Grounded educators.
Sustainable ways of working.
Stronger school communities.
Practical, ongoing support for all teachers, middle leaders and senior leaders managing recurring stress, emotional exhaustion and the risk of burnout.
Dr Tanya Nizam works with educators
in International Schools,
some of whom may identify as neurodivergent.
Dr Tanya Nizam (EdD, MSc Psych, NPQH)
Specialist and Life Coach for educator identity shifts during organisational change
The Grounded Renewal Approach
Not everything in a school can be changed.
How we work within it can.
Grounded Renewal is my four-phase approach to recurring overwhelm, burnout prevention and post-burnout renewal. It combines psychological insight, coaching, breath-work, mindfulness and practical workplace strategies. The work is adapted to the people and context of each school.
International educators work within complex systems. My work begins with that reality. Rather than assuming the answer is to redesign the whole system, I help educators identify what is creating the greatest strain, distinguish what is fixed from what can be influenced, and develop strategies for the areas where they do have choice.
The aim is greater capacity, not greater tolerance of exhaustion. The work involves understanding your own patterns, regulating stress more effectively, communicating and relating with greater clarity, developing workable boundaries, and using your energy and attention more deliberately.
How I can work with your school
AA message from Dr Tanya Nizam about the work she
does with schools and educators.
More about the Grounded Renewal Approach
Staff workshops
Interactive sessions that give educators usable skills rather than another set of ideas to remember. Topics can include recurring exhaustion and early burnout signals; practical breath-work and mindfulness; managing cognitive and emotional load; listening and paraphrasing for deeper understanding; boundaries; communication; team dynamics; and sustainable work practices.
Individual coaching
Private coaching offers a more tailored space for educators or leaders who are approaching burnout, returning after burnout, experiencing recurring overwhelm, or recognising that their current way of working is no longer sustainable. Coaching can be commissioned as part of a wider school engagement or as a focused package.
Middle and senior leader development
Leadership brings its own processing and emotional demands. I work with middle and senior leaders to examine how they respond to pressure, hold boundaries, communicate across different relationships, manage competing expectations and protect capacity while remaining effective. Where leaders have discretion locally, we can also identify small changes in team practice or implementation that reduce unnecessary strain.
This work is most useful when it has somewhere to go after the first conversation. Schools can combine workshops, follow-up sessions, leadership work and selected individual coaching across a term, semester or longer period. The structure is shaped around the school’s needs rather than forcing the school into a predetermined programme.
Ongoing partnership
Why international schools?
I have spent 25 years in international education, working in the UK, the Netherlands, Singapore, Vietnam, Egypt and China. I have been a classroom teacher, a middle leader for much of my career, and a Head of Secondary / High School Principal. I understand the rewards of international education, but also the additional layers of adaptation that can sit underneath the work: culture, mobility, changing communities, overlapping professional and social worlds, and organisational expectations that may originate far beyond the individual school.
Research also points to the importance of workload, relationships, belonging, leadership and autonomy in educator wellbeing. International-school research has highlighted the particular role of relationships and belonging in this sector, alongside pressures such as workload, accountability and cultural adjustment.
Professional background
· 25 years in international education across six countries
· EdD in Educational Leadership
· Master’s degree in Psychology
· NPQH - UK National Professional Qualification for Headship
· ICF-certified coach and qualified life coach
· Qualified meditation teacher and Reiki Master
My academic work focused on educator identity and the ways policy and organisational change influence how educators understand themselves as professionals and as members of a team. That perspective continues to inform how I work: the individual matters, the context matters, and sustainable change begins by understanding the relationship between the two.
Three questions sit beneath the work
· What is fixed and needs to be understood clearly?
· What can be influenced - individually, relationally or locally?
· What needs a practical strategy so that it costs less to live and work with?
This avoids two unhelpful extremes: asking educators simply to become more resilient, or assuming every source of pressure can be removed. Instead, we build self-knowledge, skills and realistic choices.
The International Baccalaureate’s teacher-wellbeing research review reports high occupational stress and burnout among teachers and identifies workload as a prominent factor in attrition. International-school studies also identify relationships, belonging, leadership, autonomy, workload and accountability as important influences on wellbeing.
Suggested sources:
IB Wellbeing for Schoolteachers (2024);
Wigford & Higgins (2019),
Educational & Child Psychology; Harrison & Hou (2023),
Journal of Research in International Education.
Additional Reading
From People Who Have Worked With Me
Since some clients wish to remain anonymous, all names in this section are pseudonyms
Liana
Secondary Principal - An International School in Southern China
“Tanya taught me how to learn to trust myself.
I had reached success through other people believing in me, but that wasn’t enough. The inner work we did together through the coaching sessions allowed me to see myself differently.
I can now rely on myself for my state of mind and ability at work and also with my family.”
Ted
Head of School - An International School in Hong Kong
'“My relationship with my line-manager has improved significantly. There was a time when I didn’t think I could stay a full year in the job.
Tanya’s expertise and frameworks helped me to work through and completely restructure the way that I approach communication at work.
The biggest change for me is learning to bring my focus to my body instead of getting caught up in thoughts. In the end, my thinking feels clearer and this has made all the difference”
Izzy
Business Manager - Guangzhou
“Thank you, Dr Tanya.
Your calm, kind presence has supported us in our mission to develop a sustainable culture of cooperation throughout our community.
We are grateful for your guidance and customised expertise.”
Jacob
Curriculum Coordinator - Indonesia
“Our team dynamics have made a 360 shift!
Dr Tanya’s support has helped two key members of our team develop confidence and together with other programmes, we are seeing change overall.”
I work together with you to customise the best package that serves you.
Contact me for a call to discuss ways to work together.
Email: founder@drtanyanizam.org
Example Packages
4 X Sessions taken in 3 months: 850 USD
Virtually unlimited sessions subject to availability
Minimum 2X full sessions advised.
This package is preferred by clients who would like to communicate regularly with short and long sessions
Individual Monthly subscription: 520 USD
Virtually unlimited sessions subject to availability
Minimum 2X full sessions per month advised.
This package is preferred by clients who would like to communicate regularly with short and long sessions
School Package (Sept - June): 12,000 - 15,000 USD
12 X Sessions/month
Sessions can be shared between individuals and groups
Frequently Asked Questions
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A session is 60–90 minutes of coaching or facilitated development time. The exact length depends on the purpose of the session and whether I am working with an individual, a leadership team or a group of educators.
For one-to-one coaching, I recommend a minimum of two sessions per month. This creates enough continuity to work with emerging situations, practise new strategies and build on what we learn, rather than each conversation becoming a stand-alone intervention.
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can be converted into group workshops or facilitated team sessions, for example around burnout prevention, boundaries, communication, listening for understanding, team dynamics, mindfulness or practical strategies for managing cognitive and emotional load.
We can agree the most useful balance of individual, group and leadership work when designing the package.
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No. In many cases, I would much rather work with people before they reach burnout.
The work can support educators who are noticing recurring overwhelm, emotional or mental exhaustion, difficulty switching off, reduced capacity or unsustainable working patterns. It can also support someone returning after burnout who wants to understand what contributed to it and develop a different way of working going forward.
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Both. I work with teachers, middle leaders and senior leaders, and the focus naturally changes according to role.
For a teacher, we might explore workload, energy, boundaries, relationships and the processing demands of the school day. For a middle or senior leader, there may also be competing stakeholder expectations, responsibility for others, difficult conversations, decision-making and the emotional demands of leadership.
The aim is not to prescribe one “healthy” way of working, but to help each person understand what is costing them capacity and develop strategies appropriate to their actual role and environment.
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No. In international schools particularly, many aspects of the system are simply not locally negotiable. Policies, curricula, reporting requirements, ownership structures or expectations may come from elsewhere.
My approach distinguishes between what is fixed, what can be influenced, and what needs a strategy for working with.
Where a school or leadership team does have room to make useful adjustments, we can explore those. Where it doesn't, the work focuses on helping educators develop greater self-knowledge, regulation, communication, boundaries and practical strategies so that they have more choice in how they respond to the environment they actually work in.