The next generation of leaders are already in your school.
Our flagship leadership programs put people in the driver's seat, empowering participants to lead, facilitate, connect and shape culture across schools, workplaces and communities. From primary schools to corporate boardrooms, designed to develop individuals, strengthen teams and create meaningful impact.
Built for the leaders sitting in your classrooms today.
Two dedicated programs: one a powerful workshop, one a year-long initiative, that hand real leadership to real students.
Next Generation Leadership
A dedicated workshop for primary and secondary student leaders. Hands-on, age-appropriate and unforgettable.
- Grade 5–6 + Years 7–12
- Half day or full day
- Real facilitation practice
- Term plan they own
Student Agency Leadership
A full-year initiative empowering primary and secondary student leaders. We train them, coach them and stay with you all year.
- 12-month program
- Live coaching cohorts
- Termly leadership workshops
- End-of-year showcase
What's your challenge?
Every school is different. Pick the scenario that sounds most like yours, and we'll point you to the right program and scope it around your context.
Developing student leaders
You want a dedicated cohort of students who genuinely lead, not just wear a badge.
Disengaged middle years students
Year 9–10 students who are switched off. You need a high-energy, no-lecture re-entry point.
A year-long culture shift
You want lasting change: a student wellbeing culture that runs itself and compounds year after year.
Student leadership conference or day
You're hosting an event and want something unforgettable that students talk about for months.
Empowering student voice
Your students have ideas but not yet the confidence or platform to lead with them.
Developing your middle leaders
Leading teachers, APs and HODs hold your school together, usually with no dedicated development. A full-year leadership journey changes that.
Which one's right for your school?
A one off workshop or the year-long option? Depending on what type of leadership exposure and development your school is chasing we have the right Student Leadership program for you. Both develop the leadership capacity of your students, with slightly different outcomes and commitments. Here's how they compare.
Start with Next Gen, then graduate into Student Agency.
Run a Next Gen workshop with 40+ students. Identify the keenest 12–18. Place them into the year-long Student Agency cohort. Repeat next year, the new seniors mentor the new juniors. Culture compounds.
Real leadership. Real coaching. Real results.
We inspire through a play-based workshop, we support the student leaders year long, we step back and allow them to lead and we love watching the growth occur.
From the founder“The students you train this year change the school next year.”
Dale Sidebottom, Founding Director, The School of Play
The kind of student culture every leader wants.
Six outcomes our partner schools see in the first term, measurable and repeatable.
Confidence to lead
Students stand up in front of peers and run real play sessions with real groups, week one.
Empathy in action
Reading the room, responding to the people in it.
A real toolkit
Games, rituals and language they keep for life, not a binder.
Stronger student voice
Lunch breaks, assemblies, classroom culture, student-led.
Visible results
Lower playground incidents, higher connection, measurable across a term.
A Sustainable Program
Programs that run again next year; seniors mentor juniors. Culture compounds.
Not our numbers. Their numbers.
A year-long independent study across primary and secondary schools. Third-party analysis. No editorial influence from The School of Play. These are the outcomes.
Program data · Reported by partner schools and participants
Every student facilitates
Over one term
Assemblies & culture
Self-reported
What's Your Play Leadership Style?
Take the free Play Leadership Profile quiz and discover how you naturally show up as a leader, and how to use play to bring out the best in your team. Built on the same framework that runs through every workshop we deliver.
Builds trust and belonging through shared moments.
Sparks new ideas and lifts the energy of the room.
Stretches the team and turns play into healthy competition.
Holds the space, listens deeply and lifts everyone up.
Play-based leadership for executives and emerging leaders.
Many of the schools and organisations we partner with also bring The School of Play to their adult leadership teams.
Executive Leadership Workshop
For leadership teams ready to build deeper trust, lift accountability and lead with the kind of presence that actually changes culture.
- Incredible team building activities
- High energy, hands on, immersive: learning through doing, not death by PowerPoint
- Challenges team thinking, strengthens understanding
- Creates greater awareness of individual needs, strengths and areas for growth
- Greater shared purpose, move as one, better team connection
- Sets the platform for open, honest, constructive conversations
- Reflective practice and group dialogue
- Lencioni's five behaviours of a cohesive team
- GROWTH coaching model in action
- Action plans every leader walks out with
Better Us Workplace
Wellbeing your pack deserves. Keep the leadership momentum going between workshops with the digital workplace platform.
See Better Us Workplace →Organisations we've worked with
Talk to us
Whether the leaders are 10 or 50, we have a program for them.
Tell us a little about who you want to invest in. We will recommend the right path, student, executive or in between.