Helen Wright

Author's posts

Compassion for self … a discipline

Although the Middle East School Leadership Conference in Dubai is now over a week ago, and, after a sojourn at home in Edinburgh, I am now headed to Doha for a few days (to include attending the annual British Schools of the Middle East conference), I am still feeling buoyed up the experience of #MESLC …

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Meaningful work

The Middle East School Leadership Conference takes place on Wednesday and Thursday of this week (21 and 22 February), and so I am back in the sleek hustle and bustle of Dubai, ready to speak at, and enjoy, the event. My talk will be on ‘Self Compassion for School Leaders’, and so – in amongst …

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Women Rising …

As I prepare for this weekend’s WISE (Women in International Schools Empowerment) conference at the British School Manila, in the pleasant February temperatures of the Philippines, and as I reflect on the amazing work already being done in the WISE community in mentoring women leaders in education, I have been re-reading ‘How Women Rise’ by …

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Reclaiming the concept of networking

Although I have written in the past about the subject of networking, and how we can choose to interpret it really positively and empoweringly (what a lovely adverb!), I want to address this again, because I continue to be struck by how many of the leaders I have coached over the years still struggle with …

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Equality of access to public examinations: how can we shift the exam grade bell-curve?

The last few weeks in August in the UK – and, indeed, in British international schools across the world – are a hive of activity (and emotion). These are the weeks when the results of A Levels and then GCSEs are published, and with them, university destinations for students are confirmed, and teachers reflect on …

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Sara Pascoe and the importance of using our platforms well

What a great Saturday morning last week! Quite apart from the fact that we had lovely friends staying, and I was able to meet some of their equally lovely friends too (great educators all, it must be said!), it was a real treat to spend an hour with my 16 year old daughter watching and …

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Challenging our expectations – reflections on ‘Lessons in Chemistry’

I know that I am by far not the only person to have enjoyed reading ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ this summer, given the rave reviews that the book has received – although I offer a particular thank you to the friend who recommended it to me. She is also on the Board of the Edinburgh International …

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A miscellany of thoughts in writing and speech …

It may have been a while since I posted on this blogsite, but this does not mean that I haven’t been busy writing, so I thought I would include a few links here, to point to some of the articles I have produced over the past few months … First, this was an article I …

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Opening the wardrobe door

One of the aspects of my coaching of senior leaders that many coachees report that they find particularly helpful is the identification (and subsequent challenge) of their assumptions. We all hold many assumptions – in fact we have to hold these, in order to function, because imagine how life would descend quickly into paralysis if …

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Listening to what we say about ourselves

I really enjoyed contributing last week to the BSME January conference for Leaders and Aspiring Leaders in British curriculum schools in the Middle East – what a keen and engaged bunch of professionals! And it was super to see so many of them in the (virtual) room! I came away feeling really quite uplifted at …

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