Education Leaders

Clare Garey has spent 20 years working in the non-profit sector, advising organisations including WWF, Greenpeace, Oxfam and the International Baccalaureate. In 2020, she founded Sustainability at School after seeing that school leaders understood the urgency of the climate crisis but had no clear idea where to start. In this episode of Education Leaders, Clare joins Shane Leaning to talk about what "getting serious about sustainability" actually means, beyond eco days, green slogans and one-off activities. She makes a case that resonates beyond the environmental: three-quarters of children are currently worried about the state of the planet, and schools that teach climate change without giving students any agency to act on it are contributing to a well-being problem. The conversation covers how to build a whole-school sustainability culture, why the operations team is one of the most overlooked parts of the equation, and how language from school leaders can quietly make or break the whole effort. Link in comments. #EducationalLeadership #SchoolLeadership #LeadershipDevelopment #InternationalSchools

Most schools are already doing something on sustainability but the problem isn't a lack of effort, it's trying to tackle too many things at once. In this episode of Education Leaders, Shane Leaning speaks with Clare Garey, founder of Sustainability at School, about why focus is the single most important thing a school can do. Clare works with international schools across Spain, India, Singapore and beyond, and she's clear: when schools try to address energy, water, waste, transport, biodiversity and air quality all at once, the result is overwhelm and nothing really changes. Her approach is to help school communities identify the one issue that matters most right now and build a focused, measurable plan around it. From a school in Hyderabad reducing energy consumption by 11% to a Barcelona school eliminating 250,000 yogurt pots in a year, the results speak for themselves. If sustainability keeps getting pushed down the priority list in your school, this episode is a practical reset. Link in comments. #SchoolLeadership #EducationalLeadership #InternationalSchools #SchoolImprovement

Missed this month's Education Leaders Live? Here's the catch-up. Every last Thursday of the month, Shane Leaning and Chris Scorer sit down to pull apart the themes from the month's podcast guests. This one ran the full hour and didn't waste a minute of it. A few things they got stuck into: Why so few serving heads feel able to talk honestly about the job. Chris Passey and Sam Crome have pushed that openness further than most, and the conversation dug into what it actually costs you. Chris's take: the moment he became a deputy head, people simply stopped being straight with him. Sam's line that stuck with everyone: assumptions are the death of good advice. Nancy Weinstein's data on 35,000 students, showing verbal memory roughly halved since the pandemic and flexible thinking falling away. The uncomfortable part? Teachers are struggling to think flexibly too. The hopeful part? We already have the tools. We just don't have the time to use them. And Clare Garey on why climate is a wellbeing issue, not only an environmental one, when three-quarters of young people are worried about the planet. The fix she points to isn't another eco poster. It's handing real action to students. Plus Shane's favourite term you'll now never unhear: the iatrogenic effect. Every change you make in a school has a side effect somewhere else. Worth a listen before your next big initiative. Watch the full conversation here 👇 https://lnkd.in/gD5Yh9iB We go live on the last Thursday of every month on LinkedIn and YouTube. Come and join the next one. Bring your pushback. #EducationLeadership #SchoolLeadership #InternationalSchools #Headship

Join Shane Leaning and Chris Scorer for a reflection on all May episodes of Education Leaders. This is your conversation - bring your thoughts and ideas: Shoutouts throughout to Chris Passey, Sam Crome, Nancy Weinstein and Clare Garey for inspiring the discussion. Add to your calendar here:

Work Collaborative is the not-for-profit arm of Education Leaders. Where Education Leaders works directly with international school leadership teams, Work Collaborative exists to put organisational confidence back where it belongs, inside the school, and to keep that work open and free for the whole sector. In this short video, our founder Shane Leaning talks through what the collaborative is for and what's happening right now: two free research papers out this month, three new working groups, an advisory board forming, and a forum that runs every couple of months. Give it a few minutes. Thanks to Dr Kathryn Taylor EdD FCCT for our first commissioned paper, to Tamara Zaple Rolfs FCCT and Valentina Devid for leading new work, and to co-founder Efraim Lerner, who shaped this from the start. Whatever your role in education, there's a place for you in this. The form is in the comments.

Do you feel like sustainability in your school is a collection of ad-hoc activities? If the answer is yes, give this frank conversation with Shane Leaning on his Education Leaders a listen! You'll learn about a clear, manageable approach to whole school sustainability that supports students, staff and school priorities. Please share your feedback in the comments. And a huge thank you Shane Leaning for having me.

Here's something that doesn't get talked about enough: the pandemic didn't just affect students. It affected their teachers, too. In this episode of Education Leaders, Nancy Weinstein shares data showing that teachers' flexible thinking, their ability to adapt their approach, take on feedback, and adjust when something isn't working, declined significantly during the pandemic. At the same time, their students were struggling to receive corrective feedback, and teachers were finding it harder to give it. Nancy frames this not as a criticism of teachers but as a context that school leaders genuinely need. If a staff member is resisting a new initiative or struggling with something that used to be automatic in their practice, the root cause might be more cognitive than motivational. Understanding that changes how you support people and it changes how you hold yourself as a leader too. Link in comments. #SchoolLeadership #SchoolCulture #LeadershipDevelopment #EducationalLeadership MindPrint Learning, Inc. Otus

Nancy Weinstein spent years at Goldman Sachs, The Walt Disney Company, and Bristol Myers Squibb before co-founding MindPrint Learning, Inc., a cognitive assessment company built on research from the University of Pennsylvania's Brain Behavior Lab and validated through the National Institutes of Health. She brings that same rigour to a question every school leader is quietly asking: why do students seem so different now? In this conversation, Nancy shares what her longitudinal data reveals about cognitive change in students since the pandemic, covering verbal memory, flexible thinking, and how these shifts are affecting classrooms in ways that aren't always obvious. She also touches on a recent MIT study that has direct implications for how schools should be thinking about AI in learning. What stands out about Nancy's perspective is that she's not just naming the problem; she's connecting the data to strategies teachers can use straight away. Link in comments. #EducationalLeadership #SchoolLeadership #LeadershipDevelopment #InternationalSchools

✨ Great coaching cultures are built through continuous learning, reflection and shared expertise. ✨ At the International Centre for Coaching in Education, we’re committed to making high-quality professional learning accessible to school leaders around the world - which is why our Resources section is packed with FREE webinars, podcasts and practical insights. 🎧 Hear from experienced educational leaders and coaching specialists including: Shane Leaning Joanne Robinson Dr Suzanna Tomassi Explore topics including: ✔ Building a coaching culture in schools ✔ Coaching-informed leadership ✔ Developing staff through coaching conversations ✔ Practical leadership strategies that improve retention and professional growth Whether you are a senior leader, middle leader or aspiring coach, these resources are designed to give you practical ideas you can apply immediately in your setting. 🔗 Visit our free resources library: www.icce.org/resources #CoachingInEducation #EducationalLeadership #SchoolLeadership #ProfessionalDevelopment #InternationalSchools #CoachingCulture #InstructionalCoaching #LeadershipDevelopment