A New Way Forward for Schools: Advancing Teaching and Learning in the Era of Overwhelm

Dr William DeJean

A New Way Forward for Schools

Advancing Teaching and Learning in the Era of Overwhelm

Praise for A New Way Forward for Schools

‘This is an extraordinary gift of a book on every level: its content and design reduce overwhelm; it relies on us to create from a clear sense of calling; it encourages, supports and guides us educators into promising possibilities. And it respects and honours us for who we have chosen to be.’

– Dr Margaret Wheatley, author of 13 books, from Leadership and the New Science (1992) to Restoring Sanity: Practices to Awaken Generosity, Creativity, and Kindness (2024)

‘In an age of incessant distractions, here is a book that refocuses our collective mission – teaching and learning. The Unleash Learning System provides a research-based guide to improving student learning. It provides a shared language to support leaders to keep their teachers and schools working on what is most important – students.’

– Mary Chiodo, Campus Principal, Copperfield College

‘Steeped in evidence and rich with practical strategies, A New Way Forward is an essential resource for school leaders seeking to streamline practices into sustainable systems. Dr William DeJean provides a thoughtful and actionable approach to reducing cognitive overload for both teachers and leaders, offering a clear pathway to more effective and efficient schools. This book is both empowering and deeply attuned to the challenges leaders face in the modern era.’

– Karen Corbett, secondary school leader, Western Australia

‘This book shows us the way to keep our focus on what’s important – student learning. This system will not only reduce teacher and leader overwhelm, but it will also vastly improve learning for all students. It brings together one whole system we can introduce into our schools that keeps us focused on the main game.’

– Genevieve Simson, former school principal

‘This book isn’t just one more thing. It is the thing! It clearly shows how to pull instruction together into an elegant meaningful system that makes sense to rather than confuses teachers and administrators and students themselves.’

– Professor Emerita Jacqueline Thousand, California State University, San Marcos

‘This is a must read for those in educational leadership seeking to implement effective approaches to enhancing long-term learning for all students. If you are seeking to maximise the learning potential in your school, this book is for you.’

– Dr Sally Knipe, former Associate Professor Education, Charles Darwin University

Published in 2025 by Amba Press, Melbourne, Australia

www.ambapress.com.au

© William DeJean 2025

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Cover design: Tess McCabe

Internal design: Amba Press

Editor: Andrew Campbell

ISBN: 9781923215702 (pbk)

ISBN: 9781923215719 (ebk)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.

To Dr Nancy Farnan.

You helped light a flame 30 years ago

and continue to help it shine brightly.

Acknowledgments

Love, as defined by bell hooks, is a consistent message of love and kindness (Hooks, 2001). Fortunately for me, my life is surrounded by people whose actions mirror this definition and have also helped unleash this book’s potential. The fun part for me is that I get to acknowledge some of them here.

To my partner, Robert Thorniley, who can flesh out the argument of any piece of text like no one I know! And whose wisdom, kindness, love and encouragement fill my life and this book.

To Karen Corbett, Mary Chiodo-Jennings, Genevieve Simson and Dr Jacque Thousand for reading the manuscript, sharing the conversations and leading the way. You continue to be great examples and wonderful teachers for me.

To David, who has shared ‘stories of success’ with me when ‘success’ felt very far away. Thank you for your support, insight, knowledge and the many coffees by the harbour.

To Dr Nina Potter for your data expertise, enthusiasm and deep kindness. Thank you!

And to all the leaders, educators and schools who have put these ideas into practice. Thank you for making me aware of the positive impact and for the many ways you use this work to make things better for our world.

Onwards!

Contents

Introduction

Part 1: The Era of Overwhelm

Chapter 1 Can’t Keep Up? This Might Be Why

Chapter 2 Leading Learning in the Era of Overwhelm

Part 2: Systems Thinking in the Era of Overwhelm

Chapter 3 Embedding a Shared Teaching and Learning Mission

Chapter 4 What Makes Learning Stick for Everyone

Chapter 5 The System That Makes Learning Stick for Everyone

Part 3: Advancing Teaching and Learning in the Era of Overwhelm

Chapter 6 Using a Staged Approach

Chapter 7 Leading the Efforts

Chapter 8 Implementation and the Use of Data

Conclusion: Creating Impact That Endures

About the Author

Next Steps

References

Introduction

If you’ve picked up this book, you and possibly your team are wanting to (or working to) advance teaching and learning across your school.

You might be a principal, a district/network leader, a superintendent, an assistant principal, part of the executive team, a KLA or department chair, an instructional coach, a mentor of new teachers or someone who is focusing on advancing teaching and learning across the school.

If you’re reading these words, I’m guessing you’re committed to the work you’re doing and believe that effective teaching and learning can be a force for good for students and our world. You want to advance teaching and learning across your school because you know your school has the potential to go to the next level of success. You and your team want to expand your school’s impact. For good.

By advancing teaching and learning schoolwide, I’m guessing what you want is to:

move good teaching to great teaching (or if it’s great, move it to an advanced level) – across your school

ensure teaching and learning are your school’s number-one priority

create a common language around high-quality teaching and learning, rather than just focusing on a variety of unconnected teaching strategies

ensure long-term learning is sticking for all students, rather than focusing on task completion

support teachers across your school in optimising what they do

help your school be an innovative place for teaching and learning rather than a place of compliance.

But you might be feeling overwhelmed and stressed due to:

constantly trying to ‘keep up’ with the latest new thing

seeing teaching and learning sometimes taking a back seat to everything else your school is required to do

feeling like you’re working harder but are not sure if you’re getting lasting outcomes

getting conflicting advice around the best way to advance teaching and learning

sometimes being buried in compliance measures that simply add to your team’s overwhelm.

If you can relate to any of these aims and feelings, this book is for you.

Even if you’re highly committed to advancing teaching and learning across your school, have a love of learning or are part of a team reading this book, you might not read it from cover to cover. Instead, you might scan it or search for video clips or a podcast discussion about it. The reason why has little to do with you, your commitment to our profession or your professionalism. Rather, it has to do with the new era we’re now in. That era is impacting your and your team’s time for thinking, learning and reflecting.

The current era might also be impacting your ability to advance teaching and learning across your school. It’s safe to assume that because you’re reading this book, teaching and learning are a high priority for you. Therefore, I invite you to take another step with me.

Why this book now

This book’s mission is to help you understand the new era we’re now in, which I call the era of overwhelm, and learn what it takes to advance teaching and learning across your school in this era. This is important because in the era of overwhelm, education has become increasingly complicated, and you and your team may find yourselves working harder and questioning if you’re focusing on the right things or wondering if your leadership efforts are making a lasting impact.

The good news is that what you’re about to learn won’t require you to ‘reinvent the wheel’ or throw everything out and start over. Rather, it’s designed to help you cut through the noise by showing you the structures, system and actions that can bring things together, rather than add more. The results? You’ll lower stress and overload, achieve schoolwide alignment, and ensure long-term learning for every student so that what they need to know becomes theirs, for good.

Before we explore it, let me first introduce myself.

My story

I’m Dr William DeJean, founder and CEO of Unleash Learning. I’m also the host of Unleash Learning TV and Radio.

I’ve been deep in the education and learning field for 25 years. I have a doctorate in education and have written various articles and books on the subject that reflect what I have learned and