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Almost every educator that I speak to agrees that we have a national problem with teen depression and suicide.  They’d also fervently like to contribute to solving that problem. I know also that teen suicide is a complex and distressing social phenomena with multiple contributing factors and it’s easy to get lost in case study…

During any day of Restorative Practices training, I regularly open up the floor for questions. Learning the RP Framework always requires some sense-making and contextualising of the key concepts … so we need to talk about that. Occasionally, somebody asks a question along the lines of “Well, this might work for some kids but there…

I’ve read and written a fair bit lately about Student Engagement. Being easily seduced by simplicity, I was determined to distil the volume of information about this subject down to something accessible and practical for educators. And so, my definition of engagement is just four visible pursuits. It’s students who are: Listening Speaking Thinking Doing…

I’m exceedingly proud of Monmia Primary School in Melbourne as one of our Real Schools Partners over the last 3-4 years. My pride comes partly through their determination to embed Restorative Practices as the fundamental underpinning of their School Culture. In a recent visit, I was able to present them with a variety of genuine,…

I’ll admit to a little frustration with the Australian vernacular since I returned from a wonderful 9-day ordeal traversing the Kokoda Track in Papua New Guniea last week.  You see, people keep annoyingly asking me “How was the Track?”. It’s actually a very reasonable question and my frustration is borne mostly of just not having…

Whenever I finish a day of training with a school, I point them to the Real Schools Member Resources that they all have access to.  I’ve established a healthy bias for implementation in my work and these serve as a genuine resource for so many educators as they look to embed the principles we’ve learned…

You may have noticed that this is my first Real Schools newsletter in a wee while.  It’s been some time since my family and I took a ‘real’ holiday and the last couple of weeks that we spent exploring London have been filled with bucket list moments that will entwine our conversations for years. As…

As a Principal, I occassionally deployed the strategy of a Business Lunch.  It wasn’t a reward.  Luke knew that if he was called to share a sausage roll with me that there was something serious, something behavioural, on the agenda for that lunch. So was this an appropriate, or even effective, strategy? In the Restorative…

It’s a well know and ancient aphorism that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”.  It’s a proverbial warning that our intentions might be sound, virtuous and even admirable but that they also represent the first steps on a path or journey.  We need to make those first steps the right ones. So,…

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”  Thomas Edison Thomas Edison’s successful inventions have changed the way we live, but it is in his failures that he learnt the big lessons of life.  If those first failures were allowed to define him, I wonder what this extraordinary man might have…

I worry sometimes about grown-ups and our collective level of distraction from principle when it comes to making smart decisions on behalf of our kids.  In schools and also across the community, we’re seduced by a well articulated notion that “sounds like a nice idea” far too often. Many of these ideas, when removed from…

‘Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.’ Rita Pierson A number of weeks back, my son’s teachers asked if I would like to come on the Year 6 Camp.  Normally, I would politely decline the invitation but for some reason, I said yes.  They must have caught me at a weak moment.  So reluctantly,…

Now I am not the type of person that puts inspirational quotes up around my office but as an educator, ‘it takes a whole village to raise a child’ resonates loud and clear to me.  But what if the whole village was lowering the bar to such an extent, that your village was not living…

I have two competing views about educational research:  that we spend far too much time and money researching aspects of the educative pursuit that have little or no impact or meaning.  No more studies about homework please – the truth is already known.  that when we find relevant and confronting truths within our research, that…

Albert Einstein is universally recognised as one of the greatest minds of our time and amidst his incredible contribution to science, he also shone a very bright torch on education.  Albert is quoted as saying, very eloquently, a ‘student is not a container you have to fill but a torch you need to light up’.…

Thursday night after school, whenever possible, my daughter Evie and I stop at a little bakery in Melbourne and sit down and have a hot chocolate and a cookie and talk about the day’s events.  It is time that I treasure greatly.  This week we got talking about books and what she is reading at…

At Real Schools, we’re immensely proud of the progress and achievements made by all of our Partner Schools.  We were also very proud that our friend Suzy Barry at SchoolNews decided to so articulately detail the journey we’ve walked with Leopold PS. You can check read Suzy’s article by clicking here. The Leopold PS journey…

‘Hanging tough, staying hungry They stack the odds still we take to the street’ Survivor 1982 Last night I sat with the very talented and passionate Principal John Cleary of Casuarina Street Primary School in Katherine, Northern Territory. John and I were in the heart of Tiger land and even a few days out from…