In this episode of The Leadership Lens, we explore the powerful ideas behind Talking to Crazy by Mark Goulston and what school leaders can learn about managing emotionally heightened conversations with parents.

Drawing on Goulston’s background as both a psychiatrist and former FBI hostage negotiation trainer, this episode explores why difficult conversations so often escalate in schools, why logic alone rarely calms emotionally overwhelmed people, and how leaders can reduce emotional threat so that rational thinking can return.

Across the episode, we walk chapter by chapter through some of the book’s most useful ideas, including:

- Why parents become emotionally reactive

- The “mirror technique” and how it works in practice

- Why evidence alone often escalates conflict

- How to use tactical empathy effectively

- Avoiding the trap of needing to “win” complaints

- Managing emotionally charged SEND and behaviour conversations

Using real school-based examples, this episode applies the book directly to the kinds of conversations school leaders, teachers, office staff and pastoral teams navigate every week.

Premium members will also receive: a full CPD slide deck and training script so that you can train your own teams easily and cost effectively.

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In this week’s episode, we explore one of the most important—and often misunderstood—areas of the renewed inspection framework: inclusion. This isn’t a standalone priority. It runs through everything—quality of education, behaviour, leadership—and is ultimately about how well schools work for those pupils facing the greatest barriers to their learning and wellbeing.

We take a deep, practical look at what we really mean by children known to, or previously known to, social care, unpicking the complexity behind terms like children in need, child protection, looked after children and care leavers. Most importantly, we focus on what this means for schools in practice: how we identify need, work in partnership, use funding effectively, and ensure that our actions genuinely improve pupils’ lived experiences and outcomes.

This episode moves beyond labels and categories, challenging leaders to think carefully about inclusion as a coherent, intentional strategy—one that is visible not just in policy, but in the day-to-day reality of school life.

💡 Premium Members Premium members will receive a complete, ready-to-use slide deck and full training script linked directly to this week’s episode—designed for immediate use in staff CPD.

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Personal development

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Strong foundations in the early years

The writing framework …and much more

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🎧 The Leadership Lens Teacher Recruitment and Retention: Why Getting the Right People Matters – and Why Keeping Them Matters Even More

In this week’s episode, we explore one of the most complex and consequential aspects of school leadership: teacher recruitment and retention.

This is often framed as an operational challenge—vacancies, adverts, interviews—but in reality, it goes much deeper than that. Recruitment and retention sit at the heart of school improvement, culture, and ultimately the quality of education that pupils experience every day.

Drawing on research, leadership experience, and practical examples, this episode unpacks:

Why “wise selection” is one of the most important things leaders do—but also why it is inherently difficult

The limits of predicting teacher success at interview, and why this requires humility in recruitment

How clarity in your message, motivation and medium can transform the quality of applicants

Why retention is not an afterthought, but a strategic priority linked directly to pupil outcomes

The three key drivers of retention: workload, environment and leadership support

How professional development, trust and culture shape whether staff stay, grow or quietly disengage

We also explore practical approaches to strengthening recruitment processes, including:

Designing meaningful interview tasks

Using values-based scenarios to test professional judgement

Avoiding bias and improving fairness in selection

Learning from staff voice, including exit interviews, to strengthen long-term retention

At its core, this episode challenges leaders to reflect honestly:

If a brilliant teacher spent a day in your school, would they believe they could flourish there?

⭐ Premium Member Resource

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I Thought We Had Our Personal Development Offer Sorted… Then I Properly Looked at It

This week’s episode is an honest reflection on what started as a simple PSHE/RSHE update… and quickly became something much deeper.

With the revised DfE RSHE guidance coming into force from September 2026, this episode explores why reviewing your personal development curriculum is not about adding more content, but about sharpening what already exists.

It focuses on the shift from coverage to coherence, precision and sequencing, and asks a crucial question:

Are pupils actually learning what they need to stay safe, thrive and navigate the world they’re growing up in?

In this episode, I explore:

Why “we cover it” is not the same as a well-sequenced curriculum

The key shifts in the 2026 RSHE guidance, including:

Teaching before risk arises

Greater transparency with parents

A stronger focus on prevention and safeguarding

The growing importance of teaching around:

Online safety, AI and digital manipulation

Gendered narratives and harmful social norms

Boundaries, relationships and help-seeking

How personal development is being more sharply evaluated in inspection, including: Curriculum coherence and sequencing

What pupils actually know and remember

Inclusion, pastoral care and real-world preparedness

Why experiences alone are not enough — and must sit alongside a knowledge-rich curriculum.

Key takeaway

This isn’t about doing more. It’s about being much more deliberate — knowing exactly what pupils should learn, when they should learn it, and how it prepares them for real life.

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✔️ My fully updated Primary Personal Development Curriculum Clearly sequenced from EYFS to Year 6 Aligned with RSHE 2026 and safeguarding expectations Designed for coherence, progression and impact

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In last week’s episode, I explored why so many school development plans don’t quite do what we hope they will. We looked at the idea that we often focus too heavily on goals, rather than the day-to-day systems and habits that actually drive change in schools. We also reframed the starting point for planning away from “what do we want to achieve?” and towards “what are our persistent problems?” This week builds directly on that thinking. Because once you’ve identified your persistent problems, the next step is deciding what to do about them. That’s the moment where most plans either become genuinely powerful… or quietly fall apart. In this episode, I introduce the concept of premortems, a simple but incredibly powerful way of strengthening your school improvement plans before you implement them. Rather than waiting to evaluate something after it hasn’t worked, a premortem asks you to imagine that your plan has already failed, and then work backwards to understand why. It sounds uncomfortable, and it is, but that discomfort is exactly where the insight sits. In this episode, I explore: Why we tend to move too quickly from identifying problems to implementing solutions What a premortem is and where it comes from How premortems create space for honest, risk-aware thinking within leadership teams A step-by-step walkthrough of how to run a premortem effectively in your school A detailed school-based example focused on improving reading fluency in lower KS2 Three non-examples of premortems that look right on the surface but fail in practice — and what goes wrong in each case How to use premortems to strengthen your school development plan before it reaches the classroom 🧠 Key takeaway Identifying the right problem is only half the work. Designing the right response, and properly stress-testing that response before you implement it, is where school improvement either succeeds or quietly falls apart. Premortems help you do exactly that. 💡 Premium Membership If you want to take this straight into your own setting, this week’s premium resource is designed to do exactly that. As a premium member, you’ll receive: A full slide deck that walks you step-by-step through the premortem framework Clear guidance on how to structure and facilitate the session with your team A resource you can use immediately in SLT meetings or wider leadership discussions Premium membership also gives you access to the full back catalogue of 36 episodes, each with accompanying resources including: Training scripts Slide decks School development frameworks Practical tools you can use straight away Topics covered include safeguarding, behaviour, personal development, curriculum design, retrieval practice, alternative provision, and much more. 👉 You can join here: https://the-leadership-lens.mykajabi.com/premium-membership It’s £11 per month, and each week you’ll receive a resource linked directly to the episode, designed to support your work as a school leader in a practical, usable way.

• Why traditional SDP approaches often fail to shift practice
• The power of focusing on persistent problems instead of broad priorities
• How small, daily habits (1% changes) compound into real school improvement
• The difference between goals vs systems — and why systems win every time
• A psychologically informed approach to planning that actually embeds change

• A psychologically informed School Development Plan template that will genuinely drive change in your school
• Worked examples so you can see exactly what this looks like in practice

• Training scripts & slide decks
• Templates & checklists
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KCSIE 2026: The Safeguarding Briefing You Actually Need – Part 2

In this episode of The Leadership Lens, we move into Part 5 of the KCSIE 2026 consultation draft.

We unpack:

The explicit inclusion of harmful sexual behaviour and misogyny as central safeguarding concerns

Why behaviour between children is no longer “low-level” — it’s core safeguarding work

The shift from risk assessments to risk and needs assessments

Strengthened expectations around mental health, early intervention, and staff responsibility

New safeguarding expectations around gender questioning children and parental involvement

What leaders must now review in policy, training, and whole-school culture

This episode is not about theory — it’s about what schools must now do differently.

If you are a DSL, headteacher, or trust leader, this is essential listening.

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Episode Title: KCSIE 2026: The Safeguarding Briefing You Actually Need This week’s episode cuts through the noise surrounding the draft Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) 2026 guidance and focuses on what school leaders actually need to know — not next summer, but now. While the document is still in consultation and nothing becomes statutory until September 2026, consultation drafts reveal where government concern, serious case review learning, and inspection focus are heading. In other words, they tell us what to prepare for — not panic about. In this episode, I walk you through the most significant shifts in plain language, translating policy into practical leadership action. We explore how safeguarding expectations are becoming deeper, more legally literate, and more operational — particularly in relation to staff knowledge, leadership systems, digital risk, and child-on-child harm. 🔎 In This Episode, We Explore: Why this draft feels heavier than previous updates — and what that signals The removal of the Part One summary and the implications for staff training Updated definitions of harm, including verbal emotional abuse and AI-related abuse The shift from Early Help to Family Help and what that means operationally Threshold literacy — what all staff are now expected to understand Expanded vulnerability indicators (including repeated classroom removal) New expectations around child-on-child abuse and misogyny Strengthened expectations for DSL expertise and cover arrangements File transfer responsibilities and information-sharing confidence Mobile phone-free school expectations Generative AI as a central safeguarding risk Filtering, monitoring, and digital assurance Safeguarding accountability in alternative provision This is not a compliance checklist. It’s a leadership briefing designed to help you build safeguarding systems that work when things are messy, urgent, or uncertain — because that is when safeguarding matters most. 🧠 Why This Matters for Leaders KCSIE 2026 is not just adding new content — it is raising expectations around safeguarding culture, professional judgement, and organisational resilience. The guidance increasingly assumes that safeguarding is not a document on a shelf, but a functioning system embedded across the whole school. If you lead a school, trust, or safeguarding function, this episode will help you move from reactive compliance to proactive readiness. ⭐ Want the Full Training Pack? Premium members of The Leadership Lens receive: ✔️ The full training script for this episode ✔️ A complete, ready-to-deliver slide deck ✔️ Access to the full Leadership Lens library (currently 33 episodes) ✔️ Accompanying resources for each episode, including: Professional slide decks Detailed training scripts Safeguarding and leadership audits Curriculum materials Implementation tools Strategic planning resources Practical templates for school leaders Everything is designed to save you time while strengthening the quality and impact of your leadership. 👉 Join the Premium Membership here: https://the-leadership-lens.mykajabi.com/premium-membership 🎯 Who This Episode Is For Headteachers and senior leaders DSLs and safeguarding teams Trust leaders and school improvement partners Governors and trustees with safeguarding oversight Anyone responsible for safeguarding training or compliance 💬 Stay Connected If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it with a colleague or your safeguarding network. The goal of The Leadership Lens is simple: practical leadership guidance that respects your time and strengthens your impact.