Only 57% of Australian school staff report that work positively affects their mental health, and 1 in 2 are currently experiencing burnout.

When I sat down to write the Staff Wellbeing Across Australia report, I originally set out to produce a concise 10-page summary. One hundred and ten pages later, the data made one thing undeniably clear: we cannot keep treating systemic workplace conditions as individual coping failures.

In this solo episode of the Well-Led Schools Podcast, I walk you through the key findings, surprising insights, and critical takeaways from our analysis of over 4,500 educators across ICSEA bands.

We move beyond broad national averages to examine the actual psychosocial hazards driving the erosion of morale in our schools, and more importantly, what staff are actually asking for to fix it.

In this episode, I share:

• Why a short summary turned into an extensive national breakdown and the specific numbers that led to the deep dive into the state of staff wellbeing in each setting
• How breaking data down by ICSEA bands reveals the true, nuanced reality of workplace stressors
• Why resilience and wellbeing workshops and training ranked at the bottom of staff requests, and what educators actually want instead
• An honest look at the demand, capacity, and leadership challenges in below average ICSEA secondary schools and specialist settings
• Why 67% morale and 77% positive culture in one specific setting proves that workplace conditions are changeable
• How moral injury and self-determination theory explain who is leaving the profession and why
• How to take radical responsibility, conduct your own staff assessment, and use this report to drive meaningful change

LINKS AND RESOURCES

Read the full report: https://mailchi.mp/adriennehornby/band-report-full

Read the summary report: https://mailchi.mp/adriennehornby/band-report-summary

Connect with me via:

Website: adriennehornby.com.au

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/adrienne-hornby-a4126a205/

Email: hello@adriennehornby.com.au

School Partnerships: adriennehornby.com.au/school-partnerships/

Conditions in primary schools are more likely to be reported as positive according to our State of Staff Wellbeing in Australia report. Above-average ICSEA primary schools recorded the strongest results in the national dataset, with 67% of staff reporting high morale and 77% a positive culture. However, below-average ICSEA primary settings carry a very different load characterised by severe resourcing constraints, complex student behaviours and needs, and intense support demands.

But across every primary band, we see a common pattern where a school’s culture and overall wellbeing inevitably rise and fall with the person leading it. This leaves us with a critical systemic gap that is rarely funded, timetabled, or surveyed: who is holding the leaders?

This week I’m joined by Elsie Clelland, who spent more than thirty years in Western Australian education, including twenty as a principal across four primary schools and four very different regions. A Foundation principal of a brand-new school, WA Primary Principal of the Year, Harvard Fellow and former Executive Director, Elsie now works directly with school leaders through her consultancy, Flourishing Leadership, specialising in resilience first aid.

Elsie candidly shares what those twenty years cost her, unpacking how high visibility came at the expense of strategy and long hours, the warning signs she rationalised away, how unhelpful coping strategies crept in when no support structures were holding her, and how the fear of judgement prevented her from asking for help.

This conversation examines what it actually takes to build sustainable leadership practices while carrying heavy organisational weight.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Why highly relational leaders often default to being visible for everyone else, while neglecting their own capacity
• How to release the unrealistic expectation of performing exceptionally across every domain at once
• Why school leaders routinely run on empty, in ways they would never allow a car to run
• What happens when unaddressed stress leads to hidden coping strategies and a culture of masking amongst principals
• How practical boundaries actually work, and why advice like “just close your door” fails without context and self-management
• How stepping off-site and giving yourself explicit permission to stop, reflect and seek support protects long-term leadership sustainability
• The importance of establishing a trusted, peer network to debrief on challenges and who hears your real answer to “how are you going?”
• Communicating boundaries to your community as a whole-school expectation, not a personal apology
• How leveraging appreciative inquiry and highlighting existing wins helps protect staff morale and build organisational hope

“If anything in this episode raises something for you, support is available. Lifeline 13 11 14.

Connect with Elsie:

Website: flourishingleadership.com.au/

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/elsie-clelland-4806222b1/

Connect with Adrienne:

Website: adriennehornby.com.au

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/adrienne-hornby-a4126a205

Staff in below-average ICSEA secondary schools reported the toughest conditions in the State of Staff Wellbeing in Australia report, with poor leader-staff communication at an average of 71%, staff shortages at 63%, and lack of trust amongst staff sitting at 58%.

The data tells a clear story of stacking stressors, incivility and leadership churn. In these complex environments, capable leaders are constantly being pulled into reactive mode, away from what their school needs most: relational connections.

But I am reluctant to encourage these leaders to “be more relational,” as the complexities in these schools make that part of the job more challenging. Instead, I want to explore real, practical ways to build relationships and trust amidst strain.

This week, as part of our Band 1H spotlight, I am joined by Sue Chandler, educational consultant, mediator and author of The Relational School.

Drawing on over three decades of experience across teaching, counselling, school leadership and conflict resolution, Sue partners with schools to design relational frameworks and build cultures where both wellbeing and engagement can thrive.

Together, we unpack why a relational culture in complex schools is part of the core infrastructure that everything else depends on. We explore why real cultural change doesn’t live in a wellness workshop, but in the small, repeated organisational moves leaders make every day.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Why Sue rejects the term “behaviour management”, and what shifting “behaviour development” actually asks of school leaders
• Why relying solely on restorative practice arrives too late if we fail to proactively solve the underlying problems driving behaviour
• How staff exhaustion is directly fueled by bolting relational approaches onto fundamentally compliance-based systems
• How to find the sweet spot by balancing high relationships with high accountability, rather than trading one for the other
• Why the exact same relational skills must be applied consistently across students, staff and parents to build true whole-school alignment
• How to build relational culture into a school’s architecture so it survives leadership churn and system disruption

About Sue Chandler

Sue Chandler is an education consultant and author of The Relational School. She works with schools across Australia to help leaders build cultures where relationships, professional thinking and organisational systems work together to support both staff and students. Sue is passionate about helping schools move beyond behaviour management towards lasting cultural transformation.

Connect with Sue Chandler:

Website: www.transformativeschools.com.au

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/suechandler/

Email: sue@transformativeschools.com.au

Connect with me via:

Website: adriennehornby.com.au

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/adrienne-hornby-a4126a205/

School Partnerships: adriennehornby.com.au/school-partnerships/