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How to reduce stress and feel more in control as a Headteacher
Are you a Headteacher or MAT CEO feeling the strain of constant demands, ongoing pressure or the physical toll of leadership?
In this short, on-demand webinar, I share practical, proven tools from our Headteacher programme, designed to reduce stress, support heart health, and help you feel more steady and in control at work.
You can watch it in your own time, whenever it suits you.
The Pursuit of Sleep for Teachers
Our free gift to support your rest, energy and wellbeing
If you’re finding it hard to switch off, you’re not alone.
Sleep is one of the foundations of wellbeing, and when it’s disrupted, everything from decision-making to emotional regulation becomes harder.
The Pursuit of Sleep for Teachers is our free gift to support your rest and energy.
Written specifically for teachers, school leaders and school staff, it brings together 99 simple, research-informed strategies to improve sleep, restore balance and protect your capacity during demanding terms.
Inside, you’ll find practical daily habits and realistic self-care approaches designed to help you sleep more deeply and feel more resourced for the day ahead.
What readers say:
“Easy to dip into and pick up a new idea to try.”
“Lovely to have all of these tips in one place to remind me of what I need to do more often.”
“I love this book! So helpful and full of simple, practical ideas.”
The Pursuit Blog
Welcome.
Here, we offer short, practical reflections to support your wellbeing – one step at a time.
These short reads are designed to give you useful ideas, fresh perspective and moments of reflection you can take into busy school days, helping you think clearly, lead steadily and sustain yourself in demanding roles.
Because our health and wellbeing isn’t something we tick off a list. It’s something we build through everyday choices that support our capacity to lead and live well.
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Building a Whole-School Wellbeing Strategy
When schools talk about wellbeing, the conversation often starts with what’s going wrong. Staff are tired. Students are anxious. Attendance is fragile. Pressure feels constant.
Those realities matter of course, but a whole-school wellbeing strategy can’t be built on crisis response alone. To last, it needs something deeper and steadier at its core.
Wintering: Resourcing Yourself in a Season That Asks You to Slow Down
Winter changes us – biologically, not just psychologically. Shorter days and lower light levels affect mood, motivation and focus. Our nervous systems are more easily tipped into tiredness, irritability or low-level vigilance. None of this means something is wrong. It means your system is responding exactly as it was designed to.
Resourcing Yourself in January: Why Wellbeing Is About Balance, Not Fixing Yourself
This blog is about understanding something fundamental about wellbeing: wellbeing is the balance between challenges and resources.
When challenges outweigh resources for too long, strain builds. Not because we’re failing, but because our system is under-resourced.
Why Seasonal Affective Disorder Isn’t a Disorder at All: A Kinder Way to Think About Winter Wellbeing
What if, instead of Seasonal Affective Disorder, we thought of SAD as Seasonal Acceptance & Downtime – a reminder that winter invites us to move differently, and that there’s nothing wrong with responding to the season
Supporting Student Mental Health in College Settings: A Practical, Human Approach
You see it every day.
The subtle signs of pressure in your students – the overwhelm, the uncertainty, the moments when motivation slips or anxiety rises just beneath the surface.
How to Build a Sustainable Wellbeing Strategy for Headteachers
Headteacher wellbeing isn’t a luxury. It’s the foundation of effective school leadership, allowing you to think clearly, lead with confidence, and sustain your capacity through the realities of school leadership today.
The Pursuit Podcast
(Podcast archive)
This podcast brings together a curated collection of earlier conversations with influential voices from across the UK education sector, exploring the pressures facing teachers, school leaders and the wider school system.
While recorded some time ago, many of these discussions continue to resonate, particularly where the challenges of workload, stress and sustainability remain unchanged.
Hosted by Maria Brosnan, Educational Health and Wellbeing Specialist with over 30 years’ experience, the episodes offer thoughtful reflection, practical insight and grounded perspective drawn from real educational contexts.
Several episodes – including those focused on support staff and teaching assistants – continue to be widely listened to and shared.
Love your TAs and they’ll Love You Back!
"I love moaning! The only rule is - if you moan about something, you've got to have an idea about a better way of doing it. If you haven’t got an idea on how to make it better, then your moaning is just demoralising people, making everyone feel bad, and dropping the...
Being an Authentic and Humane Leader
“Every decision I made that was ill-informed meant that people were losing a little bit of faith in me.” Dan Edwards is the principal of Woodstock Primary Academy, a large primary school in the heart of Leicester City. He shares the best piece of advice he was ever...
What next? The Power of Options
"Work is somewhere I go to do something I'm good at, but it's not who I am."What does an ex-police office know about teacher stress? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Tom Wheelhouse founded Mightify in 2015 because he wasn't willing to accept that people in...
Compassion as a Survival Skill
"People can spend their lives with an emotional bully in their head, constantly undermining them, constantly putting them down, constantly judging themselves, and then they wonder why they’re depressed!" Paul Gilbert is a Professor of Clinical Psychology...
Creating Everyday Magic with Julie Hurst
"I teach teachers to help children cope with difficult feelings. Difficult emotions can give us important messages if we're unafraid to hear and them and feel them, without becoming utterly overwhelmed by them." Julie Hurst is a Positive Psychologist and the...
Stress, Resilience and the Pursuit of Happiness with Professor Jo Clarke.
"We have the potential to lead stress-free lives. We know that it’s possible because we have evidence and training." Professor Jo Clarke is a former Forensic Psychologist and worked in the criminal justice (prison) system for 23 years. She's the Founder...