Education Leaders | Evidence Informed School Leadership

What does it really take to step into public thought leadership as a headteacher and what do consultants and trust leaders get wrong when they walk into schools? In this episode, Shane is joined by Chris Passey, Headteacher at Kimichi School and co-host of the Coaching Unpacked podcast series, and Sam Crome, Interim Headteacher and Director of Education for Xavier Catholic Education Trust, for an honest conversation about professio...

April was a packed month on the Education Leaders podcast. Five episodes, four guests, and a thread that quietly ran through all of them: the value of small, listened-to, incremental change.

Chris Scorer joined me for our monthly live show to make sense of it all. Here's what landed.

Listening before leading. Richard Wheadon's episode on his leadership journey hit hardest here. Richard's been honest about arriving at a new sc...

Most school leaders have felt it at some point: that quiet, nagging suspicion that everyone else is more capable, better prepared, and more deserving of the role. Julia Bialeski knows it well. In the spring of 2019, she walked into her first principal job with a smile on her face and panic in her chest, presenting excitement to the world while privately wondering when everyone around her would figure out she wasn't good enough. In ...

That sickly feeling after a tough leadership call isn't your intuition warning you that you got it wrong and this episode explains exactly why. Drawing on Leon Festinger's 1957 work on cognitive dissonance, a 2021 meta-analysis from Hebrew University, and Kahneman and Tversky's research on loss aversion, Shane reframes one of the most common experiences in school leadership: the quiet panic that shows up on the sofa after a hard de...

Melati Wijsen started Bye Bye Plastic Bags at age 12, spoke at the UN as a teenager, and never went to university, yet she is now teaching at three universities and shaping how a generation thinks about leadership and change. This episode is a conversation about what happens when a school genuinely creates space for a student's passion, and what school leaders can learn from one of the most compelling young voices in global educati...

There's a particular kind of leadership trap that nobody warns you about: the one where everything is going so well that you stop noticing why. Richard Wheadon spent the first decade of his career in a high-performing London school where great culture, strong professional development, and collaborative leadership were simply the norm. It wasn't until he moved to a new school in the Northwest that he realised none of it had been acc...

What if the principles that help students learn could also transform how you lead? This episode explores the powerful concept of the "science of leading" with Meg Lee, co-founder of Learning Science Partners and an internationally recognised advocate for evidence-informed teaching and professional learning. Meg explains why our leadership moves often fail when we act on "brittle knowledge," just enough understanding to be dangerous...

Shane and Chris are back for this month's Education Leaders Live, recording from Shanghai and Newcastle respectively, to unpack some of the biggest themes from recent episodes.

The conversation kicks off with the backstory behind Education Leaders itself. How it started as a hobby podcast called Travel Ed, what redundancy taught Shane about building a business, and why the "build it and they shall come" approach is terrible advi...

England spends £1 billion a year on teacher professional development, yet a poll of school leaders found that just 1% said it led to lasting change in practice. This episode examines why that gap exists, drawing on a landmark 2025 report from the Teacher Development Trust, which surveyed over a thousand teachers and leaders across England. The findings are stark, but the patterns, as Shane argues, are universal and if you lead a sc...

How do we truly know if someone is a good leader? If your school relies on visible presence, constant busyness, or even a certain "look," you might be measuring the wrong things. In this thought-provoking episode, Shane is joined by experienced educator and leadership development specialist, Chris Baker, to explore the concept of 'poor proxies' for leadership. Inspired by Rob Coe's work on poor proxies for learning, Chris explains ...

Episode 151 is a milestone worth pausing on, and Shane uses it to do something he probably should have done sooner: properly introduce himself. Many listeners know the podcast but have never heard the full story of how Education Leaders grew from a simple desire for better conversations into a three-part organisation spanning a community, a coaching academy, and international school consultancy. This episode is Shane's honest accou...

Teachers spend years learning to coach people. Ask questions, not give answers. Build trust before expecting vulnerability. Hold space. Stay quiet when staying quiet is the hardest thing.

Then they get promoted. And most of it disappears.

Chris Scorer — school leader, data specialist, and co-host of Education Leaders Live — said it plainly this month: "You'd never walk into a classroom and tell kids to do something just becau...

What does it mean to lead a ‘British’ school in an international context today? If your school promotes ‘global citizenship’ but struggles to feel truly grounded in its local community, this conversation is essential. Shane is joined by headteacher and author Simon Probert, who argues that the future success of our sector depends on moving beyond a ‘rootless’ global identity. He introduces the powerful concept of ‘rooted cosmopolit...

You explained it clearly, they nodded, and two weeks later three people did three completely different things. This episode tackles one of the most common and costly communication breakdowns in school leadership: assuming that because you said it, it landed. Shane draws on research from Cornell and Stanford, including the "tappers and listeners" study, to explain why even experienced leaders consistently overestimate how clearly th...

Selina Boyd, international editor of The Good Schools Guide, reveals what actually matters when parents choose schools for their children. With over a decade reviewing international schools and more than 1,600 schools assessed worldwide, Selina explains why authentic leadership isn't about what leaders say about themselves, but what parents and students say about them. This conversation challenges school leaders to rethink how they...

You hired the wrong person, killed a working programme, or ignored a massive risk whilst feeling completely rational the whole time. This episode unpacks five cognitive biases that sabotage school leadership decisions constantly: anchoring, availability bias, endowment effect, groupthink, and optimism bias. Shane shares real examples from his own leadership mistakes, including a disastrous hiring decision driven by a compelling ope...

Chris Scorer and Shane Leaning got together to unpack some of the big themes from recent episodes, particularly that vulnerable solo episode Shane put out about self-doubt and imposter syndrome. The response to that one has been overwhelming, especially the private messages from leaders who haven't felt able to share their struggles publicly. Chris and Shane dug into why we've become so intolerant of failure in education, how accou...

Instructional coaching should be a powerful engine for teacher development, yet so many school initiatives stall or backfire. Why? In this frank conversation, Dr. Gene Tavernetti joins Shane to dissect exactly where and how coaching programmes commonly fail. With over thirty years in education (as coach, teacher, counselor, administrator, and consultant), Gene pulls no punches on the systemic pitfalls, from treating coaching as a r...

You know that feeling when you wake up with a weight on your chest, convinced you don't belong and everyone's about to find out? Shane gets vulnerable about a recent morning just like that: when a piece of work that wasn't his absolute best sent him spiralling into shame. This solo episode tackles the difference between "I did something imperfect" and "I am not good enough," and why that distinction matters so much for school leade...