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Blogs

Our blogs offer short, practical, relevant reads designed to provoke thinking & strengthen leadership in action.

How will 2025 end? An aftermath, an aftertaste or an afterglow?

November 9, 2025

If you’ve felt your shoulders creeping up around your ears lately, you’re not alone. Across Aotearoa, school leaders and teachers are feeling the strain of rapid announcements and shifting directives…

What Are You Reading Right Now?

September 7, 2025

As educational leaders we understand the importance of research informing our practice. Being able to clearly share the ‘why’, beliefs and research behind decisions is an integral part of effective…

The Ripple Effect

August 16, 2025

Starfish on Vanuatu beach The Starfish Story -click link to view clip As school leaders, your days are filled with decisions, conversations, and moments, many of them so small they might seem insign…

Be The Leader You Want To Be

At edLead, we believe that leading self is the foundation of effective leadership. It’s not just a concept – it’s an active practice. Many of our most powerful coaching conversations do…

Finding Clarity In The Chaos

As we head into the second half of a short term, we’d like to prompt you with this simple question – what’s your leadership priority? You might be thinking… implementing structured liter…

Be Your Own ERO – Term 1 Check-In

Well done for successfully navigating term 1 2025. We thought it would be timely as we head towards a natural quarterly check-point in the year to offer you some practical support. We kno…

Intervene Early At The Lowest Level

The year is underway; you’ve established routines, invested in relationship building and set expectations, so now what is the role you will play? Are you going to be proactive or an ostrich? How do…

Unstressable

January 23, 2025

Before your head becomes too full of the daily demands, we would like to remind you of some things you already know that could make a difference to how you experience 2025. 10 considerations t…

Positivity By Design

November 17, 2024

Around 4 weeks to go in the school year. We’d like to remind you about how influential you can be in shaping the positivity of your team. Here are 4 activities you might like to try. Random A…

Step Away From The Buffet

September 23, 2024

Congratulations on successfully completing another term. As we look ahead to term 4 (no-doubt you have a foot in the camp of 2025 also), you will have some of the pieces of your jigsaw in place (staf…

Brace Or Embrace? That Is The Question

August 16, 2024

‘What would it take for you to embrace change (and not brace for change)?’ How you view change will influence how it occurs and how others experience it in your school. We’ve got a choice ab…

Clearing The Way

A noticing from us……..everyone is VERY busy. This is not new but we are hypothesising that ‘busy’ contributes negatively to teacher wellbeing and performance. We can’t keep getting busier. (You…

Celebrate and Course Correct

As we approach mid-term 2 and mid 2024 we thought it would be timely to check-in and support leaders to make space to celebrate progress, wins and successes and “course correct” as you plan ahead…

Get Out

We’d like to thank you for your survey feedback. We really appreciate the time taken to share your thoughts. They will influence our actions moving forward. A model we have picked up recently is t…

The Purpose of Feedback Is Always Improvement

Mid-term can be a great time to seek some feedback from your people. This quote below captures our beliefs about feedback: The purpose of feedback is always improvement. The Leadership Pipeline…

It’s Not The Load That Breaks You. It’s How You Carry It

January 21, 2024

This week you may be returning rested, with your resilience battery recharged and feeling optimistic for the year ahead. How do we keep you that way? In order to carry your load effectively, we offer…

What Has Coaching Got To Do With Wellbeing?

October 16, 2023

In this blog post we are unashamedly promoting coaching; not only as an approach to improve teacher and leadership effectiveness, but also as an intentional wellbeing strategy. We also want…

You Can Do It

August 30, 2023

Definition: Courage – the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty without fear. As the term unfolds a timely reminder that you have the tools and skills to have the convers…

Be A Positive Disruptor

With community consultation and strategic planning being on leaders’ radars, we’d like to provoke some thinking to support you and your boards, as you map out your deliberate actions for the next tw…

Leading Yourself

Nga manaakitanga Carol and Nadia

Beyond The Limits

A new term provides an opportunity to reset and be intentional about how we show up and shape the weeks ahead. We acknowledge that in reality there are some things that sit outside of our…

“Your Team Can Only Improve The Things They Talk About”

Well done – you’ve successfully made it halfway through term 1 2023. Some noticings we’ve made: -leaders are really wanting to focus on teaching and learning. There is positive urgency…

The Year of Change

January 21, 2023

Happy new year everyone. We trust you have had a relaxing break. When you look at the title of this blog post you may be thinking…isn’t every year, a year of change? Yes it is!! What we…

A Choice of Words is Often a Choice of Worlds

November 16, 2022

We understand that term 4 is unique. It can result in people not always being the best versions of themselves. Understandably, because we’re all human beings, we sometimes slip. Let’s not…

You Will Never Get Everything Done

October 14, 2022

The title is so true, yet we persist in trying to turn up as though it is not. What is with that? This blog post is about encouraging some mindsets and ways of thinking that will support yo…

He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata

August 30, 2022

Being mindful of the changes in education that are ahead, let’s remind ourselves that the most important thing is our people. Regardless of outside influences, our people shape our culture and…

MĀNAWATIA A MATARIKI

Matariki, or Puanga for our Taranaki and Whanganui whānau, is a time to reflect on the past year, celebrate the present, and plan for the year ahead. Here are some practical suggestions from us…

Post-Crisis Leadership – Reclaiming the Leadership Space

As the end of term approaches we would like to say well done you! You’ve been leading through crisis. Here’s what we reckon you’ve been doing: ● Remaining calm ● Keeping people informed…

Meet For Purpose Not Time

Our thoughts are that it is possible that working online might become important over the next little while. What we’d like to challenge you with today is that in the meeting space, everything tha…

Connection Before Content

January 26, 2022

Ngā mihi o te tau hou ki a koutou katoa! Connection before content is a concept that we want to continue to bring to the forefront of our mahi in 2022. You can expect us to share some new tools…

Ready When You Are

November 21, 2021

Just letting you know we are ready when you are. Recent changes to Principal appraisal see us transitioning towards the full implementation of Principal Professional Growth Cycles in 2023. We hav…

Ki te mātatahi – Plan for the Future, a Better Tomorrow

October 6, 2021

Pou kaha rawa – manaakitia mai We acknowledge your inspirators and motivators Pou haerenga – haere ra We acknowledge those who have gone before Pou oranga – mihi mai We acknowledge those…

In Two Minds About Something?

September 6, 2021

After connecting and reflecting on the last few weeks with our leaders we’d like to share with you and celebrate some of the words and phrases that have trended: Calm Realistic; self and others…

Going Beyond ‘What’s on Top’

Our post explores the concept of check-ins. Check-ins can be underutilised; time is precious, and we need to get ‘stuff’ done. But what if we considered check-ins as a space for shaping culture and…

Staying Positive in Leadership – Controlling the Controllable

A conversation with Jane Corcoran Principal of Brunswick School Whanganui, & an active participant in a wide range of national and regional educational groups, has reminded us that we are all ab…

Spaciousness -What We Need to Do Great Work

Circling back to our March blog post; ‘Boundaries Can Be Uncomfortable. Being Busy Is Worse,’ we are reminded that conflict & resistance might be things that take up time in your day and space i…

Boundaries can be uncomfortable. Being busy is worse.

So excited to share the next steps in our year of learning. On Friday morning we were privileged to spend some time with Debra Peck; Tumuaki at Riverdale School in Palmerston North exploring & o…

If the Answer is Coaching, What is the Question?

January 31, 2021

Ngā mihi o te tau hou! Welcome back everyone. We trust you’ve had a refreshing and rejuvenating break, enjoying the change of pace that this time of year brings. We are looking forward to seeing man…