Teaching with Insight - A Compassion Focused Teacher Training Program
Classrooms have become increasingly complex. Post-pandemic realities have amplified the pressure. Teacher and student mental health concerns, teacher burnout, and high attrition rates show that traditional training leaves educators underprepared. Trauma-informed practice has helped schools recognise the impact of adversity, but it does not go far enough. Teaching with Insight extends this approach with a compassion-focused lens by giving teachers the skills to notice not only their students’ responses but also their own. Teachers then learn how to co-regulate with their students. This bi-directional effect means that when teachers manage their emotions, their students benefit too.
Drawing on more than twenty years as a Clinical Psychologist, I developed this program and tested it through my doctoral research. Using interviews, surveys, and physiological measures such as heart rate monitoring, I found strong evidence that compassion-focused training reduces stress and builds confidence for teachers. In short, when educators practise self-compassion, they are better able to foster safe, supportive classrooms.
Unlike behaviour management models that focus on compliance, this program integrates neuroscience, psychology, and educational research, also known as the Science of Learning, with Compassion Focused Theories. Instead of pathologising behaviour by asking “What’s wrong?”, it shifts the narrative to “What’s happening?” and “What do I need?” and “What does the student need?”. This approach is designed to de-escalate challenges and build emotional resilience in teachers. It also equips teachers to support students more effectively by deepening their understanding of the causes of emotional dysregulation in both themselves and their students, and by providing informed, practical responses.
The program is delivered through eight interactive modules, designed for teachers of all year levels. It combines theory with practical strategies for immediate use:
1) Introducing the New Paradigm of Educational Research
2) Neuroscience Principles and a Compassion Focused Approach
3) Brain Development and Learning
4) Social Emotional Learning and the Brain
5) Compassion Focused Understanding of Attachment and Connecting
6) The Impact of Trauma on the Developing Brain and Learning
7) Teacher Self-Care, Wellbeing and Resilience
8) Practical Strategies and Questions
Each module includes learning objectives, accessible theory, classroom-ready strategies, reflection prompts, and case examples. Teachers also earn accredited Professional Development certificates.
At its heart, Teaching with Insight bridges the long-standing “child theory–practice gap.” The Science of Learning research fills these gaps and builds teachers’ knowledge about child development and the critical stages children and adolescents experience during healthy development compared with development affected by trauma. It equips teachers not only to understand trauma but to go further by explaining the long-standing effects on emotional, social and cognitive development and learning. To understand and support students, teachers apply compassion-focused insights to understand their own reactions when trying to support emotionally dysregulated students to be able to assist students more effectively. Research shows that regulated teachers create regulated students. Teacher self-regulation is the key to student wellbeing and learning.
This is not just another training package. It is a timely, evidence-based response to one of education’s greatest challenges: How to support teachers and students in a time of growing complexity. Compassion is the bridge. Teaching with Insight shows teachers how to walk it with confidence. The program has been designed so it can be seamlessly blended into existing curriculum and professional learning frameworks, offering schools a practical way to embed wellbeing and compassion at the core of teaching and learning.
I welcome the opportunity to engage with principals, school leaders, educators, school psychologists and counsellors who are committed to fostering compassionate, thriving learning environments. Please contact me to discuss how Teaching with Insight can be implemented to support the wellbeing and performance of both staff and students.
Email Rita Princi [email protected]
References
Ellis, E., Reupert, A., & Hammer, M. (2022). ‘We’re just touching the surface’: Australian university lecturers’ experiences of teaching theories of child development in early childhood teacher education programs. Cambridge Journal of Education, 52(6), 715- 733. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305764X.2022.2047892
Immordino-Yang, M. H., Darling-Hammond, L., & Krone, C. R. (2019). Nurturing Nature: How Brain Development Is Inherently Social and Emotional, and What This Means for Education. Educational Psychologist, 54(3), 185-204. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2019.1633924
Kirby, J. N., Sherwell, C., Lynn, S., & Moloney-Gibb, D. (2023). Compassion as a Framework for Creating Individual and Group-Level Wellbeing in the Classroom: New Directions. Journal of Psychologists and Counsellors in Schools, 33(1), 2-12. https://doi.org/10.1017/jgc.2023.5
MacMahon, S., Carroll, A., & Gillies, R. M. (2020). Capturing the ‘vibe’: an exploration of the conditions underpinning connected learning environments. Learning Environments Research, 23(3), 379-393. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10984-020-09312-3
Oberg, G., Carroll, A., & MacMahon, S. (2023). Compassion fatigue and secondary traumatic stress in teachers: How they contribute to burnout and how they are related to trauma-awareness. Frontiers in Education, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2023.1128618
Princi-Hubbard, R. (2024). The student and teacher relationship: exploring behavioural and neuroscience variables that impact upon student and teacher wellbeing. PhD Thesis, School of Education, The University of Queensland. https://doi.org/10.14264/e5d67c2
Princi-Hubbard, R. (2024). A Compassion Focused Approach to understand Teacher and Student Wellbeing. The Science of Psychotherapy, October-December.