Australia’s education system is facing a significant crisis, with school principals experiencing unprecedented levels of stress and adversity. 

A recent report by the Australian Catholic University by Paul Kidson and colleagues is alarming. It shows physical violence against school leaders has surged by over 80 per cent since 2011. Threats of violence are at an all-time high. The mental health of our principals is deteriorating, with severe anxiety and depression rates significantly higher than those in the general population. Over half of the surveyed principals are contemplating leaving their positions, a potential exodus that will destabilise our schools.

What can we do?

Kidson and colleagues’ report highlights reflective or professional supervision as an underutilised strategy to address the principal crisis. 

Distinct from performance evaluations or compliance-focussed managerial oversight, reflective supervision provides a structured, confidential space for school leaders to reflect on their practice, discuss challenges, and support the development of critical reflection. 

It takes the form of regular, planned, and intentional meetings with a trained supervisor who is external to a leader’s workplace. This is not managerial supervision whereby conversation is motivated by role expectations and performance.  Rather, supervision expands this lens to reconnect leaders with their professional purpose and values. Distinct from coaching, supervision is not primarily about improving skills and strategies, but cultivating grit and grace for ethical engagement with complex challenges. In other professions such as social work, psychology and allied health, reflective supervision is an effective means of developing clarity, confidence, and agency, particularly in roles that require a high degree of autonomy and leadership. Supervision therefore seeks to interrupt practice, rather than merely report on or judge it. 

So what might a typical supervision session look like?

Each can look very different, according to the focus topic or inquiry that the leader (supervisee) may bring, and the approach that the supervisor may take to support the leader to explore it. This can be through creative use of images or metaphors, for example, and through noticing and questioning to help the leader widen their own lens of understanding and explore the ‘thinking behind their thinking’. By building a partnership of trust, safety and confidentiality, the supervisor facilitates a collaborative enquiry to explore the impacts of the leaders’ thinking, ethics and professional practice on those around them – including on colleagues, students, the broader school community and even the profession itself. Supervision is both supportive and challenging, affirming and question-making. In all ways, the supervisee is upheld as the expert of their own practice and an agent of their own decision making.

While each session may be different, there are typical features of a session that help scaffold and guide inquiry. Contracting begins a session so both parties are aware of the limits of confidentiality and the parameters for engagement. Focusing is a process to locate the nub of inquiry that then enables exploration and expansion of it.  Sometimes this is referred to as ‘making the familiar strange’, disentangling a knot, or exploring the tributaries of a bigger river or flow of concerns.  Sessions culminate in consolidating insights, and bridging back to how they will influence or impact everyday practice.  Supervision can also occur in small groups, following a similar process of enquiry. 

Not a silver bullet

Supervision is not a silver bullet, but 2024 evaluation undertaken by Paul Kidson for the University of Sydney found that with school principals, reflective supervision appeared to be more effective than mentoring or coaching and supported senior educational leaders in ways their current systems could or would not. 

Drawing on the voices of principals, the evaluation demonstrated that the benefits of supervision are multifaceted. It offers a supportive environment where school leaders can process the many demands of their role, reducing feelings of isolation and stress. The participants saw that supervision could ultimately build stronger schools by mitigating burnout and increasing job satisfaction. The respondents believed that, by addressing issues proactively in supervision, it would contribute to higher retention rates among school leaders, as it has done in other sectors. A number of the participants in the reflective supervision program at The University of Sydney indicated that before the course they were contemplating life beyond school leadership, including strong intentions to leave education altogether as a result of workload, mental health issues and burnt out. Yet, for these participants, reflective supervision provided the encouragement and processes to reconsider their professional direction and continue as school leaders.  

A cultural shift

Implementing reflective supervision requires a cultural shift within the education system. While school social workers, chaplains and psychologists access supervision as a matter of course nothing similar exists for principals. Yet, they experience similarly complex emotional and psychological demands.  

Valuing principals’ wellbeing, professional growth and fidelity to their profession is integral to every school’s success. Providing resources for trained supervisors and integrating regular supervision sessions into the leaders’ professional learning is already proving its worth as a sustainable support that combats leadership loneliness and promotes mental, psychological, social and even spiritual wellness.

Addressing the current crisis in school leadership as the ACU report suggests will take many forms. It’s not surprising that reflective supervision featured prominently at the roundtable between the federal education minister and principals among the many challenges of modern school leadership. By investing in the well-being and professional respect and maturity of our leaders through this approach, we not only support them as individuals but strengthen the entire educational ecosystem, ensuring better outcomes for students, our schools, and ultimately our communities.

Mary Ann Hunter is associate professor in education at the University of Tasmania. Geoff Broughton is associate professor in Christian theology at Charles Sturt University..  Michael Anderson is professor and co-director of the CREATE Centre at The University of Sydney.