From Programs to System: Building Whole-School Wellbeing That Works with Justin Robinson

Adrienne Hornby: Just then at long last, we get to come together and collaborate and talk all things well being. I'm so excited for our conversation today. Thank you so much for joining us today. You'll find the show notes for this episode, including the links to connect with Justin and learn more about the wellbeing distillery wherever you're listening to this podcast.

And if you'd like support to move beyond surface level wellbeing initiatives and embed a culture that protects and strengthens wellbeing over time, and of course weaves together all of these key influencing areas, you can explore the Well-Led Schools Partnership Program. Justin Robinson: Thanks, Adrian. Lovely to be here. And likewise, I'm looking forward to having a chat and also collaborating with you in many ways in the future.

Adrienne Hornby: ⁓ definitely. Well, to kick us off, I love asking this question because we always get such a range of answers, but I'd love to know that what is one thing that you do personally to look after or support your health or well-being? It's a 12 month professional learning program that helps schools build a strategic, wellbeing focused framework to strengthen culture, create sustainable lasting change. So staff can thrive personally and professionally in their work.

Learn more at adrianhornby.com.au forward slash school hyphen partnerships. Justin Robinson: Yes, thank you.

The one I was thinking of kind of responding to that and it might surprise some of the listeners a little bit and this word might not suit all people but ⁓ for me it's intentionally serving. And for me whether you'd like the word more caring or supporting but serving my family, you know, any of our four kids, my wife, Jeanette, serving my parents, mum and dad are still with us. Adrienne Hornby: In this episode, I'm joined by Justin Robinson from the Wellbeing Distillery to explore how schools can effectively embed wellbeing through a whole school wellbeing operating system and respond to the evolving wellbeing needs in education today.

Stay tuned. Today, I'm absolutely delighted to be joined by Justin Robinson co-founder of the Wellbeing Distillery, an organisation supporting hundreds of schools across Australia and internationally to embed evidence-informed well-being into education in a way that's practical, sustainable and truly transformational. Justin Robinson: serving my colleagues or serving my friends and so on. many years ago when I was the head of year seven at Trinity Grammar School, I had on my door, here to teach you, here to serve you.

And it didn't last too long because too many colleagues kind of found it misunderstanding like I was going to serve them and do up their shoelaces or pick up their lost property and so on in that way. But I meant it in the... trueness of servant leadership. Like my role as the head of year seven was to serve them.

That didn't mean I wasn't going to challenge them and hold them accountable and those sorts of things, but my role was to try to support their growth and development. So for me, genuinely thinking about kids and specific people and a way that I can serve today, how can I be of benefit and contribute, I think is one of the ones that just genuinely drives my wellbeing. Adrienne Hornby: Justin was formerly the founding director of the Institute of Positive Education at Geelong Grammar School and is also the co-author of My Manifesto, a powerful resource supporting individuals and communities to thrive.

He's recognized not only for his deep expertise in wellbeing and positive education, but also for his warmth, his ability to truly listen and practical wisdom that he brings to the work of helping schools flourish. Justin Robinson: Sometimes it makes me go to bed late, so sometimes that means things run over time. But when you can contribute and serve in a way that really energizes me and maybe a more kind of a lighthearted one is Jeanette and I are pretty fond of some little cognitive little brain teaser or challenge that we do each night, whether it's the word or connections and so on.

Adrienne Hornby: Justin is also an honorary fellow at the University of Melbourne and a leading voice in the global positive education movement. Today, we're going to explore Justin's concept of wellbeing as an operating system in schools, not just a collection of programs and unpack what this means for leaders, educators, students and families, as well as the key trends shaping wellbeing in schools into 2026 and beyond. I can't wait for you to hear this episode. Justin Robinson: I've just had a friend who bought me the Caesar calendar, which I didn't know much about, but you can show, you move the little tiles around and get the day and the date and the year or the month showing with all these little ones.

So it's a different little puzzle every day. My brother's trying to get me into cryptic crosswords. I haven't quite got there, but that might be somewhere down the path. So a little kind of brain teaser.

Adrienne Hornby: lol Justin Robinson: from Jeanette and I kind of helps us switch off a little bit. So that's also a nice little. Adrienne Hornby: Yeah. And prevents Alzheimer's and dementia.

Justin Robinson: As long as, apparently as long as you kind of keep the variety, doing a Sudoku every day for the next 30 years for me won't help me as much as trying to learn the cryptic crossword, then trying something different. And so that I understand it's the variety a bit of those brain teasers too. Adrienne Hornby: ⁓ god. ⁓ it's so good.

And I was sort of chuckling to myself as you were sharing that because my husband and I do not do Sudoku puzzles together. We're at the moment watching a very scary television show. I'm like, when will this end? Because this is terrifying.

But ⁓ then I started to think about, am I on a slippery slope to dementia? need to start doing some Sudoku. That's such a nice way to connect. you know, coming back to this idea of the servant leadership, I think Justin Robinson: Thank Thank you Adrienne Hornby: I do think, especially a lot of our listeners, ⁓ you're speaking their language because when I'm out in schools and we look at different leadership approaches and what we most connect with or aspire to be most, more often than not, our leaders are saying servant or transformational leadership, know, very similar in their nature.

And I think that it's needed in the wellbeing space. I mean, if you're in this work or in schools to do, Justin Robinson: Yes. Yes. Adrienne Hornby: anything other than be there to support people or young people or adults then you know I'm sure you'd be able to get great results in some areas but we know it's such a people-focused strongly emotional highly relational profession that servant styles are very well suited in that space.

Justin Robinson: Yes, yes. Yes, nice. And I think just to help us ⁓ as an individual to even think of, you know, and that as a parent, is it servant leadership or is it servant parenting or as a partner, is it servant partner? And in some ways that the name does kind of clash a little bit, but names are always challenging.

Names are challenging with positive education or positive psychology, they? Names are challenging with wellbeing education. And so, you know, as long as you kind of feel comfortable with what it's meaning and... ⁓ I think it is underpinned of course by care and contribution.

Adrienne Hornby: Yeah, absolutely. And like I said, I think in this space, it's just such a needed skill. So it's nice to hear that that lights you up. When I was in the very beginning of my wellbeing journey, more for my personal wellbeing, which of course eventually linked into what I was doing professionally, I went to one of those Tony Robbins, like Unleash the Power within seminars where we ran over the hot coals, did all of that.

And something that I really took away from that was Justin Robinson: Yeah. Adrienne Hornby: the power of contribution for our satisfaction in life and for our wellbeing. And that's when I got into this work. That was where I was like, ⁓ that makes so much sense.

And it's such a healing strategy. It seems like a strategy, but a way to live that, as you said, brings so much meaning. Justin Robinson: Yes. Yes, yes, love it.

Love Adrienne Hornby: Yeah. Okay. So for those listening who don't know you, Justin, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your work and your journey that led you to where you are today, supporting so many schools, teachers, educators, parents, everybody with their wellbeing. Justin Robinson: Thank you.

I think I still the way I describe myself is a passionate educator if I kind of only have two words, even though it's been a few years now since I've been in the classroom and still tutoring a couple of nephews with some maths and I'm, it's pretty hard to stop me because I'm pretty fresh with the maths tutoring and still kind of writing and contributing to maths textbooks and so on. But to some extent now the workshops are my lesson plan. and the creativity of designing that and so on.

in many ways, ⁓ a passionate educator. And I think in many ways, that's come a little bit from mum and dad. Dad was a passionate educator and always came home on time to be able have kick of the footy on the road with us or play some cricket or something. But then as we went off to bed, that he would start marking his English essays or his history essays and so on.

But he loved being a teacher and a school leader in the government system for over 40 years. And so his passion, ⁓ and I talk about my mum's compassion. ⁓ Mum has lived all my life with OCD and has an obsessive and compulsive fear of germs. And that leads her to a whole lot of rituals and ⁓ washing her hands for hours and hours on end, kind of each day.

And so I also wanted to care for mum and support mum in so many ways. And mum is certainly a person who has experiences levels of ill being and mental illness, and also experiences great measures of mental wellbeing, you know, and has meaning and purpose in her life, has great relationships, has unconditional love for the world. so, kind of mum and dad's blend of passion and compassion kind of contributed. Adrienne Hornby: love that.

What a great way to share more about you so that I can get to know you and our listeners. ⁓ so tell me a little bit about your journey to the Wellbeing Distillery and how ⁓ landed here doing this amazing work. Justin Robinson: Yes, and to some extent, really the answer is I was in the right spot at the right time sort of thing. Ironically, exactly 20 years ago my birthday, was a Sunday, ⁓ Professor Martin Seligman came to Gillongammer for the very first time in 2006.

And it was just a visit, just a poppy. And so there's no thought of positive psychology, positive education or the training, the whole partnership. But there was a little notice up in our staff room saying this Professor Martin Seligman from the University of Pennsylvania is coming to the campus and there'll be just an opportunity one o'clock on Sunday in our cook theater to come and have a listen to him for an hour. Adrienne Hornby: ⁓ my god.

Justin Robinson: And so around about lunchtime on this Sunday, I said to Jeanette, I said, I'm just going to go over to the Cooke Theatre and listen to this guest speaker who's coming. She goes, it's your birthday. What are you doing? And I said, well, no, exactly.

And so there was maybe 70 or 80 staff members and members of the community. And we had to listen to Martin Sullivan. And to some extent that ⁓ became the start of Geelong Grammar School's journey. Adrienne Hornby: ⁓ what a great goodbye present.

Justin Robinson: and then became the start of my kind of more formal journey in positive education, wellbeing education. So when I look back and kind of think about how I was in that place, a lot of my kind of drive for this work was partly through being involved in a very active youth group from 15 through to 25 sort of thing, and on a committee as a young. kind of 16, 17 year old, then the president of the youth group and then an adult leader for, you could kind of be at the youth group from 15 to 21 and so on.

It's where I met Jeanette and a lot of my good long-term mates and friends are all from this youth group. It was a beautiful, beautiful place to be a part of. And you suddenly had opportunities, like we try to give students today when we say, we don't just want your voice, we want your head, heart and hands and we want your ideas and we want to understand. so suddenly, you know, ⁓ I was a 19 or 20 year old and kind of organizing youth group camps over weekends for hundred people and kind of getting experience with adults, know, adults in their twenties and thirties kind of supporting us and everything.

So kind of that was empowering. And I think I gave my first kind of public talk at youth group, you know, and it was kind of a one hour presentation and it was all based on Zig Ziglar's book, See You At The Top. And so that was, ⁓ kind of some of the early kind of goal setting. I talk a lot about Lisa Jane McGuinness as a person who came to fourth year at uni.

And I heard her speak about goal setting and so on. So there'd always been that interest. And then to some extent when people are talking about gratitude letters and the science behind gratitude, like it was amazing and it was exciting, but it was something I was so familiar with, but more from a spiritual side and a community side. Like so I had already...

written through a free page, individual letter to my mom and my dad as a gratitude letter 10 years earlier. And know mom and dad still have that letter and those sorts of things, because that was partly what you kind of did on a youth group camp and so on. So then my teaching started as a maths and PE teacher at Trinity Grammar. And so age 21, not much older than the kids.

I had a year 10 maths class my first year. And they were about the same, they felt about the same age as me. A few of them had a better, more facial growth than I had. And I did get kicked out of the staff room in my first week at Trinity.

The English teacher tapped me on the shoulder and said, students aren't allowed in the staff room. And I genuinely was, so this is 1991. And I was 21, only for a month, I kind of turned 22. Adrienne Hornby: You Justin Robinson: you know, in March or in February 12th and so on.

And I was the only teacher in their 20s and I was 21. So the next closest teacher was 30. So I was that kind of different where where now maybe it doesn't quite feel but maybe in some schools it still is. So this teacher I was just wearing a white shirt and so on.

They tapped me on said, you know, out of the staff room, I said, I'm a new teacher, I'm here to teach. So I had an Adrienne Hornby: It was the English and maths rivalry, clearly. ⁓ Justin Robinson: So I had 14 years at Trinity, is just such an amazing, loved it there. It would have happily stayed 44 years, So I started at Geelong Grammar in 2005.

So really only one year as Marty Selden in 2006, but ended up being the head of Allen House there for five years before the head of POS-Ed, before then four years of that and eight years as the director of the Institute. at Geelong Grammar. And I think just to share a smidgen on the Institute was this idea, it was such an amazing time at Geelong Grammar and experience and the wealth of wisdom and experience that came to that school over the couple of years to help us learn and evolve and develop positive education and so on.

It became... When I first became the head of positive education, the principal Stephen Meek said, now Justin, if anyone ever rings up about PosEd, your answer is yes. Tell them to come along and have a chat with them and chat to them on the phone. said, ⁓ that's lovely that you said that because that would be my intention.

And Geelong Grammar right from literally day zero, we're so keen for this to be bigger than Geelong Grammar School to include others. Like one of the most powerful stories is when Stephen Meek wrote to the... family, the parent community and said we're hoping to invite some teachers from a whole range of schools throughout Victoria and Australia to come to this training. Then when Martin Seligman and his team came back the following year and ⁓ ended up that the parent community raised over a hundred thousand dollars of funds to go to different Education Department teachers and different teachers from around that were to make it accessible to have over 300 educators do a six day course on positive education with Martin Seligman and Karen Ravich and so on.

So the school's always been so generous with trying to help evolve education. They were already committed to building a wellbeing center, but didn't quite know what philosophy was going to underpin that. And it was from a parent. who then came to the school and said, So what a beautiful thing that you're heading off to the well-being center.

But what else is going to change or is it just going to be a building? And this parent said, have you ever heard of positive psychology? Have you ever heard of Martin Seligman? And the school literally said, never heard of him.

And he said, well, he's a colleague of mine. I've just done one of his courses over in Pennsylvania. Would you like me to introduce you to him? And the school said, well, Sure, like why not?

And so that like literally it fell on the school. The school has been proactive in developing kind of new facilities and connecting the mind and the body for the wellbeing, but hadn't made this jump of actually a science of wellbeing and learning about the science of whether resilience and relationships and social emotional learning And then we endeavored to try to ⁓ for the benefit of the field to unite and grow and connect the field to engage many local Australian national international experts to help us to continue to understand is there genuine well-being skills and knowledge that you can teach young people that you can help a community to thrive and to flourish And so I said to Geelong Grammar School that really it's not just an opportunity, you now have a to try to build resources.

Because ⁓ these early days, there wasn't a well-being measurement tool. It just didn't exist. There were ill-being measurement tools. could still, 20 years ago, measure ill-being levels of anxiety or depression, but there weren't ways to measure flourishing.

just didn't exist. Like Professor Felicia Huppett, you who visited Geelong Grammar three or four times, was very early stages of her flourishing survey. And would kind of say to me, Justin, now you do know that when you're kind of saying this is evidence-based, this kind of program that you're doing, the only evidence is it reducing or mitigating illness. there is no evidence on whether it's boosting gratitude or increasing a sense of connection.

And those scales don't even exist yet for fostering hope or whatever it be. so that's how some people in schools now go, surely there were wellbeing measures. There haven't been wellbeing measures forever. And literally 20 years ago, maybe ACR did their first wellbeing survey tool in time, maybe 15 years ago and so on.

It evolved in such a way and that responsibility then of Geelong Grammar and with the Institute ⁓ in helping people to learn and to create resources and I'm so excited where the field is at. Whilst there continue to be challenges and it continues to be misunderstood, but it does continue also to make a huge difference to many school communities and many individuals. Adrienne Hornby: Yeah, absolutely. And you explained something really beautifully in there is what, as we know what positive psychology is, is that not always that focusing on what's wrong with us, but also focusing on what's right with us and what's going well and in more of an appreciative inquiry into schools and us individually.

And yes, that might be in many instances harder to measure. Justin Robinson: Yes. Adrienne Hornby: ⁓ But it's something that we need to endeavour to be able to explore and do and ⁓ reflect on and celebrate because as we know, focusing on those positive aspects or our strengths or our achievements is certainly ⁓ more defining for our wellbeing than simply just going, ⁓ well, I guess I'm not feeling terrible anymore and now I'm just feeling okay. I always say in schools, my goal for you is never just to feel okay to come into work safe.

It's about Justin Robinson: Yes. And it drives me. Yes. Yes.

Adrienne Hornby: loving being here and thriving and flourishing and then the impact that can have on everybody. So you explain that so beautifully. Justin Robinson: No, thank you. And our experience with schools, particularly in the last few years, and none of this will be rocket science to the listeners or to you, Adrian, and I'm sure you're beautifully aligned with this, that promoting wellbeing and preventing or mitigating ill-being, ⁓ yes, of course, related, but are kind of different concepts.

And they're both important. Adrienne Hornby: very different. Justin Robinson: And we've realized through making mistakes and those sorts of things, we've realized that some schools that we arrive at aren't even quite ready to hear the message about promoting wellbeing until they're validated that someone's heard about their current levels of ill-being. And that's where the bad rap like of, ⁓ don't tell me about the fruit bowl in the staff room or something.

Adrienne Hornby: Mm-mm. Justin Robinson: Generally, don't know too many teachers who dislike fruit bowls in staff rooms. I think probably most people love them. And it's a good thing and fruits are a healthy part of your diet.

But the reason it gets a bad rap is because they've interpreted, oh, that's what you're going to offer as a little boost to kind of my well-being or something or other, rather than even addressing anything about my workload or change management or my lack of autonomy or whatever psychosocial risk factor. Adrienne Hornby: you Justin Robinson: So when we come into schools now and say, know, one, that there's your responsibility for preventing ill-being and promoting well-being, and then there's the school's responsibility.

So much of your important work, Adrian, is the school's responsibility to again, do both those things. Not just mitigate ill-being, that's vitally important, but to also put in these protective factors and to boost well-being through that. And when we do that in combination and with the right language in a sustainable way, then genuinely we're getting the individual and the school, you know, starting to kind of, you know, heading the right direction and to be strengthened, you know, by their own skills and knowledge and by the community's care.

Adrienne Hornby: beautifully beautifully said and it really encapsulates and explains ⁓ that well-being in schools is not just about a focus on mental health only and even how we promote and encourage well-being. There's so many other influencing factors and metrics that we need to look into as you know when you're Justin Robinson: Yes. Yes. Adrienne Hornby: reviewing data, know, say to schools, you know, it's our levels of satisfaction, it's morale, it's culture, it's relationships, it's communication, it's workload management, it's leadership, it's engagement.

And it's only when you really have a really good understanding in those spaces. And then of course, as you said, those risks that you can begin to tackle those, but then you can only get so far by addressing risks like you then as we know, have to put in place Justin Robinson: Yes. No, it's not. Yes.

mess. Adrienne Hornby: those positive interventions to support thriving. But I think the mistake, and I don't know whether you want to comment on this now, is that over the last couple of years, I've seen how many ⁓ strategies for improving workplace wellbeing or engagement, let's say things like goal setting and feedback and coaching and mentoring have dropped away because some schools might have been understaffed or... Justin Robinson: Mmm.

Adrienne Hornby: you know, we've been focusing on more of the compliance or operational side of it. And so schools have gone, ⁓ we have to go back to coaching and mentoring. And they've gone back over to this focus there, but haven't done all of the, you know, that groundwork of addressing the key risks and stresses for their staff and are jumping into these strategies that I think really land best when we have moved out. some of those sort of foundational barriers that get in the way of those supports truly landing and of course have the time to build the relationships and the trust.

So it's like you've said, and you would identify in schools, it's not this easy fix like coaching and mentoring helps our sense of engagement in the PERMA model. It's, well, hang on, you can only coach and mentor and actively have conversations with your staff when they are in a space where they're not highly, you know, they're not heightened from responses to student behaviour or inconsistencies in communication across the school, all of those things. It's fascinating, isn't it?

Justin Robinson: Yes. Nodding away, just nodding away. ⁓ Charlie Scudamore at Geelong Grammar had a phrase which resonated with me that this work is slow food. ⁓ It's not fast food.

And we completely understand why a school would like a fast fix. I'd love to fix it tomorrow if you could. Who wouldn't? Because particularly when you're energized by it.

But imagine if we get all the students, imagine if we get every teacher coaching. ⁓ And so you get that. And so this speed becomes a crucial consideration. And I think at least if a school leader considers speed, you're more likely to get it right.

And so when you go, okay, you can go too slowly that you lose momentum, and we're kind of not getting the energy. And you can go too quickly that actually you're increasing anxiety or you haven't brought people along with you. So the right speed because it's never ever, unfortunately, going to be something that you tick off like a goal. know, no schools ever gonna be like, well-being sorted, glad we did 2026, we really focused on well-being, well-being's now done.

Well-being will never be done. Well-being is a way of the way we operate, the way we communicate, the way we live, the way we are in this school community. and society will continue to change and the people will need ongoing attention and resources and sustainability and so on. And so don't think you're ever ticking it off.

So therefore don't rush. Just try to think, are we getting about the right pace, resourcing it in about the right way for us that's sustainable? I hope that can help some school leadership teams thinking, this will always be on our agenda. Adrienne Hornby: It should, yeah, that's right.

Justin Robinson: And that's a great thing. That's not, ⁓ I'm not well-being again. That's, yeah, wow, look at the growth. Look at our next exciting kind of next development, next phase as we've gone from the pilot of a few staff members being coached or we put this in place and we put the piloting of the coaching for some of the staff members six months away.

And we're working towards that. we're, so, yeah. Adrienne Hornby: That's that view of seeing ⁓ wellbeing initiatives or wellbeing as a program or an add-on as opposed to really weaving it into what we do. And I know through the wellbeing distillery, that's the very focus work that you do there.

So could you tell the audience a little bit about the wellbeing distillery, what it is, ⁓ as well as how you... Justin Robinson: Yeah. Adrienne Hornby: support schools in terms of supporting them to embed an operation system rather than just a collection of programs and what problems or scenarios that you're seeing in schools that made this approach really necessary for you. Justin Robinson: Yeah.

Thank you. So the Wellbeing Distillery, we say, aims to energise, equip and empower school communities with wellbeing education. So, those three words, whilst there are three E's, and obviously that we love that, but that, the energising, because genuinely our experience is wellbeing can energise a community, can energise a teacher. And we've had people share that with us and so on.

So the energising, the equipping, Adrienne Hornby: of an acronym. Justin Robinson: is because we generally are trying to provide or teach your skills and knowledge and tactics and strategies that they are generally our resources for you to equip you. You know, just like the goal is to equip young people for life, not to, you know, we don't try to smooth the road for the child, but we try to prepare the child for the road and so on, you know, so we want to equip them because we do know teaching is challenging, we do know Living in community is complex.

do know that life will have ups and downs and lumps and bumps. And then the empowering part is really acknowledging your unique context and focus and your knowledge of your community. So if you can take some of our energy and some of our equipping to then empower you, we would love to help you to fish and to be able to feel the... the drivers and the responsibility and the architects of your kind of wellbeing approach and ongoing care for your community.

So they're the kind of how we say it. And then we've got a range of, over the last four years, have been developing a range of offerings. And the most recent one, the one you alluded to a little bit, our school wellbeing operating system, which is kind of the framework underpinning our wellbeing compass. So ⁓ firstly, you then go, there are key partners.

⁓ We try not to call them stakeholders it just feels ⁓ too transactional and they're partners and they've a role to play and they contribute. ⁓ those, most people kind of go, that's their teachers and students and parents, those three. ⁓ And we just put leaders as a one because of ⁓ the vitalness of their role. ⁓ particularly for wellbeing education, the vitalness for their role, course, for everything, but particularly in wellbeing education.

So you've got four partners and that's underpinned by the ⁓ principle that wellbeing is a shared responsibility. And even when a student understands it, so I've got some responsibility for my teachers' wellbeing and you do, know, the way you treat them and the way that you kind of communicate with them. and parents share some of that and the leaders share some of the responsibility for the students' and ensuring their safety. So actually, wellbeing is a shared responsibility.

And I think in no way we want to disempower people, but sometimes can be an unintended consequence where a teacher's going, well, how come you're not looking after my wellbeing? Wait a second. ⁓ We're sharing the responsibility. We're not owning the responsibility.

To some extent, you keep the whole heap of that ownership. but we'll certainly share it with you. Adrienne Hornby: make a really great point there. That's shifting mindset around the ⁓ shared or the joint responsibility there is that think, like you said, sometimes that can put certain staff, whether it's leaders or staff off a little bit, but I'm.

⁓ Justin Robinson: Yes, yes. Adrienne Hornby: like to see it as something really empowering rather than it's all up to my school to do all of the things for me and you know staff might think that sometimes and I understand how we get to that point I also want to mention that but I think that it's really empowering to see it as a shared responsibility because we have more autonomy and control into our own existence or our day-to-day or our interactions or how the school looks sounds and feels so I really wish that people would frame that a little bit differently don't you?

Justin Robinson: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes, to lean into that as, like one, it's not an amazing insight, but two, it's a powerful insight. And if we can see it as a partnership and yeah, so love it, agree? Agree. Yes, yes.

Adrienne Hornby: Yeah, you have more control than what you think in that space. Justin Robinson: we've got these four partners. So then the next one is ⁓ in a wellbeing system is we should check in on the health and the wellbeing and the status of each of those four partners. And so that's your classic kind of wellbeing survey which says, well, we better check in on ⁓ the absence of risks, the presence of psychosocial protective factors ⁓ on ⁓ self-determination And check in on the levels of ⁓ for the student.

We go with connected, protected, respected. How connected do they feel? How protected? How respected do they feel?

So we get a measure on the wellbeing of these partners. And that's underpinned by the principle that wellbeing fuels contribution. If you're well as a leader, you will be more generous, more creative, more curious, all the research on positive emotions. If you're well as a teacher, you'll be teaching at your best.

If you're well as a student, you won't be... you know, picking on another student, you'll be more supportive and encouraging and happy to work in teams and those sorts of things. The one slight and it's a slightly different color in our model is it's beyond a school's remit to really check in on the well-being of the families. That feels a little bit intrusive.

You're not going to ask really a family, know, how are you sleeping and those sort of things. That's up for them to, but it is appropriate to check in on the health of the partnership, the strength of the partnership. So we go with, the families feel like they belong? Do they feel like they've got a voice and that voice is heard?

And do they feel trusted? And so there's a whole series of questions within the surveys to get a measure on the strength of that partnership. But so, because again, if all those things are in place, add a little bit what you're saying before, Adrian. Like if you jump some of those steps and try to put something in, but you haven't Adrienne Hornby: Hmm.

Justin Robinson: So you go, okay, we better go and get some data to see the health and the states of the leadership team. Are they burnt out and not feeling safe or are they right on top of things? And through to each of the four sections. We do have with the educators, we have a little plus sign beside it because it's certainly, of course, the adults, the educators and the support staff.

And we have a specific survey for them because they also have a very important role in contributing to the community. Adrienne Hornby: Yes. Justin Robinson: we call the support staff or the professional staff, the engine room of a school in many ways, how you make it all run. ⁓ Adrienne Hornby: Mm-hmm.

I know, and they often get left out in many school wellbeing approaches. Yeah, and there's not much research done into them either, which is really frustrating. We've got to change that. That's my plan.

Justin Robinson: Yes, yes, yeah. Correct. Correct. Yeah.

And also it's a very sensitive area like our early experiences at Geelong Grammar, you know, remember intentionally offering and developing workshops for the support staff. And at Geelong Grammar, being a large boarding school with large grounds, had a large maintenance team, a large cleaning team, a large catering team, and so on. So you're kind of getting close to 200. Adrienne Hornby: Hmm.

Justin Robinson: members of that support staff. And some of those support staff members, even if we were well intentioned, go, I have no urge to go back in any classroom and sit with another teacher and what you're to have to get me to sit in a circle and talk, you're going to want me to share something or spell something or do something. So you also have to understand, you've got to listen and be curious about what would best support them. And some who are maybe fully supportive of coming to the workshop for an hour and so on their Tuesday, After lunch, they come for an hour on this and then they would leave and go, that was really, I really enjoyed that Justin.

And also what are you doing about the extra hour I've just lost that now I'm gonna not leave at five o'clock, I'm gonna have to leave at six o'clock because no one stopped my emails coming or now I go back to, so there's also those complexities like, you know, all this work is like parents are so well-intentioned, but sometimes they're good intentions sometimes don't strengthen their child. but they come from a place of care and love and so on. So that's the checking piece. Then the third piece is each of those partners have a key function.

Like they've got multiple functions, but they've got a real key function. If you can distill it down to one key function, then that can be your priority. And we believe wellbeing thrives when your roles and functions align. Like in a team, Adrienne Hornby: Mm.

Yeah. Justin Robinson: when that's kind of, that's your role. So you go on and do your role and we've got your, okay, and if we can all do that, we can work together. And so kind of curious for the listeners to kind of think, well, so what do you reckon the key function is of the leadership team?

And we're not saying we're right or anything, but I think many would agree, but like their key role is to activate a wellbeing strategy. That's their key role. They've got to resource it. They've got to.

ensure it's inspiring, they've got to have some clarity of the message and they've got to go, that's our role. Their role is not teaching well-being in the classroom and so on. Sure, they've got a role to partly model some things, but their main role is to clearly articulate and activate a well-being strategy. Then you go to the educators, well, their key role is to integrate this work into the way they are, the way they teach, into their pedagogy, the way they write reports, the way they...

know, greet students in the yard and so on. So they're just trying to integrate it. Sure, there's a specific maybe some teachers who then have a role to teach explicitly. My long-term hope for that is that it's probably not the role for every educator to have that depth of knowledge to be able to teach growth mindset or grit or, you know, resilience strategies or act and skills and so on.

That that's probably for some, you know, still not professionals, like I know teachers are professional, but I would love that if I went to uni now that instead of maybe doing maths and phys ed, I maybe did maths and wellbeing. And therefore half my degree was on that and I wrote essays on it. I saw the latest science and then I applied for a job with a school that needed a maths teacher and also had a wellbeing job or something. And therefore I taught wellbeing a bit more, not just once a week or once a fortnight.

And therefore, you know, no matter how long I spent on it and because, you Adrienne Hornby: Yeah. Justin Robinson: The maths curriculum has been built up over 100 years, the wellbeing curriculum's now maybe getting close to 10 years. Adrienne Hornby: I know, and it always takes, what do they say, 20 years before something's released before it actually makes its way into practice. Justin Robinson: Yeah, so I think the main role for 99 % of teachers is just to integrate it.

Go, that makes sense. I'm now spotting strengths and I've changed my language a little bit in the classroom. All the way the first 10 minutes happen. I intentionally do this to promote positive emotions or to.

So that's their main role. Then the main role for the students is simply be a student and learn some well-being skills and knowledge. We're actually genuinely interested in you learning these skills and knowledge. We're not just going, it's a nice to have.

These are, know, and particularly maybe now with AI, even more and more important, that the skills for you to pick up through, you know, as you go to school, these skills that will genuinely help you and your wellbeing and then allow you to help others and support and care for and contribute. And then you get finally to the families and their role is to support these messages, to go, well, I'm not gonna dismiss them. Adrienne Hornby: Mmm. Justin Robinson: And when my child's finding it difficult at home, I might suggest the breathing activity that I know they learned at school last week or last month, and that I saw that in the newsletter and I've been practicing that.

And actually, I can complement this language, and so we can genuinely have a language across the school. So this is how we align it. then the last part, we kind of call it an optimal state. And it's just one word.

for each one, the optimal state for the leaders is inspiring. Yes, a leader can maybe mandate a wellbeing strategy, but if they can inspire it, that would be the best way to look inside this complex community and see inspiring leaders articulating their strategy. The ideal way to look into the teachers, see them modeling it, the ideal way to look into the students is to see them embracing the learning. That's one of the challenges, particularly in secondary schools, more so than primary schools, is the students genuinely leaning forward in wellbeing, workshops or classes or days or events and so on.

And they're actively contributing to it and they're ambassadors or they're suggesting different activities. they're bit back to my kind of youth group days. They're not kind of having wellbeing done to them and sitting back, oh, this is a bit of a waste of time. Adrienne Hornby: Yeah.

Justin Robinson: They're actively leaning forward and contributing. And then the ideal word for the parents is that they're amplifying it. And they can be, we kind of think of them as a force multiplier. They can kind of disrupt the whole operating system by dismissing it or not giving it credibility, or they can genuinely amp it up and strengthen it as the student then hears the message from the teachers and hears it from their parents and so on.

Adrienne Hornby: ⁓ it's such a brilliant way to explain just how comprehensive and in depth an approach needs to be. Like you've put out a full on operating system. Yeah, we talk about it in terms of, you know, from doing wellbeing right through to truly embedding it. They're very different strategies.

I have three different phases there. And it's true anybody can adopt a program or bring somebody in like yourself or me to present whatever it might be. But actually. then taking that work, implementing it and then moving through to truly embedding it, keeping it alive, championing it over time requires different roles and strategies from everybody.

And the way I, when I saw you present this last year that you explained that and we'll see this graphic up online of what it truly takes, I think is real aha. I hope for many schools to go, ⁓ we want to do more than just pay lip service to wellbeing. We want to make this part of who we are and what we do, weave it into the fabric of the school's culture. And something that we don't just adopt for a couple of years because it's the trending thing.

It's about, this becomes inherently part of who we are as a community. Justin Robinson: Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes, yes. And I think Adrian, like all complex systems require operating systems. So they mesh together and operate and so on. And then the fascinating of our surveys are the transmission points, because you've got the sender, like the leaders are trying to send this inspiring strategy down to the educators and they're the ones receiving it.

And then you've got the educators trying to integrate these wellbeing practices and provide a safe classroom. Adrienne Hornby: Yeah. Yeah. Justin Robinson: They're trying to send that to the teachers, the students, and then the students are receiving that.

And so within all the surveys, there are overlapped items where we get the sender's intention and their action compared to then the receiver's perception and their lived experience. So the teachers go, yes, I create and work hard towards creating a safe and supportive environment for my students. And then what if the students even agree with that even more? Adrienne Hornby: Mm.

Justin Robinson: That would make the teacher feel amazing and that signal got strengthened through the system. What if the students weren't quite seeing that? And so if we've got actually a little transmission kind of gap, then where's the conversation come there? Adrienne Hornby: Yeah, I imagine that like two plugs coming together and lighting up and that's shared responsibility to saying boom.

And then that's where it ignites. And then that's where things take flight. That when you were just explaining that, that's what I saw. was like, boom.

Yeah. I love that. Justin Robinson: Love it. Love it.

Nice. ⁓ That's the transmission. Yeah. Yeah.

Adrienne Hornby: So on that point then, ⁓ what are some of the mistakes that schools might often make and we all have the best of intentions. just want to say that I think when we start talking about mistakes or challenges I hope schools and listeners don't take that personally because I probably like you, Justin, from the belief that every single person in a school whatever role they are playing or whatever partner they are is doing the very best that they can with what they've got for their full capabilities but I'm interested to know And what maybe some of those mistakes might be in translating, you know, one wellbeing approach across all four partners.

So how can we avoid this and leverage them for maximum impact and transformation? And I guess what I want to really nut into here is how workplace wellbeing is so different from our students' wellbeing, let's say their personal wellbeing or family wellbeing. So, you what are some of those mistakes when we just try and roll one thing out and lump it all together that as you're overcoming in your approach? Justin Robinson: Mmm.

Mmm. So firstly, Adrian, just coming back to the mistake word. And I love also in our HAT wellbeing program, we have mistake where it's spelled, you know, as a mistake. And it's a unit with a big pencil turned upside down with the eraser on the bottom, you know, it's the full length, the same size as the person rubbing out the word mistake, as they're rubbing it out to kind of that was their mistake to have a kind of second go at Adrienne Hornby: Yes, moment.

⁓ Justin Robinson: This work is creative, it is innovative in many ways and therefore, like when we ask our students to be creative, you must, result of that at times, we'll be making mistakes. You can't expect every creative, innovative idea was going to work, otherwise, like that doesn't make sense and so on. So we must be okay. And that's partly then generally why you often pilot things or trial things because of the awareness of unintended consequences.

I think naively my early years in this space was, well, it can't do any harm. And I now fully understand that you can, that I can turn a student off mindfulness, maybe for life, you know, who may have really embraced mindfulness in their 20s when it was going to be particularly helpful for them and so on. So this work, of course, as you said, well-intentioned and with beautiful concepts, it can still lead to harm. So our first work, of course, is at first do no harm.

⁓ So then I think what we're seeing challenging for schools and hence where the operating system and then the survey suite, the wellbeing compass came from was there's just too much to do. And ⁓ in some ways I fully understand the kind of saying and I'm not very good at it, but I've used it a lot and get it, it kind of masters, know, less is more. But sometimes of course more is more. And I think it's actually neither of those things.

It's the dosage question. We spoke earlier a bit about the speed, but there's also the awareness for the school leaders, particularly, ⁓ to be aware of the dosage. You can overdo this work. You can overdo the language.

And then subtly strengthening the language, using the example of the 24 character strengths, but then intentionally softening off that. and talking about appreciation more than saying the word gratitude or having it away because there are so many synonyms for it. And you're still exactly, skillfully now in a nuanced way using this new tool of character strengths, not as a blunt hammer going, you know, what are your top three strengths? And the kid goes, ⁓ I got asked that yesterday and all these.

So there's a nuance to it. And so I think the challenge for leaders is one, there's so much need. So as you said, there's... that needs, you know, there are many young people struggling, sadly, and, you know, many that don't feel like they belong and don't feel safe.

And then there's many teachers that are struggling. And the teachers, you know, whether it's burnout that they're managing and aspects of their workload and the complexities of a school environment. And then there are parents that we fully understand through sometimes the digital technologies and the smart screens and phones and everything that parents are probably asking and calling out for help more than they were 10 or 20 years ago. And so there's more need.

And then also it's coupled with there's more resources and possibilities. There's now not just one wellbeing survey, there's a hundred of them and there's not just one wellbeing curriculum, there's a hundred of them. And there's not just one wellbeing intervention, there's 60 of them. on you can kind of, so suddenly that the school leader, you know, a fantastic leader, often not with great depth or experience in well-being, of course, understandably, you know, then saying, well, I've got so many things to do and so many needs and limited resources, whether they're human or financial, they're limited resources.

So I can't do everything. And that sometimes, you know, because every one of that ideas and activities and interventions and curriculum, they are good, you know, that'd be a lovely activity to do. Should we have a lovely ⁓ support dog, ⁓ a therapy dog in our school? Who would ever say no to that?

But it might not be right if it wasn't in the right way and understood and introduced in the right way and so on. So all of those, everything is probably a good thing. So that's where we feel with the operating system. Adrienne Hornby: Thank Yeah.

Justin Robinson: So the language we talk with, which sometimes people get straight away and sometimes people go, ⁓ I still don't quite understand what you're We talk about with and for. And so what we want is a leaders leading with wellbeing for the wellbeing of their community. So that's the checking piece. We need the leaders to be well so that they can then inspire and activate this wellbeing strategy.

We ideally want to teach it teaching with wellbeing. to then also use that science to integrate it and to model it to then teach for wellbeing, because it will get caught, as we say, of wellbeing is sort, caught and taught or something. And it will get caught by the modeling of that teacher. the idea of, in some ways this sounds too harsh.

David says it far nicer than me. I struggle to say it, but the idea that we don't really care about the teacher's wellbeing. And I kind of think, ⁓ no, actually we do. But the only reason we care about the teacher's wellbeing is because they exist within a school which is trying to support student wellbeing.

So the reason we care, like, of course we do care for them as an individual, but it's really for the further down the pipeline so that they can be the best teacher to allow the student to be well and safe and belong. So it's all about each of these partners. ⁓ We want them to have wellbeing, to be with wellbeing, experience wellbeing, so that they can do their role for the wellbeing of the community. So with each of these six surveys, the first 20-25 questions are all relatively standard questions about checking in on the health and the wellbeing of that partner group.

Tailored, this is all in partnership with Adelaide University and Resilient Youth Australia. based on thousands of data points and trying to work out the best way to measure the wellbeing of each of the partners. Then we go, the unique part, the next 2025 questions is checking in on their role on have they got the clarity of the strategy? Are they sustaining it?

Are they bringing the community voice along? And then as you go to the educators, are they integrating it? Are they providing? So we're interested and that gives you a within a four score.

Adrienne Hornby: Mm. Justin Robinson: And so for each, so suddenly a school leadership team goes, I've got some data of every voice of our community. I haven't just got the student wellbeing data. That's kind of generally what schools had 10 years ago.

All they had was just student data. And so vitally important, but I've never got student data. I've got teacher data. I've got the support staff.

I've got the families. I've got the leadership team. I've got all that. And I've got a little.

The reason we call it a compass, I've got a little indicator of our with score and our for score for each of those groups. So what we would say to a school leadership team is firstly, take a breath, you know, partly because I'm sure you've been going all day and that's not healthy and helpful and so on. So take a breath. We know that you care for your community.

Let's now get some data for you comprehensively on the current position. Let's locate your school and each of your partners with your with and for school and tell you that's where it's at. Then we all know where everyone wants to head. You want to be a beautiful flourishing community where people feel safe and they're contributing and so on.

So we know where you want to head. Now let's strategically think what's your priorities. We've heard what's strong. We've heard where the challenges and the opportunities are.

You know the amount of financial resources or human resources you can appropriately put to that initiatives and for the next 12 months or next one to three years and then let's prioritise that. You can't do everything and once you've got a strategy that allows you to say no to something that sounds a great idea. Let's revisit that when we write our strategy in 12 months time for the next year or let's Well, the reason we've chosen this as our priority and the reason we've got a specific parent course is because we found that the parents particularly were saying, we didn't really understand what the wellbeing messages were our children were getting and we don't understand some of that language.

So if you could help give us some of that language, then that will really allow us our role of really amplifying and supporting those messages. And that's why we've chosen that priority and why at the moment we're saying no to this part. So it's trying to help the school leadership team be data informed across the entire community and then allocate those resources to see the needle shift, which is one of the hardest things. Like it's a far easier thing is to survey people.

The harder thing is to shift that needle and to work that out and to do that going, we're gonna do that every year. We're gonna allocate some resources to get a measure. Once a year is probably enough. We get our academic results once a year.

Adrienne Hornby: you Yes, to do the work. Justin Robinson: And so we'll get our wellbeing results once a year and that not just on the wellbeing, it's the with and the for for each of our community. We'll drill into that kind of data, articulate a specific sustainable, ⁓ manageable strategy and we'll chip away at that for the benefit of our community. Adrienne Hornby: ⁓ it's brilliant.

because you know, in schools, when you run a survey like this, or you look at data, at least 10 themes come up. And I have sat in so many rooms where the leaders will say, well, I think these need to be our three priorities. And then when you actually go to staff, they say, no, if you focused on this, this and this, that would change things dramatically for us. And I think that that's that very crucial step that schools miss.

And I think a lot of the time, maybe it's, they're a bit frightened to capture that data and to look at it, because it can feel really confronting, particularly for senior leaders who are not of that mindset that, you know, awareness is the first key to any change. But it's really powerful for our staff and for the community, particularly in your approach as you're working with all of those key partners to to identify the priorities that will really matter and mean that our focused approach, of course, is going to be successful.

And every school will even have its nuances. You might have a big workload challenge in a school, but you think that it's administrative tasks, but it's in fact, it's linked to your relief processes or whatever that might be. So getting to the heart of the issue is something that I wish. Justin Robinson: Yes.

Adrienne Hornby: schools would do more of and so then you're not spinning your wheels and wasting a whole year's worth of resources on the fruit bowls of the Pilates classes. Staff just wanted a more coherent relief management tool or communication system. I'm ⁓ cool that's easy and that's and it's going to improve culture and morale as well and satisfaction all the things. Justin Robinson: Yes.

Yes. Yes. And when it's articulated and they see you chipping away at it and understand we can't do it all in term one, so this is our priority in term three, that feels like you've been well-held. It feels like you've been cared for.

There is no silver bullet, no teachers. Every teacher knows it's still gonna be a very hard, demanding job. You've chosen a life to steward the lives of other young people. That comes in this wondrous joy.

Adrienne Hornby: Yeah. Yes. Justin Robinson: an endless heartfelt struggle. Like, you know, that's the job you've chosen.

But if we can see the care and the consistency and the system and the development towards that, and just little wins are so valuable, when you know, that didn't make a difference. Adrienne Hornby: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the most underestimated wellbeing strategy, I think I spoke about this recently on, think it was my last podcast, is schools updating staff on where they're up to with wellbeing initiatives and the plans for the future to satiate some of those desires for clarity and input.

I think if we are updating our staff more on our progress and our plans, it has such a huge impact on. on wellbeing and linked to that area of meaning as well and accomplishment for staff in the PERMA model. ⁓ wonderful. ⁓ In your data that you're capturing within your surveys, what are some of the most consistent themes emerging in that data for sort of across all key groups?

Justin Robinson: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

So interestingly, and we're still fairly early on, we've now got some Australian norms for the student data, but we're yet to get to the level of Australian norms on leaders because you kind of only pick up 10 when you pick up a school. So you need a fair few schools to suddenly feel like we've got some norms and picking up Adrian back on your piece on bravery. were a little bit, maybe we shouldn't have been, but we were a bit surprised how much bravery this does require. Particularly now there's a specific leadership survey for those seven or eight.

All surveys are all anonymous because we believe that's the best way to get true, accurate data and also provide the safety. when sometimes when a school says, know, can you identify with that, we just simply can't identify or we didn't even ask for any demographics. We just asked, you we have that demographic for students of their year level and their gender. Adrienne Hornby: ⁓ yeah, absolutely.

Justin Robinson: That's all the only demographics we have because we're interested, you know, the strategy works at the cohort level. The individual one works in the counselor's room or in the psychologist room and that an individual case management plan and so on. So this is trying to be tier one, well-being, environment, community, and so on. So the bravery when suddenly a leader is going to one...

complete it themselves, but have their team of five or six or seven or eight complete it. Questions regarding, you know, workload, regarding safety and vulnerability, regarding, you know, whether people they feel have got their back, whether they love coming to work each day, these sort of questions they're getting. But also, when you can lean into that bravery, exactly, I loved your phrase, I think you said what self-awareness is the first step of change and so on. Adrienne Hornby: Yeah, It's a guiding principle of World Ed schools and I believe it, although I find it really hard myself.

⁓ I do believe in it. ⁓ Justin Robinson: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, so we acknowledge the bravery and thank the leaders who choose to do this. And I think, you know, they do realise their importance of their modelling of their, you know, and the clearest part message still coming from the leaders at the moment is we do need some help articulating our strategy.

We know we haven't, you know, suddenly they feel a bit confronted when the question is, have you got a clear wellbeing strategy that articulates what you're bidding over the next 12 months? And they're, ⁓ not very much. Kind of got a little bit of one or something. And of course they've got a school master plan.

Of course they've got a school strategic plan, but they don't, and maybe wellbeing's a pillar, but they never, know, many of them didn't have that articulation of what are we doing for parents this year? How much time, how much resources? Yes to that, no to that. You know, many schools go, well, we probably should have a couple of parent nights and yeah, let's do.

Adrienne Hornby: Yeah. Justin Robinson: the three parent nights again. But that's not enough and not due to ⁓ being data informed of saying that there's really still low levels of trust and they're not feeling that they're responded to early enough. So actually we need some middle level training about managing parent phone calls or something or we need to put some more support for middle and we might need to put on another member of the receptionist team to kind of make Adrienne Hornby: Yeah.

Justin Robinson: some phone calls back or something, because we need to communicate or we need to change our email policy so parents don't expect an email reply in one hour. So we need to be more nuanced. so the leaders, probably the main message we're hearing is, can you help us a bit with this strategy? And maybe kind of even stay with us and hold our hand a little bit, keep us a bit accountable, because we know the school will get busy and life will get busy for us and we'll forget to get that strategy out again.

unless we're meeting with you again next month to see how we're going or something. So the strategy work is, I think, the key leaders one. The educator message a little bit, which you're kind of pleasantly surprised about is that many teachers are still saying, can you give us a bit more professional learning? Can you help us work out how the latest well-being science shifts our pedagogy and then changes that and supports whether it's regulation or whether it's engagement levels and so on?

Can we use some of that? Adrienne Hornby: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Justin Robinson: wellbeing science to actually, you cause I'd love to keep learning and improving my craft.

The students, the message, you know, is, you know, not surprisingly still high levels of anxiety and know, real needs there. And where possible, where schools have got student engagement in it, you know, the wellbeing that the... The with and for, the for wellbeing when students can answer questions like, feel like I'm contributing to the wellbeing of my classmates and I'm involved in helping out and I've got roles and jobs to do within our school that contribute to me serving and contributing to the school.

And then with the families, the parents are the main question I think I mentioned earlier was, can we know a bit more? We'd love to know a bit more. It's all pretty new. It wasn't what happened when I went to school.

⁓ Yeah, I'm on the school WhatsApp, ⁓ but that's all a bit overwhelming. And ⁓ I haven't got quite time to do all that, but you could give me some distilled insight about that so I can support my child, I want to, because I couldn't care and love them anymore. And they are a bit anxious or struggling, and they say they don't want to go to school today. And so what's our tips there?

And that's led, I've spent the summer developing our first ever parent course called The Seven Habits of Well-Being Wise Families. Adrienne Hornby: ⁓ how long- Justin Robinson: It's in partnership with schools. And so that's been the most exciting kind of last couple of months of me kind of throwing myself into the creation of that program, that course. Adrienne Hornby: ⁓ sounds so exciting.

How amazing for your partner schools. You raised a couple of things there where you're talking about the themes that I want to quickly zoom back to before we finish. At that point you make around the leaders is a crucial one. I agree with you.

Like I think the unification of a leadership team in their approach to wellbeing is so important. Like you can't just have whoever's coordinating wellbeing. knowing the strategy or knowing the initiatives or the forecast coming up, it's really important for our leaders to be abreast of that. While, like you said, it takes time for us to develop the skills and have the experience and what it truly means to lead rather than to be an administrator.

But again, it's just opening up more time for those conversations to get for everybody to get clarity on what we're doing for wellbeing and what our common responses are. ⁓ you know, what we're focusing on for that term. But the one where you talked about the teachers and understanding wellbeing and that linked back to that brilliant point you made earlier about how in university there's not enough ⁓ for us around wellbeing and it's changed so much, hasn't it? Since we first got into education to now our responsibilities as a teacher in that social, emotional and wellbeing space is ⁓ we're really not prepared for that.

I think it's probably we're going to only get more and more responsibilities as we've got both parents going into the workforce and climbing that corporate ladder, which I know it's frustrating for teachers to think I shouldn't be taking on these roles, but it's we have to adapt. And probably part of wellbeing is adapting to those shifts and changes rather than resisting. Justin Robinson: Yes. Yes.

Adrienne Hornby: and being empowered by that skill development which you offer. And that's incredible that teachers you've obviously delivered in such a way where they go, ⁓ yeah, that is what I need as opposed to this is not my problem. And we know that that can be the mindset of some. And again, I understand how we get there.

It's rather, it's empowering to go, okay, well, this is the next skill set that I develop. Justin Robinson: Nost. Yeah. And it's not an extra thing.

You'll have the first 10 minutes of your lesson, whether you like it or not, and the students will arrive and the students will leave and you'll have your key learning core of the lesson and you'll have to land the learning. And so if you're going to do that, you can do that informed by wellbeing science and genuinely, you know, it helps teachers. Our goal in so many ways is to relax the shoulders of school leaders and school teachers because we know it's demanding. And if we can give some of these skills and knowledge and some of the support with the strategy and the insights, because the key part on the operating system and the World Bank Compass is us then providing the data insights.

You mentioned briefly, Adrian, before about, you can get so many things from a survey and you can get overwhelmed with the data and do nothing. So to some extent, we kind of think the school leader in some ways doesn't really want the data. What the school leader really wants is what are the five things I should do? And what are the two things I should do for parents?

And how much will that cost? And how do I engage and use that? And who puts that? Okay, we've got some clarity.

And so that's where the clarity of the insights from that data on what then to focus on. Adrienne Hornby: the insights. Mm. 100 % and I love how you mentioned those different scales that you provide as part of your survey because you would have seen it and experienced it and maybe done it I certainly did in my time in education is that you get data back and you leaders just gravitate towards the most Interesting pieces of data and I think that is that is not something we need to be hanging out in right now You've got some clear insights over here, but I always say in schools We see what we want to see and we don't see what we don't Justin Robinson: and yeah.

Interesting. Adrienne Hornby: So having somebody like yourself and the incredible work that you've, you and the team have put into the backend of your survey to provide schools with that compass and that clear direction on where to work saves the time. It ensures that things are transformational and ⁓ this is what schools need. So excellent.

Justin, to finish us off today, based on... Justin Robinson: Thank you. Adrienne Hornby: your research, your experience and what you're seeing in schools and across the system. What key well-being trends or focuses really are on your radar for this year and beyond?

So you've kind of alluded to this focus around the parents and supporting them. I couldn't agree more, but what else is flagging for you? Justin Robinson: Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I think probably to distill it to like, I'm interested in AI, but I'm not a leader in that area, and AI and wellbeing, and I'll be actively a participant in the upcoming AI and wellbeing summit over in America in March or something, you know, so I'm curious. ⁓ But for me, and for David and for our work, it's probably still around two things that I have mentioned sometimes is, strategically doing it with the leadership team. And that takes the load off when there's a clear strategy.

So strategically, because you can't do it all. And then engage the parents because they're calling out for a bit of help and support. And imagine if your families are calmer, more confident in their parenting, more connected in their parenting village and more connected. What a difference that makes to the educators, what a difference it makes to the workload of the leaders and so on.

If, you know, the seven habits, habit one is, you know, stay calm in the chaos. You know, habit two is communicate with empathy. Habit three is set boundaries with heart. If we've got parents building their confidence to be able to set boundaries and understand and have that language and so on, that, you know, the goal is too early for us to know, but we'll be doing some research around it to see whether it get genuinely.

the school community says that return on that investment was that parents are more connected, they're more united and they feel more confident in their parenting, which is reducing some of the issues and helping our students arrive to school kind of in a space to be able to learn. ⁓ Adrienne Hornby: Perfect, it's that amalgamation of all of those key groups. Justin, we see numerous quotes circulating on social media that showcase, I do that every time, that showcase thought provoking and inspiring insights from leaders throughout the world and throughout history.

If a quote from you were circulating, what would it say? Justin Robinson: you ⁓ I kind of actually now do have one or two slides where I put a quote by me and it feels a little bit arrogant. ⁓ My favourite quote on the fridge, is not from me that I love, just I want to put it out there because it's been so helpful for me. It was given to me by a colleague, Carolyn Danka, many, many years ago and it says, It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work.

It means to be in the midst of those things and still feel calm. Adrienne Hornby: ⁓ Justin Robinson: So that's one from a known person, the idea that peace is not something to chase. Peace happens in amongst a busy life with trouble, know, with our four kids, with our work and so on. You know, there is plenty of noise, trouble and hard work in my life.

And I do feel a sense of calm because of the clarity of my values and the goals of what I'm trying to contribute and so on. If it was to me, one I, mine is short and simple and it would just say, I've got a, a presentation that starts with this slide. And it doesn't have a picture of me and doesn't say it's quote from me. It's just a title of the slide that says, we're in it together.

And that's it, know, we're in it together, you know, and whose we is, what does we mean, the parents and the family, you know, and the students and the teachers and that we're in it together, whether you like it or not. We're in it together. We're a community. You've chosen to work here.

You've chosen to send your child here. We've chosen to be ladies here. We're in it together. And when we understand that, then we genuinely will try to work together and care for one another.

Adrienne Hornby: And I think that should be the Wellbeing Distillery's motto if it isn't already. And I feel like the unknown quote, you can claim squatters rights on that. It's unknown. So you can just put your name underneath that and start circulating it.

⁓ What are the best ways for the listeners to connect and engage with you, Justin? Justin Robinson: We're in it together. ⁓ Thank Thanks, Adrian. ⁓ Email Justin at thewellbeendistillery.

com. I am on LinkedIn, trying my hardest to embrace LinkedIn and thoroughly enjoying it. If you read one of my early posts just a few months ago when I made this goal and commitment, because I like challenge, that was my way of trying to embrace it, because it didn't come naturally to me. I hadn't been on Facebook or Instagram and those sorts of but I am genuinely loving connecting and learning ⁓ on LinkedIn.

And so I am on LinkedIn and our website is just the wellbeingdistillery.com. Adrienne Hornby: wonderful. link all of those in the show notes.

And to say goodbye, say good-bye to everybody listening today, Justin, the podcast is aptly titled Well-Led Schools, which is a play on words to reflect those schools who lead with wellbeing in mind. What's one thing that you think schools or leaders could do to prioritise wellbeing that would make the most significant impact to their school and staff and community or partners? Justin Robinson: Yes, yeah. It's such a hard question, isn't it?

For one thing, I love your name of well-led schools and the double meaning within it. I think I would be a little bit biased at the moment and say if you don't have data of your community, get some data of your community and from there ask lots of questions. be curious, focus groups, understand, do it with them. You can't, you know, fully understand that we cannot do well-being to people.

We can only do it with them. So how do you increase the pull of your initiatives and activities and strategy rather than thinking about how do I push harder and push it and force it on people? And you have to, you know, how can we pull people to be energized by this work? They can see their voice in it.

So, so I think I would say make sure you've got some data from all voices of your community, ask some questions, have a strategy, have a crack. Enjoy. Adrienne Hornby: Yeah, awareness is the first key to any change. Thank you so much, Justin.

That was incredible insights. It's been amazing connecting with you online today. And I look forward to seeing all of the great work that you're doing with all of your partners and across schools and in this space and to hear about your parenting course. How great.

Justin Robinson: Thank you. Thanks, Adrian. No, thanks for the opportunity. Lovely having a chat and the questions that you posed and the challenges.

I hope it's helpful and hopeful to the listeners and all the very best.