Understanding Schools

Supporting Teachers and Therapists in Making Sense of Staff, Student and Organisational Dynamics
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-041-06502-9
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 240 Seiten, Format (B × H): 174 mm x 246 mm

This compelling collection shines a light on the personal, professional, and organisational challenges that shape life in schools, revealing how a deeper understanding can build a more emotionally intelligent school culture.

The book delves into the psychological and emotional aspects of working in schools and navigating what can be complex and multi-layered relationships with fellow staff, students, and parents. Each contributor applies their considerable knowledge of school dynamics and explores the ways in which our past—conscious or unconscious, remembered or forgotten—shapes our interactions with others, for better or worse. Drawing directly on lived experience, the book explores peer relationships, approaches to understanding students’ mental health and its impact, and the ways in which parents’ own histories - especially of education - may help or hinder effective home-school collaboration. Chapters conclude with reflective questions for personal and professional growth, sparking curiosity and prompting the reader to better understand the complexities of everyday relationships.

Knowing ourselves, understanding how relationships work and making sense of the links between family and institutional dynamics can make a real difference to how we experience the workplace as well as how we get on more generally. Refreshingly conversational in style and applicable to every sphere of life, this volume will be valuable reading for trainee and early career teachers, line managers, support staff and therapists, especially those offering supervision or consultations to school staff.

“This book gives hope that all of us working in education, as well as those we work with, can find a type of ‘belonging’ in school, one that allows us to feel more at home within ourselves and ‘in our own skin.’”  – Graham Music, psychotherapist, trainer and author of Nurturing Natures (Routledge, 2024)

Zielgruppe

Professional Practice & Development

Autoren/Hrsg.

French, Lyn

Lund, Sue

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Lehrerausbildung, Unterricht & Didaktik Lehrerausbildung
• Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Teildisziplinen der Pädagogik Sonderpädagogik, Heilpädagogik
• Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Schulen, Schulleitung Weiterführende Schulen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowlegements Foreward Preface: Reflections on Thinking Contributor Biographies 1. Understanding School Dynamics and their Impact 2. Excitement and Anxiety, Hope and Doubt: Starting out in a school-based role 3. Shaping a professional identity: From surviving to thriving 4. Our Relationship to- and with- Authority: Past and present influences 5. Thinking Together: Reflective spaces for teachers and therapists and why they can be difficult to use 6. Daring to teach: Keeping the flame alive 7. The role of psychodynamic coachinig supporting the emotional experience of being a teacher 8. Working in a shifting landscape: Loss and change 9. Hidden Hurdles: How Anxiety Impacts Learning 10. Proceeding without certainty: How 'not knowing' can help us better understand troubled students 11. What do we really mean when we talk about providing a 'secure base' in schools? 12. Reflections on therapists and schools working together 13. We're in this together: facilitating collaborative home-school partnerships 14. Epilogue

Über Autor(innen)

Lyn French is a psychotherapist, supervisor and author with over 25 years’ experience in school-based psychotherapy, including a decade teaching in the field. She is the Director of A Space, a psychotherapy provision working in partnership with the Education Service at the London Borough of Hackney. With a first profession in the arts, she is committed to keeping therapeutic thinking creative, contemporary and relevant to everyday life.(www.aspaceinhackney.org).

Sue Lund is a lead therapist and supervisor with A Space. Following two decades as a headteacher she trained as a psychotherapist, a role that has deepened her interest in the emotional aspects of teaching and learning. She brings this combined expertise to her supervision work with both teachers and therapists, enriching their practice with her dual perspective.