvement practices, authentic case studies in the form of principals’ reflections, and, crucially, practical explanations outlining how to choose a particular practice and how to successfully embed or implement that strategy within the school. Asking ‘What’s happening?’, ‘What’s working’? and ‘What’s next?’, the three parts of the book provide tools to assess the school community’s wellbeing strengths and needs; to determine actions required to improve student and staff wellbeing; and to effectively implement wellbeing strategies across the school for the benefit of the entire school community.

School leaders are tasked with assisting students to make the next steps in their learning journeys, regardless of the students’ starting points. For students who are struggling, the next steps are often clear, but for students who are achieving beyond the expected level it can be difficult to know how best to challenge them. Leading improvement for gifted and talented students provides a framework for a set of high-impact strategies that individually and together can be the focus of improving high-level outcomes for gifted and talented students across the school. Professor John Munro brings his considerable experience to this complex problem, addressing the theoretical understandings of how high-ability students flourish and the practical requirements of meeting the needs of these students in today’s classrooms. Key chapters discuss what high ability looks like, what high-level outcomes are, how to identify students who display high-level outcomes in fields beyond literacy and numeracy and how school leaders can equip their educators with the ability to differentiate both the curriculum and their teaching. Topics such as twice-exceptional students, classroom culture, students from diverse backgrounds and social and emotional wellbeing are also addressed as part of a whole-school strategy for enhancing educational provision for high-ability students. Leading improvement for gifted and talented students is an essential evidence-based resource for all school leaders who wish to ensure that every child achieves their full potential.

School leaders face complex challenges, that typically have multiple causes and often persist despite everyone’s best attempts to address them. Addressing complex challenges requires juggling both the big picture, and the specific parts of the challenge. Without a roadmap, this process is fraught and unlikely to succeed in improving outcomes. In order to make a difference, schools need adaptive expertise; a skill which can be learnt through professional conversations and inquiry. In Leading professional conversations, Emeritus Professor Helen Timperley deftly outlines the key enablers for effective professional conversations – relationships, resources, processes, knowledge and culture – which support teachers to be independent learners and result in positive impact on educational, social and emotional outcomes for students. Featuring examples from real conversations between school leaders and educators, and practical templates which can be adapted to suit the contexts of your school, Leading professional conversations is the school leader’s guide to thinking and acting evaluatively, knowledgeably, metacognitively, collaboratively, responsively and systematically, to engage in deep professional learning and genuine improvements in practice. Download the supplementary digital resources here.

Strong Foundations: Evidence informing practice in early childhood education and care celebrates the progress made by the Australian early childhood education and care profession since the implementation of the Early Years Learning Framework. Recognising this progress, Associate Professor Anna Kilderry and Honorary Professor Bridie Raban lead a team of 33 notable contributors from 11 universities and institutions across Australia, who focus on the challenges of access, equity and quality that remain across the sector. Together with a Foreword by Professor Alison Elliott, Strong Foundations brings together knowledge and insights from research in education, health, social care, child safety, science, mathematics and the arts. The book addresses policy requirements from the Early Years Learning Framework, the National Quality Standard and Quality Improvement Plans and includes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives. With an emphasis on professional practice expectations, it showcases evidence from Australian and international research and provides case studies of how early childhood educators are applying evidence-informed actions in a wide variety of child care centres and services. Strong Foundations translates high-quality research and supports the everyday practice of early childhood educators and the subsequent long-term outcomes for children in their care, their families and their communities.

The role of a school principal is an extremely challenging one. Principals are required to be educators, business managers, strategic planners, counsellors and most importantly, leaders. While there are professional development opportunities and short courses available for aspiring principals, many principals work their way up to the role without receiving any formal training in the specific skills required to successfully lead a school and its community. Neil Barker argues in Ecosystem leadership: an approach for schools that in order to improve school leadership and subsequent student outcomes, principals and leadership teams need to better understand how to lead together; to be intentional about the school’s leadership and to methodically and deliberately develop a collective leadership approach. Based on the organic and interconnected ecosystems found throughout the natural world, Ecosystem leadership provides practical, hands-on activities and templates to assist school leaders in developing collective leadership skills and practices. The book sets out 5 key leadership elements for school leaders to address: context, vision, processes, focuses and impact. Ecosystem leadership provides a collaborative, self-improving approach to leadership that is systematic, integrated and comprehensive. It describes a system of leadership that is fit for purpose, based on a school’s unique context, and always with improving student outcomes at the forefront.

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.

The Curious Cat and the Quest for School Improvement: Reclaiming Wonder in Education reveals how curiosity – once the heartbeat of vibrant schools – has been quietly squeezed out by compliance cultures, standardised testing, and the relentless pursuit of measurable outcomes. Dr Wayne Craig explores how this erosion has left educators feeling depleted, students disengaged, and school improvement efforts spinning without true transformation. Compounding the challenge, the persistent influence of school socioeconomic status (SES) continues to shape outcomes in ways that traditional reforms have failed to address. Yet curiosity isn’t lost – it’s simply waiting in the margins, ready to reignite the wonder that makes learning meaningful and sustainable change possible. Through the metaphor of the curious cat, this book presents a compelling framework for renewal built on three pillars: curiosity as the spark for genuine learning, moral purpose as the ethical foundation of educational work, and school capital as the conditions that allow inquiry to flourish. Moving beyond surface-level reforms, it offers practical guidance for teachers, leaders, and systems ready to move from compliance to curiosity, from implementation to investigation. This is not another improvement strategy – it’s an invitation to remember what makes schools truly alive and to nurture the questions that lead to transformation from the inside out.

In Grounded, Katrina Bourke offers a life raft for leaders navigating uncertain and chaotic times. Drawing from her own journey of leadership burnout and what she calls her 'log cabin breakdown,' Bourke presents the Grounded Leadership Framework, a practical guide for staying aligned with your values and leading with authenticity, even when paddling furiously beneath a calm surface. This deeply personal book invites leaders, particularly those in education, to build their own 'sacred ground', a solid foundation that anchors them through challenges and allows them to push the hair off their faces and be truly seen. With journal prompts, evidence-based research, and practical strategies, the Grounded Leadership Framework shows how embracing your full humanity – strengths, imperfections, and vulnerabilities – is not a leadership weakness but the key to creating human-centred environments where both you and those you serve can thrive.

Grab Dr Simon Breakspear's two books in this bundle. The Pruning Principle (published 2024)Elevated Conversations (published August 2025)

Leadership isn't about authority – it's about influence. In Influence, Dr Judi Newman reveals how understanding the brain through a neuroscience lens can transform your ability to inspire, unite and deliver results. Drawing from her PhD research shadowing high-performing school principals, Newman demonstrates that without neuroplastic changes in the brain over time, there is limited learning and behaviour change. This groundbreaking book explores twelve essential leadership attributes and practical influence strategies you can implement immediately. Whether you're a seasoned executive, emerging leader or someone seeking to amplify their impact, Influence offers a unique blend of scientific insights and real-world application. Newman's research shows that the most effective leaders understand how to appeal to our inner motivations through biological processes in the brain. With compelling stories, evidence-based research and actionable tools, this book will help you master the art of influence and become the kind of leader who inspires others to bring out their best performance.

Update your collection with the Andrew Fuller ALL books bundle.  The 9 books include: Tricky ConversationsTricky TeensTricky KidsNeurodevelopmental DifferentiationUnlocking Your Child's GeniusThe A to Z of FeelingsGuerrilla Tactics for TeachersNeuroadvantageWork Smarter, Not Harder  

In a profession where burnout has become epidemic, Teacher Wellbeing Transformed offers educators an approach that goes beyond standard self-care checklists. Drawing on neuroscience and psychology, this groundbreaking resource reveals why so many teachers remain stuck in survival mode despite their best efforts – and provides practical, evidence-based strategies to regulate your nervous system, manage overwhelming emotions and reclaim your passion for teaching before burnout takes hold. With compassionate understanding from someone who's been there, this book delivers a three-part framework of self-awareness, self-empowerment and self-regulation that empowers teachers to thrive, not just survive. From managing energy instead of time to establishing boundaries without guilt, you'll discover actionable techniques that can be implemented during the school day – because teacher wellbeing isn't selfish or optional, it's the foundation upon which effective education is built. Transform your approach to teaching by mastering stress management and understanding its crucial role in ensuring your health, happiness and professional longevity.

Elevated Conversations by Dr Simon Breakspear offers a practical toolkit for educators seeking to transform their collaborative meeting times from draining, unfocused sessions into purposeful, energising discussions. Drawing from years of experience working with thousands of educators, Breakspear presents seven field-tested conversational tools designed to help team leaders facilitate more meaningful professional conversations while reducing their preparation workload. The book addresses a common challenge in education: making the most of limited collaborative time when everyone is already stretched thin. Developed through extensive collaboration with educators and refined through feedback from diverse teaching professionals, this book provides ready-to-use templates and structured approaches that any team member can implement. Rather than prescribing exact content for meetings, this toolkit focuses on powerful frameworks that elevate discussion quality, stimulate fresh thinking, strengthen team connections, and drive practical improvements in educational practice. The book serves as a practical facilitator playbook that transforms the way educators engage in professional dialogue, moving teams from what Simon calls ‘weary talk’ to truly elevated conversations.

This practical guide offers honest advice for navigating the complex world of relationships in your teen years. Whether you're building confidence while single, figuring out how to approach your crush, defining your ‘situationship’, strengthening a current relationship or healing from heartbreak, this book provides straightforward strategies backed by psychological insights to help you feel more in control of your love life. Divided into three essential sections – Self-Love, Dating & Relationships, and Heartbreak & Rejection – this handbook walks you through every stage of romantic relationships with actionable advice. Learn to develop genuine self-acceptance, establish healthy boundaries, communicate effectively with partners and recover from breakups with resilience. With practical exercises and real-world examples, this guide equips you with the tools to build confidence and create fulfilling relationships while staying true to yourself.

Demystify the world of Shakespeare with this refreshingly honest and accessible guide. From decoding Shakespeare's unique language and invented words to exploring the timeless themes of love, power and deception across his comedies, tragedies, histories and sonnets, this comprehensive handbook transforms potentially intimidating content into relatable, engaging material. Each chapter builds essential skills for understanding and enjoying Shakespeare's works – whether you're analysing complex characters, tracking themes, or exploring modern adaptations. With practical activities, analysis worksheets, and a healthy dose of humour, this guide equips students with the tools to confidently tackle Shakespeare without getting lost in the 'thous' and 'thees'. Perfect for reluctant readers, this book reveals why the Bard's stories of drama, betrayal and ‘situationships’ still powerfully resonate in today's world.

Demystify the world of poetry with this accessible, student-centred guide that transforms the often-intimidating subject into an engaging exploration. From understanding the fundamental elements that make a poem to mastering poetic devices and forms, this comprehensive handbook walks you through everything you need to confidently analyse and appreciate poetry across cultures and time periods. Each chapter builds essential skills – from exploring themes and word choice to writing analytical responses and creating your own original works. With diverse examples from Australian and global poets, practical exercises, and guidance for building a personal poetry portfolio, this book equips students with the tools to not only succeed in classroom poetry analysis but also discover the joy and creative power of poetic expression in the digital age.

Develop the art of social connection with this practical guide designed for teens. From managing emotions and building self-esteem to developing effective communication techniques, this handbook provides a complete roadmap to social success. Learn how to understand others’ behaviours, improve your confidence, and handle bullying and challenging personalities with ease using valuable insights that are broken down into actionable, step-by-step strategies. Through engaging activities and guided reflections across eight essential skill areas, this book transforms complex social concepts into techniques anyone can perfect. Whether you're struggling with difficult relationships or simply want to enhance your social confidence, you'll build the skills needed for meaningful connections in today's complex world.

Get the Dr Susan Nikakis gifted book bundle. Differentiation for Gifted Students in a Secondary School (published November 2022).Too Quirky, Too Quick, 2E: Twice-Exceptional Gifted Students (published March 2025).