25 PD Speakers for Schools Brisbane Principals Actually Rebook

If you have ever sat through a professional development session where your staff checked their phones by morning tea, you know the cost of getting the speaker wrong.

The evaluations come back polite. The speaker was engaging. The morning was fine. But six weeks later, nothing in the staff room has shifted. The conversation you needed to happen never started. The investment vanished.

I put together this list of 25 professional development speakers for schools working with schools across Brisbane and wider Australia. These are the voices principals rebook, not because they entertained the room, but because staff walked back into classrooms the next week with something they could actually use.

The list includes specialists in teacher wellbeing, behaviour management, curriculum design, leadership development, trauma-informed practice, and whole-school culture change. Some work exclusively with schools. Others bring corporate frameworks and translate them for the realities of Australian education. All of them understand what it means to stand in front of tired teachers on a Friday afternoon pupil-free day and earn their attention.

TEACHER WELLBEING AND BURNOUT PREVENTION

Your staff retention problem is not a salary problem. It is an energy problem. Teachers leave when the work stops feeling sustainable. The speakers in this section work with schools to name burnout before it becomes resignation letters, and to build cultures where high performance and long tenure can coexist.

1. Jonno White

Jonno White works with school leadership teams to solve problems that do not respond to another offsite or another strategy document.

Principals bring him in when the leadership team looks strong on paper but struggles to execute together, when key hires are underperforming and the conversations keep getting delayed, or when the gap between the school's stated values and what actually happens in the staff room has become too wide to ignore. He is the author of Step Up or Step Out, with more than 10,000 copies sold, and a Certified Working Genius Facilitator who uses the framework to help schools understand why talented people are stuck in the wrong roles.

Session focus: Most of his school engagements centre on leadership team alignment, role clarity using the Working Genius model, and creating the conditions for honest conversation in rooms where politeness has replaced progress.

Typical format: Half-day or full-day facilitated workshops with leadership teams, often followed by implementation coaching over 90 days.

Rebooking pattern: Schools book him once for the leadership team, then bring him back for middle leaders or heads of department when they see the model work at the top.

His work is practical, not theoretical. Participants walk out with language they use the following week, not frameworks they admire and forget. If your leadership team is talented but not functioning, or if you are privately wondering whether the problem starts with you, reach out at jonno@consultclarity.org.

2. Lea Waters

Lea Waters brings positive psychology into staff professional development with a depth most motivational speakers cannot match.

She is a professor at the University of Melbourne and one of the most credible voices in strengths-based education in Australia. Schools book her when they want their staff to understand the research behind wellbeing, not just hear another talk about self-care. Her frameworks around strength-switching help teachers see how to shift between high-energy and restorative modes without burning out.

Session applications: Staff learn to identify their signature strengths, recognise when they are operating outside them, and build small sustainable practices that protect energy across a term. The content works for classroom teachers and school leaders equally well.

Why principals rebook: Her delivery is warm without being soft. She names the hard parts of teaching, validates the exhaustion, and then gives concrete tools. Teachers leave her sessions feeling seen and equipped, not just inspired.

Best used when: You are noticing more sick leave, more irritability in the staffroom, and more talented teachers quietly questioning whether they want to stay in the profession.

3. Andrew Fuller

Andrew Fuller is a clinical psychologist who has worked with schools for more than 25 years, focusing on adolescent wellbeing and staff resilience.

Principals bring him in when staff are struggling with student behaviour that feels harder than it used to be, when anxiety levels across the student body are climbing, or when teachers are taking on emotional loads they were never trained to carry. He understands the specific pressures facing Australian schools in 2026, including the downstream effects of extended screen time, disrupted social development, and rising parental expectations.

What he delivers: His sessions give teachers a psychological framework for understanding why students behave the way they do, which reduces the emotional toll of managing classrooms. He also works with leadership teams on how to support staff without creating dependency.

Format strengths: He works across whole-staff sessions, smaller wellbeing-focused groups, and leadership workshops. His content adapts well to different school contexts, from independent schools in Brisbane's inner suburbs to state schools in growth corridors.

Retention impact: Schools that bring him in report staff feeling less alone in the work, which is one of the strongest predictors of whether a teacher stays or leaves.

4. Shona Bass

Shona Bass specialises in helping school staff set boundaries without guilt, a skill most teachers were never taught.

She works with schools where the culture has drifted toward unsustainable expectations, where staff answer emails at 9pm and feel bad about leaving at 4pm, and where saying no feels like letting the team down. Her background in corporate psychology gives her a perspective many education-only speakers lack. She knows what boundaries look like in high-performing organisations, and she translates that into the specific dynamics of school staffrooms.

Session structure: She runs interactive workshops where teachers identify the specific patterns that drain them, practice language for protecting time, and build small boundary experiments they can test the following week.

Common objections addressed: Teachers often worry that boundaries mean caring less. Shona reframes this clearly. Boundaries protect the capacity to care long-term. The teacher who leaves at 4pm three days a week is still there in five years. The one who stays until 6pm every night burns out.

Best audience: Mid-career teachers who are starting to feel the weight, leadership teams who need permission to model sustainable practice, and any school where guilt is the dominant emotion in the staffroom.

5. Martine Oglethorpe

Martine Oglethorpe focuses on the intersection of technology, adolescent development, and teacher wellbeing.

She is one of the few speakers in Australia who addresses the specific stress teachers face when managing student screen use, online behaviour, and the mental health consequences that follow. Schools book her when staff are exhausted by the constant monitoring, when parents are blaming the school for problems that start at home, or when the leadership team needs help setting realistic policies around devices.

Core topics: She covers the neuroscience of adolescent screen use, how to have productive conversations with students about their online behaviour, and how to protect staff from the secondary trauma of monitoring student content.

Practical outputs: Teachers walk away with scripts for talking to parents, boundaries for their own device use, and a clearer sense of what the school can and cannot control.

Why rebookings happen: The issue does not go away. Schools bring her back as the landscape shifts, as new platforms emerge, and as staff need updated frameworks for managing the same underlying problem.

CLASSROOM BEHAVIOUR AND ENGAGEMENT

Behaviour management consumes more teacher energy than any other part of the job. The speakers in this section give staff practical tools for reducing low-level disruption, rebuilding engagement in disengaged students, and creating classroom climates where learning can actually happen.

6. Bill Rogers

Bill Rogers is the most experienced voice in Australia on classroom behaviour management and teacher authority.

He has worked with schools for more than 40 years, and his frameworks are embedded in teacher training programs across the country. Principals book him when new staff are struggling to establish authority, when behaviour policies exist on paper but are inconsistently applied, or when the leadership team needs to rebuild a shared language around consequences and repair.

Session depth: His workshops go beyond surface tips. He teaches the language patterns that de-escalate conflict, the body language that communicates calm authority, and the follow-up conversations that rebuild relationships after a behavioural incident.

What makes him different: He does not promise quick fixes. He names the hard reality that behaviour management is a skill built over years, and then he gives teachers the specific practices that accelerate the learning curve.

Best used for: Early-career teachers who need confidence, experienced teachers whose old methods are not working with the current cohort, and leadership teams who want consistency across the school.

7. Judith Locke

Judith Locke addresses the downstream effects of overparenting on student behaviour and teacher workload.

She is a clinical psychologist who works with schools facing increasing demands from anxious parents, students who struggle with resilience, and staff who are expected to manage problems that should be handled at home. Her sessions help teachers understand why students behave the way they do when they have been raised in low-risk, high-intervention environments.

Key insights delivered: She explains the connection between parental anxiety and student helplessness, how to have difficult conversations with parents who are undermining their child's development, and what schools can reasonably do to build independence when home environments are working against it.

Staff relief: One of the most common feedback themes is that teachers feel less frustration after her sessions because they understand the pattern. The behaviour is not personal. It is predictable.

Ideal timing: Bring her in when parent complaints are rising, when students are struggling with basic problem-solving, or when your staff are privately asking why this generation feels harder to teach.

8. Lyn Sharratt

Lyn Sharratt works on instructional leadership and the kind of teaching that holds student attention without relying on compliance.

She is a former superintendent and the author of Clarity, a book used widely in Australian schools focused on improving learning outcomes through precision in teaching practice. Schools book her when behaviour problems stem from disengagement, when students are acting out because the work is either too hard or too easy, or when the leadership team wants to lift the quality of instruction across the school.

Core methodology: She teaches leaders how to conduct learning walks that improve practice, how to use data to identify where students are losing focus, and how to build a culture of collaborative professionalism where teachers learn from each other.

Behaviour connection: Better teaching reduces behaviour incidents. When students understand the work and see progress, they engage. When they are lost or bored, they disrupt.

Rebooking cycle: Schools bring her in for an initial session, implement her frameworks over a term, and bring her back for follow-up coaching when they hit obstacles.

9. Nathan Wallis

Nathan Wallis is a neuroscience educator who translates brain development research into practical classroom strategies.

He works with schools across Australia and New Zealand, focusing on how the adolescent brain processes stress, reward, and social connection. Teachers book his sessions to understand why certain behaviour management techniques fail with certain students, how trauma affects learning readiness, and what actually works to calm an escalated teenager.

Session structure: He uses clear visuals, real-world examples, and humour to make complex neuroscience accessible. Teachers walk out understanding the biology behind the behaviour, which reduces the emotional drain of taking disruption personally.

Practical applications: He gives staff specific strategies for co-regulation, how to structure a classroom environment that reduces amygdala activation, and how to time difficult conversations when the student's brain is most able to process feedback.

Best fit: Schools dealing with complex trauma, high anxiety cohorts, or staff who feel defeated by students who do not respond to traditional consequences.

10. Louise Lightfoot

Louise Lightfoot specialises in restorative practices and rebuilding relationships after behavioural incidents.

She works with schools where the behaviour management system has become purely punitive, where students are receiving consequences but not changing, and where the same students are cycling through the same incidents without repair. Her approach focuses on teaching both staff and students how to have the conversation after the disruption, the one that rebuilds trust and reduces repeat behaviour.

What she teaches: Staff learn how to facilitate restorative conversations, how to hold students accountable while maintaining dignity, and how to involve parents in repair without blame.

Culture shift: Schools that embed her frameworks report fewer repeat offenders, stronger student-teacher relationships, and a reduction in the emotional toll behaviour management takes on staff.

Implementation note: Restorative practice works when it is a whole-school commitment, not a single session. Principals should plan for follow-up training and coaching support.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT AND MIDDLE LEADERSHIP

Your middle leaders are the load-bearing wall of the school. When they struggle, everything struggles. The speakers in this section work with heads of department, coordinators, and aspiring leaders to build the skills that turn good teachers into effective leaders of people.

11. Simon Breakspear

Simon Breakspear focuses on strategic leadership in schools and how to move from activity to impact.

He works with school leadership teams that are busy but not making progress, where initiatives pile up but outcomes stay flat, and where leaders are working harder without seeing the results they expect. His background spans education consultancy and system-level reform, which gives him a perspective that connects classroom practice to whole-school strategy.

Core frameworks: He teaches leaders how to prioritise ruthlessly, how to run meetings that produce decisions rather than discussion, and how to use data to identify where effort should actually go.

Target audience: Principals, deputy principals, and middle leaders who are drowning in competing priorities and need a clearer strategic filter.

Session outcomes: Leadership teams walk out with a shorter list of priorities, a clearer plan for the next 90 days, and permission to stop doing things that are not producing results.

12. Jill Sweatman

Jill Sweatman works with schools on developing women in leadership and addressing the specific barriers female educators face in stepping up.

She brings corporate leadership experience into the education sector, where many talented female teachers hesitate to pursue leadership roles because the culture has not been designed with them in mind. Schools book her when they notice gender imbalance in their leadership pipeline, when talented women are turning down promotions, or when the leadership team wants to be more intentional about succession planning.

Session content: She covers imposter syndrome, negotiation skills, managing up, and how to lead with authority without adopting masculine leadership styles that do not fit.

Cultural impact: Her work does not just benefit individual participants. It shifts how leadership teams think about who gets developed, who gets noticed, and what leadership behaviours get rewarded.

Best timing: Bring her in before you lose talented women to other schools or other sectors.

13. Tanya Vaughan

Tanya Vaughan specialises in coaching middle leaders through the transition from peer to leader.

She works with heads of department and coordinators who have just stepped into leadership roles and are struggling with the shift from doing the work themselves to leading others who do it. This transition is one of the hardest in education, and most schools do not train for it. New middle leaders are expected to figure it out, which leads to stress, mistakes, and talented people stepping back down.

What she addresses: How to have difficult conversations with former peers, how to delegate without micromanaging, how to manage up to senior leadership while managing down to direct reports, and how to protect time for strategic work when the urgent always wins.

Format: She runs workshops and one-on-one coaching engagements. The combination works best, because middle leaders need both the frameworks and the confidential space to work through specific situations.

Retention benefit: Middle leaders who receive this kind of support stay in leadership. Those who do not often burn out or step back into classroom-only roles.

14. Michael McQueen

Michael McQueen works on managing generational differences in school staffrooms and leading teams where values and expectations no longer align.

He is a demographer and social researcher who helps school leaders understand why younger teachers want different things from work, why older teachers feel the culture has shifted away from them, and how to create cohesion when the staff body spans three or four generations with conflicting priorities.

Key insights: He explains the data behind generational differences in work ethic, feedback expectations, and career timelines, which helps leadership teams stop interpreting difference as defiance.

Practical tools: He gives leaders language for navigating generational tension, strategies for tailoring communication to different cohorts, and frameworks for designing professional development that lands across age groups.

Best use case: Schools where staffroom tension is rising, where older teachers are frustrated by younger staff who seem less committed, or where leadership teams are struggling to retain early-career teachers.

15. Jim Knight

Jim Knight focuses on instructional coaching and developing leaders who can improve teaching practice without creating defensiveness.

He works with schools that want to build internal coaching capacity, where middle leaders need to give feedback to teachers but have not been taught how, and where the culture defaults to evaluation rather than development. His models come from years of research into what actually improves teaching quality.

Core methodology: He teaches the coaching conversation structure, how to use video for non-threatening observation, how to ask questions that lead teachers to their own insights, and how to follow up without creating compliance.

Why this matters: Most middle leaders are promoted because they are good teachers, not because they know how to develop other teachers. Jim fills that gap.

Implementation path: Schools typically start with leadership team training, then extend the model to a core group of instructional coaches, then embed it as the school's primary professional learning approach.

TRAUMA-INFORMED PRACTICE AND MENTAL HEALTH

Student mental health is no longer a specialist issue. It is a whole-staff issue. The speakers in this section give teachers and leaders the skills to recognise trauma, respond appropriately, and protect themselves from secondary trauma exposure.

16. Kym Gordon-Moore

Kym Gordon-Moore is a clinical psychologist who works with schools on trauma-informed practice and the mental health challenges facing Australian students in 2026.

She trains staff to recognise the signs of trauma in student behaviour, understand how trauma affects learning and memory, and adjust classroom expectations without lowering standards. Schools book her when they are seeing rising anxiety, increased school refusal, or students whose behaviour suggests something more complex than typical adolescent difficulty.

Session depth: She does not just name the problem. She teaches staff what to do in the moment, how to structure a conversation with a distressed student, and when to escalate to specialist support.

Staff protection: One section of her training focuses on vicarious trauma and how teachers can carry student pain home without realising it. She gives concrete strategies for emotional boundary-setting.

Follow-up model: Many schools bring her back for case consultation, where leadership teams can discuss specific students and get expert guidance on next steps.

17. Madonna King

Madonna King is a journalist and author who works with schools on understanding adolescent girls, female friendship dynamics, and the mental health patterns specific to this cohort.

She wrote Being 14 and Ten-ager after interviewing hundreds of Australian teenagers, and her school sessions draw on that research. Teachers learn why Year 8 girls are struggling more than previous cohorts, how friendship breakdowns escalate into mental health crises, and what schools can do to build resilience without dismissing legitimate distress.

Staff benefit: Her sessions help teachers separate normal adolescent drama from warning signs that need intervention, which reduces the anxiety staff feel about whether they are doing enough.

Parent sessions: She also runs parent evenings, which many schools book alongside staff training to create alignment between home and school responses.

Best audience: Girls' schools, co-educational schools with rising female mental health concerns, and wellbeing coordinators who need better frameworks for triage.

18. Michael Carr-Gregg

Michael Carr-Gregg is one of Australia's best-known adolescent psychologists, focusing on mental health, risk behaviour, and parent-school partnerships.

Schools bring him in when they are dealing with student self-harm, suicidal ideation, eating disorders, or substance use, and when staff feel out of their depth. He has worked with schools across Australia for more than 30 years, which gives him a deep understanding of what schools can realistically manage and when specialist referral is required.

Core content: He teaches staff how to talk to students about mental health without making things worse, how to involve parents when the student is resistant, and how to create safety plans that protect the student while protecting the school.

Tone: He is direct, practical, and reassuring. Staff leave his sessions feeling more confident, not more frightened.

Booking note: He is one of the most in-demand speakers in Australian education. Book early.

19. Collett Smart

Collett Smart is a psychologist and educator who specialises in adolescent development, parenting, and technology impact on mental health.

She works with schools facing rising anxiety, social media-driven mental health crises, and parents who are overwhelmed by their teenager's behaviour. Her sessions give staff a framework for understanding the interaction between biology, environment, and screen exposure, and practical tools for helping students regulate without relying on devices.

Session applications: She covers how to teach emotional regulation skills, how to help students who have outsourced their emotional soothing to screens, and how to partner with parents who are struggling with the same issues at home.

Why principals rebook: The issue does not resolve. Schools bring her back as cohorts change, as new platforms emerge, and as staff need refreshed strategies.

Best format: Combined staff and parent sessions, so the language and approach align across home and school.

20. Karen Young

Karen Young runs Hey Sigmund and focuses on childhood anxiety, how it presents in school settings, and how teachers can respond without reinforcing avoidance.

She works with schools where anxiety is preventing students from attending, participating, or performing, and where staff are unsure whether to push or accommodate. Her approach is grounded in the latest anxiety research, which increasingly shows that avoidance makes anxiety worse and exposure with support is what builds capacity.

What she teaches: Staff learn how to recognise when a student is anxious versus when they are avoiding, how to scaffold exposure in small steps, how to talk to anxious students in ways that build agency rather than helplessness, and how to work with parents who are unintentionally reinforcing the anxiety at home.

Immediate impact: Teachers report feeling more confident holding boundaries with anxious students, which paradoxically helps the students more than endless accommodation.

Best use case: Primary and junior secondary schools, where early intervention has the greatest effect.

CURRICULUM DESIGN AND PEDAGOGY

Great curriculum design reduces behaviour problems, increases engagement, and makes teaching more sustainable. The speakers in this section work with schools on building learning experiences that hold student attention and produce genuine understanding.

21. Dylan Wiliam

Dylan Wiliam is one of the most credible voices in the world on formative assessment and using feedback to improve learning.

Schools across Brisbane and Australia book him when they want to lift teaching quality at scale, when assessment is happening but not improving outcomes, and when teachers are working hard but students are not retaining knowledge. His research on feedback loops has shaped education systems globally, and his professional development sessions translate that research into classroom-ready practice.

Core principles: He teaches how to design assessments that reveal what students actually understand, how to give feedback that students can act on, and how to structure lessons so that teachers know in real time whether learning is happening.

Staff transformation: Teachers who implement his strategies report less time spent on marking, better student results, and clearer insight into where their teaching is and is not landing.

Implementation requirement: His methods work when schools commit to changing practice, not just attending a session. Plan for coaching support and follow-up.

22. Jackie Beere

Jackie Beere focuses on building independent learners and reducing the cognitive load on teachers who are doing too much of the thinking for students.

She works with schools where students are passive, where lessons require constant teacher direction, and where staff are exhausted because they are carrying the mental effort for 25 students at once. Her frameworks help teachers shift from instructor to facilitator, which makes the work more sustainable and produces better learning outcomes.

Session content: She covers how to design tasks that require students to think rather than comply, how to scaffold independence without leaving students lost, and how to reduce teacher talk without reducing learning.

Behaviour benefit: Students who are cognitively engaged disrupt less. Passivity creates the conditions for off-task behaviour.

Best audience: Secondary teachers, schools focused on student agency, and leadership teams trying to reduce teacher burnout by redesigning how work is distributed in the classroom.

23. John Hattie

John Hattie is known globally for Visible Learning, a research synthesis that identifies which teaching strategies produce the greatest impact on student outcomes.

Australian schools book him when they want evidence-based answers to the question of what actually works in the classroom, when staff are overwhelmed by competing pedagogical trends, and when leadership teams need to prioritise professional learning investment. His database covers hundreds of teaching strategies, ranked by effect size.

Core value: He gives schools permission to stop doing things that do not work and double down on the practices that produce results. This clarity reduces initiative fatigue.

Session format: He runs keynotes for large audiences and smaller workshops for leadership teams. Both are data-driven, practical, and grounded in what the research actually shows.

Implementation challenge: Knowing what works is not the same as embedding it. Schools need follow-up structures to move from insight to practice change.

24. Prue Salter

Prue Salter works on literacy instruction and helping schools close reading gaps that widen every year students fall behind.

She is a speech pathologist and educator who trains teachers to identify why students are struggling with reading, how to assess phonological awareness and decoding skills, and how to design interventions that work. Schools book her when they have students in Year 7 reading at Year 4 level, when whole-class instruction is leaving some students further behind, and when teachers need better diagnostic tools.

What she teaches: Evidence-based literacy instruction, how to differentiate without creating three different lessons, and how to support struggling readers without pulling them out of mainstream learning for hours each week.

Whole-school impact: Lifting literacy lifts everything. Students who can read access the rest of the curriculum. Those who cannot fall further behind in every subject.

Best timing: As early as possible. The gap is easier to close in primary school than it is in secondary.

25. Lyn Sharratt

Lyn Sharratt appears twice on this list because her work spans behaviour engagement and curriculum design with equal depth.

In the curriculum space, she focuses on precision in learning intentions, success criteria, and assessment design. Schools book her when they want students to understand not just what they are learning but why it matters and how they will know they have learned it. Her clarity framework reduces confusion, which reduces disengagement.

Core tools: She teaches how to co-construct success criteria with students, how to use learning goals to drive daily instruction, and how to create assessment that students can use to monitor their own progress.

Teacher relief: When students understand the target, teachers spend less time managing confusion and more time deepening understanding.

Rebooking reason: Schools bring her back because the framework requires ongoing refinement. The first session introduces the model. Subsequent sessions address implementation challenges.

Your next professional development booking determines whether your staff walk into the term energised or resigned. The speakers on this list understand Australian schools, the pressures facing teachers in 2026, and the difference between delivering a session and creating change that lasts.

If you are planning your next pupil-free day and want to get the speaker decision right, reach out at jonno@consultclarity.org. I work with schools across Brisbane and can help you think through which voice will land best with your team.