Episode 10: Beyond the Pupil: Protective Behaviours as Adult Infrastructure (with Kelly Higgs)

"The human cost of leading schools. We see you, we hear you."

When school staff spend their days looking after everyone else, when do they notice that their own working environment no longer feels psychologically safe?

In Episode 10, Jacqui and Jane sit down with Kelly Higgs (middle leader, SEN practitioner, and Protective Behaviours trainer) to flip the script on staff wellbeing. Wellbeing isn't a bolt-on initiative or a 5-step checklist for happiness it is an infrastructure.

What We Explore:

💡 Weekly Action Step for Leaders:Take 10 minutes with a notebook to build your personal Protective Interruption Toolbox: list 5 to 10 low-cost, 5-minute practices that restore your calm and clarity when early warning signs emerge.
Follow Us: Share this episode on Spotify or connect with Jacqui & Jane on LinkedIn.

Shaping Peer Influence in Schools (with Anne Morris)

Episode Overview

Schools spend vast sums of money on new interventions, guest speakers, and external resources to influence student behaviour and engagement. But what if the single most powerful source of influence is already sitting in your classrooms, completely free and largely unharnessed?

In this episode, Jane and Jacqui are joined by Anne Morris—former secondary maths teacher and founder of Yippee Yap and PeerScrollernto interrogate the role of near-peer influence in education.

Peer influence doesn't ask for permission; it happens every day in every corridor, classroom, and playground. The question for school leaders isn't whether it exists, but whether the system is brave enough to shape it. We discuss shifting from "treating pupils as passive recipients" to "creating structural agency," managing the perceived risks of student-led influence, and why true cultural shifts require slowing down and noticing what's already in the room.

Key Thinking Points in This Episode

• The Influence Dynamic: Who actually holds more sway over a 13-year-old’s daily behaviour the adult at the front of the room, or the 16-year-old sitting next to them?

• The High Cost of One-Off Interventions: Why high-priced external speakers often create moment-in-time emotion rather than long-term, sustainable behavioral coherence.

• Systemic Trust vs. Risk Aversion: Why secondary settings often lose the cross-year leadership models common in primary schools—and how fear of risk prevents leaders from giving young people genuine responsibility.

• The Dual Benefit: How near-peer mentoring and structured interaction build work readiness, belonging, and identity for the older peer just as much as the younger one.

Headlines from the Head: Questions for Your Leadership Team

Take these three questions into your next SLT meeting to test whether peer influence in your school is structural or informal:

1. Where is positive peer influence already happening organically in our school? (Don't invent a new scheme—notice where it already lives).

1. Where are young people currently treated only as recipients of decisions when they could be active contributors?

1. What is one micro-opportunity we can create this week for older students to support younger ones without needing a 40-page implementation plan?

Connect & Resources

• Website: Explore Anne’s work on PSHE, personal development, and peer influence at www.peerscroller.com and www.yippeeyap.com.

• LinkedIn: Join Jane and Jacqui on LinkedIn to continue the conversation on the structural realities of school leadership.

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A note for school leaders:

If this episode brought a specific colleague to mind someone carrying heavy systemic pressure or grappling with culture send it to them today. Sometimes the support we need isn't another checklist; it's knowing we aren't the only ones navigating the difficulty.

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Episode 8: The Decisions Nobody Sees: The Hidden Weight of School Leadership

Hosts: Jacqui Le Maître & Jane McNally
Series: Being the Head: The Human Cost of Leading Schools

There are decisions school leaders make every day that nobody sees. They don't see the conversations leading up to them, the internal trade-offs, or the 3:00 AM self-interrogation over whether you got it right.

In this episode, Jacqui and Jane strip away the romanticised myths of leadership to examine the invisible burdens carried behind closed doors. From saying no to genuinely good ideas due to hidden operational costs, to making HR decisions where every outcome hurts a human being, this is an unvarnished look at what happens when ethical responsibility meets systemic strain.

This isn't a 5-step guide to painless decision-making. It is an honest reflection on why leadership feeling uncomfortable doesn't mean you've made the wrong call, and why leaders cannot be expected to carry this weight alone.

What We Unpack

• Saying No to Good Ideas: Why turning down great initiatives is often harder than rejecting bad ones and how to evaluate the hidden human and operational cost.
  
• The Complexity of "Relational" Leadership: Why kindness isn't about avoiding uncomfortable conversations, but giving clear, definitive clarity.
  
• The "Teflon & Rhino Skin" Paradox: Navigating personal accountability while enforcing non-negotiable standards for pupils who only get "one shot" at their education.
  
• Hiding Behind Complexity: Distinguishing between genuine uncertainty and using "complexity" as an excuse to delay uncomfortable leadership action.
  
• Decisive Without Certainty: Why confidence and certainty aren't the same thing and how to own mistakes without eroding trust.
  

Thinking Space vs. Advice: Why headteachers don't need quick fixes; they need protected spaces to test their judgment.

1. What am I actually deciding? (Are you solving the root problem or reacting to surface noise?)
   
2. Who is affected beyond the person standing in front of me?
   
3. What am I avoiding simply because I don't want to disappoint someone?
   
4. Do I genuinely need more information, or am I postponing an uncomfortable choice?
   
5. Who can I think this through with? (Not someone to fix it, but someone to challenge my thinking.)
   

• Connect on LinkedIn: Join the ongoing discussion with Jacqui and Jane on LinkedIn.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacqui-l-605ba150/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-mcnally-746ab762/