I find Father’s Day kind of hard. My Dad died when he was only forty-five. The day always brings that loss close. While others celebrate with their Dads, I’m reminded of the conversations we never had, the milestones he never got to see, rounds of golf, All Black performances and the advice I can only

By mid-term many of us feel wrung out and distracted. Attention is thin, patience is thinner, and the to-do list seems to grow arms. Most mornings, before I open my laptop, I slip into the water. I’m not a great swimmer—just an average one—but I swim a kilometre most days. It takes me about half

Another Manic Monday: A 5-Minute Reset for Flourishing Teachers As a school leader, I used to find Mondays tough. Even after shaking off the “Scary Sundays” — that creeping feeling the weekend was ending and the week’s challenges were lining up — Monday mornings often felt like stepping straight into a storm. The emails, the

Why Academic Life Must Be More Than Assessment As a former principal, I get it. Student achievement. Data. Targets. Pressure. The relentless push to measure what matters—and sometimes, what doesn’t. But over the past few years, my focus has shifted. Through my research on teacher and principal, I’ve explored what it means to lead with

Sustaining Our School Leaders I’ve spent enough time in schools to know that behind every principal’s polished newsletter photo is someone who’s holding a lot, sometimes too much. The 2024 ACU Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Survey didn’t exactly sugar-coat it: school leadership is approaching a breaking point. Let’s not brush past the numbers:

But What If You Could Breathe Again? By Andrew Murray | Educational Consultant | Lumina Yes, we understand what burnout is. We’ve seen it in our staffrooms. We’ve felt it in our calendars, our shoulders, and our sighs at the end of a long week. That creeping exhaustion that no long weekend can fix. The

I used to think good leadership meant carrying it all every crisis, every deadline, every difficult conversation. That’s just what leaders do, right? We steady the ship, hold space for others, and keep everything moving. But somewhere along the way, I stopped holding space for myself. It didn’t happen suddenly. It was a slow dripanother

As Matariki rises, I’m not chasing goals. I’m looking back. This time of year invites reflection. Not just on what we’ve done, but on who we’ve become. For me, it’s been a year of steady shifts—physically, spiritually, and professionally. Not dramatic, but deep. I’ve unlearned some old habits and reclaimed what matters most. There’s a

What if we stopped designing school culture around what staff can endure and instead built it around what helps them flourish? We talk a lot about student wellbeing, and rightly so. But here’s the truth: when the adults in the building are not flourishing, the whole school feels it. Flourishing is not about perks or