LEAD ARTICLE: “Reclaiming Presence: Reflective Practice and Leading from Within” By NAPCE’s Georgina Saralis
Reclaiming Presence: Reflective Practice and Leading from Within by NAPCE NEC Member Georgina Saralis
What does it take to lead with authenticity in pastoral care especially when the system feels stretched, and the emotional demands are high?
The challenge isn’t just supporting young people to the best of our ability; it’s sustaining ourselves and our teams while navigating the tensions entangled in the systems we inhabit.
I believe the answer lies in creating intentional space for reflective practice, not the kind tied to performance management, but something deeper: a chance to listen inwardly, reconnect with vocational purpose, and show up with integrity, courage and authentic presence. It’s about meeting our students not just with expertise and strategy, but with soul.
This kind of presence is not performative. It’s not about appearing calm or competent. It’s about being grounded, attuned, and showing up as our true selves.
Authenticity allows us to meet students where they are, to respond rather than react, and to build trust in moments that matter. But sustaining this requires more than personal resilience. It calls for an ecosystem of care that values reflection, connection, and the inner life of the educator.
To do this, we must move beyond the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of our vocation to the more vital ‘why’, reconnecting with the passion and purpose that led us into this profession in the first place.
This call to reclaim our passion and purpose, often buried under system pressures, aligns with what Hywel Roberts calls Botheredness®: a teacher’s intentional act of being present, driven by a love of their subject, exhibiting genuine care, deliberate adult positioning, and relational energy that brings students into meaningful engagement with learning.
In Botheredness®: Stories, Stance and Pedagogy, Roberts writes, “It’s the care teachers have for their children. It’s the passion they bring to their lessons. It’s the warmth, imagination and creativity embedded in their curriculum.”
His work reflects a growing recognition that it’s not just about supporting students but also attending to the personal growth of the adults who guide them.
At NAPCE 2024 Spring Online Conference, Shaun McInerney presented a framework for adult personal development that reimagines pastoral care not simply as a response to student need, but as a shared journey of growth for the adults who hold that care.
His Togetherness Practice integrates body, mind, heart, and spirit to form a three-part ecosystem of balance and growth. He identified four key practices: the ability to pause and reflect; the intentional creation of relational space; trust-building within teams; and recognising that growth happens through others, where potential is unlocked not in isolation but through community.
My own interest lies in nurturing the ability to pause and reflect. In the session we were gifted the time and space – yes, to stop and think! – to write about a moment when we felt we were at our most brilliant self. The point was to relish the preciousness of that moment: to experience deep personal insight and remember what it feels like to be fully alive in our vocation.
This pausing, reconnecting with my ‘self’, echoed something I’ve come to value deeply in my professional journey.
Over time, I’ve become committed to creating spaces where educators can turn inward, explore their inner landscape, and re/connect with what Parker Palmer calls their “inner teacher.” His seminal text The Courage to Teach offers a framework for understanding how teacher presence, rooted in identity, integrity, and relational connection, can transform not only classrooms but whole school cultures.
In 2017, I encountered Palmer’s work during my doctoral research on pastoral care. His ideas resonated with my growing conviction that schools need to become more relational, strengthening the partnerships between teachers, pupils, and parents.
I attended a Courage & Renewal retreat during a time of deep professional and personal searching, when I was struggling to hold the trauma of the students I worked with while grieving the loss of my father. The retreat didn’t offer easy answers, but it helped me shape a vision of leadership grounded in shared humanity. It affirmed that we may build our capacity for holding space for others without losing ourselves.
Palmer’s reflective practice begins with a radical premise: we teach who we are.
“Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique: good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher.”
He invites educators to explore the inner landscape of their identity, not as a private act, but as a shared professional discipline.
To support this inner work, Palmer offers a framework grounded in communal reflection. Practices like the touchstones – “speak your truth in ways that respect others,” and “no fixing, saving, advising” – create psychological safety and help educators understand that togetherness is not just a feeling, but a practice. In these spaces, we learn to listen deeply, hold paradox, and stay present to ourselves and one another.
This paradox-holding is especially relevant for Form Tutors, who often serve as the relational bridge between students and the wider school system. Their role demands both structure and sensitivity: tracking attendance and progress, while also responding to emotional needs. By cultivating their own inner clarity, they can model the kind of presence that helps students feel valued and understood.
Similarly, pastoral leaders can navigate uncertainty with integrity and cultivate environments where both students and staff feel seen, heard, and challenged to grow. In these relational spaces, authenticity is sustained not through performance, but through reflection, trust, and shared meaning.
To embed reflective practice strategically, The Courage to Teach offers a personal growth programme rooted in Palmer’s principles. There is deep synergy with Togetherness Practice, which attends to mind–body–spirit alignment and supports leaders in navigating complexity with integrity and presence.
Both approaches invite educators to explore the dynamic interplay between their inner life and professional practice, reconnecting with the beliefs, experiences, identity, and purpose that shape how they show up across their school communities. This, in turn, supports sustained reflection and the embedding of relational practices that cultivate emotionally intelligent, collaborative school environments.
A distinctive feature of Courage to Teach retreats is the use of creative modalities such as story, poetry, music, and art, alongside the grounding of retreats in nature. Metaphors offer a powerful way to explore complex issues at a slant, inviting reflection through seasonal paradoxes.
This connection to the natural world is increasingly recognised in research as vital to educator wellbeing, leadership clarity, and relational depth.
While these retreats are often held in restorative, natural settings, I’ve also seen the model thrive online. In a recent Aligning Soul and Role retreat for professionals across education, health, and social care, participants engaged with seasonal themes through nature-based prompts and reflective walks in their own environments.
One participant shared:
“There’s something important to note about the value of taking time out to reflect with supportive, like-minded people… I was personally very brave and vulnerable in a way I haven’t been in other things I’ve done. There’s something about this group and the framework you hold that makes it safe.”
Of course, it would be naïve to suggest that schools can easily adopt reflective practice. Time, cost, and competing priorities are real barriers. But that doesn’t mean we abandon the vision. What’s needed is a phased approach, starting with leadership teams, building capacity, and integrating reflection into daily school life.
A simple, powerful beginning is for educators to experience this practice for themselves. To step into reflective space is to glimpse the transformative power of reconnecting with one’s inner teacher. Ultimately, it’s the courageous commitment of school and pastoral leaders to create intentional space for educators to reflect, reconnect, and lead from within.
At its heart, this work nurtures togetherness and belonging, an ethos of growth and empowerment that reaches across roles and responsibilities, bringing about the systemic change needed to support the young people in our care.
Georgina Saralis is the SEN Teacher at The Wavell School in Farnborough and a member of NAPCE National Executive Committee.
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