No 19 Guided by Integrity. Fabienne Vailes with Neil Hawkes

In this revealing Noble Conversation, Fabienne Vailes talks openly about her personal journey and the development of her views about life and education.Fabienne is a parent, educator, and someone who could no longer ignore what wasn’t working in education.First and foremost, she's a mother of two teenage boys. Like many parents, her journey hasn’t been straightforward. It has involved questioning, unlearning, and rethinking what education really means.At one point, she home educated one of her sons, while the other followed a more traditional school path.  Living these different realities side by side changed how she sees education: not as one system, but as something much more complex and human.After nearly 30 years working across education from early years to higher education,  she began to notice a pattern.More and more young people were struggling. And more and more adults were trying to hold it all together.It didn’t sit right with Fabienne to see children as “the problem”.So, she started asking different questions:What if behaviour is communication?What if well-being is not an add-on, but the foundation?What if we need to unlearn as much as we learn?Flourishing Education grew from these questions. Fabienne's work sits between the “ME” and the “WE”.Fabienne supports parents, teachers, and school staff who are holding a lot, not by offering quick fixes or strategies, but by creating space to pause, reflect, and see more clearly. Fabienne is:an NLP Practitioner and Master Practitionera Coacha Clinical Hypnotherapist, with a focus on anxiety and stressa Mindfulness and Meditation Teacher (LinkedIn)These are not techniques she “applies” to people.Fabienne Vailles is author of 'The Flourishing Student' (in its second edition) aimed at teachers and tutors, co-author of 'How to Grow a Grown Up' written for parents with Dr Dominique Thompson and soon to be co-author a third book co-authored with Dr Natalie Rothwell-Warn which will come out in summer 2026. She is also a podcaster and Founder of Flourishing Education. Neil enjoyed being a guest on her podcast.  As part of her PhD at the University of Bristol she is currently exploring How we Co-Create Enabling Environments in Secondary Schools to BE and Flourish Together.Fabienne's passion is to explore how we co-create and transform our education systems so that ALL can flourish. She has a deep interest in how together we decolonise our thinking, doing and most importantly our BE-ing through both inner soulful justice and external social justice work, one imperfectly perfect conversation at a time.At the heart of it all, Fabienne cares deeply about holding and co-creating spaces where people can be, become, and belong.Fabienne will touch your heart and challenge your thinking by her authenticity.Music from #Uppbeathttps://uppbeat.io/t/bernie-rosa/dandelions-scatterLicense code: Q218Y1ZDOLIAIYOO For more information about the transformational work of the IVET Foundation and its global Affiliates visit http://www.ivetfoundation.com Thanks for listening!