Leading Mindfully for Healthy and Successful Schools: Beyond the Traditional Progressive Divide

Schools are increasingly expected to improve mental health and well-being and academic outcomes for students. However, the debate about well-being and school improvement is often unhelpfully polarised with attachment-informed and restorative-justice approaches pitted against structures and systems that instil discipline. This book seeks to take a ‘middle way’, looking at how these perspectives might complement one another, and argues that healthy teacher-student relationships require an adult that is both attuned to their students’ needs and able to hold boundaries with them.

Setting out conception of leadership that is clear, compassionate, and self-aware, Leading Mindfully for Healthy and Successful Schools draws on therapeutic and educational research to identify key strategies for improving well-being across schools that are sustainable in the long term. This book is divided into three sections – Leading Yourself, Leading School Culture and Leading in the Classroom – and the chapters cover the following:

• Interpersonal neurobiology and the role that attachment plays in our work
• Self-care and how this can be built into school life
• The role of structures and relationships
• Building trust
• Radical inclusion
• Building calm and effective classrooms
• Healthy adult authority

Including reflective activities, thought-provoking case studies and key takeaways for every chapter, this is an essential read for all current and aspiring school leaders.