Elevated Conversations: Practical Tools to Make Teacher Collaboration Count

Elevated Conversations by Dr Simon Breakspear offers a practical toolkit for educators seeking to transform their collaborative meeting times from draining, unfocused sessions into purposeful, energising discussions. Drawing from years of experience working with thousands of educators, Simon presents seven field-tested conversational tools designed to help team leaders facilitate more meaningful professional conversations while reducing their preparation workload. The book addresses a common challenge in education: making the most of limited collaborative time when everyone is already stretched thin.
Developed through extensive collaboration with educators and refined through feedback from diverse teaching professionals, this book provides ready-to-use templates and structured approaches that any team member can implement. Rather than prescribing exact content for meetings, this toolkit focuses on powerful frameworks that elevate discussion quality, stimulate fresh thinking, strengthen team connections, and drive tangible improvements in educational practice. The book serves as a practical facilitator playbook that transforms the way educators engage in professional dialogue, moving teams from what Simon calls ‘weary talk’ to truly elevated conversations.

Dr Simon Breakspear is a prominent education expert, researcher and advisor specialising in practical frameworks for educational leadership improvement. With a PhD from the University of Cambridge, he's an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at UNSW and advisor to the NSW Department of Education. Creator of the Teaching Sprints method and founder of Strategic Schools, Simon has worked with over 100,000 educators across 10+ countries, translating evidence-based ideas into actionable tools. His background as a high school teacher informs his approach to system-wide educational change.