Are you…
This 90 minute, self-paced module will help with that thinking.
Research suggests that teacher coaching is one of the most evidence-backed forms of professional development available. Teachers report that they find it valuable and that it changes their behaviour.
But it’s also one of the most challenging to implement and sustain. Many coaching initiatives start with real enthusiasm but fade quickly. The reason is rarely that coaching doesn’t work – it’s usually that the coaching culture gets mistranslated. Coaching becomes directive feedback instead of genuine partnership. Teachers disengage. And slowly, quietly, the initiative fades.
With Ofsted now explicitly judging professional learning culture, coaching has become more visible in inspection conversations. But the focus shouldn’t be on coaching as a compliance tool, it should be on building genuine coaching culture that’s rooted in real partnership and sustainability.
In this module, you’ll explore what those conditions actually are, how to protect partnership as the foundation, and how to embed coaching into your broader CPD strategy so it becomes sustainable, not an add-on that fades when attention moves elsewhere.
At the Teacher Development Trust, we’ve had over a decade of experience working with over 500 schools, supporting teachers and leaders to improve their confidence, skills and expertise in professional development. We help leaders invest their CPD resources wisely.
In a 90 minute session designed to fit into PPA time, we’ll give you the basic tools to be able to build your own coherent CPD plan through:
“I introduced coaching across my school this year and I wish I had done this module beforehand…There is a lot that can go wrong and this module offers a comprehensive guide to getting it right.
I found it useful to complete this module because it has enabled me to better identify what I had done well and where challenges were not considered enough. The structure of the course is logical and progressive. It is also easy to follow even though some of the content can be complex.”
Gabriel Calwell, Deputy Headteacher
Once you register for our CPD hub and purchase the module, you can work through it at your own pace. The complete module takes 90 minutes and is designed to fit into PPA time, but you can pause and return whenever it suits you. You’ll have access to your progress and can download your certificate when you finish. Many leaders study it alongside their leadership team or use it to prepare for governance conversations about professional learning.
Senior leaders with responsibility for professional learning: If you’re thinking about how to develop a more coherent approach, or want to clarify the logic of what you’re already doing.
Middle leaders (heads of department, heads of year, SENDCos): If you want to explore how your team’s professional learning might feel more aligned and strategic.
Governors: If you want to understand what coherence looks like so that you can engage confidently in conversations about professional learning and its impact
This module provides foundational thinking. It works on its own, but also works well as preparation for deeper work; whether that’s exploring evaluation, building coaching into your approach, or a full diagnostic review of your professional learning.
Built on Experience
We’re focused on one thing: helping school leaders understand their CPD deeply and invest wisely in what actually works.
We believe in partnership. We believe in evidence. We believe in the humility to keep learning and adapt. We’ve worked with schools and we understand the complexity and the constraints.
We’re not external consultants parachuting in with a template. We’re partners who know what it takes to actually change practice.
When leaders do this work well, when they build genuine trust and create the conditions for vulnerable, collaborative learning, schools transform. That’s what drives us.
All Online Learning modules are intended for individual rather than cross-school or trust use. Any certificates of completion will be in the name of the Hub account holder.
The Teacher Development Trust’s insights on what makes great CPD are informed through our close work with education research, as well as our experience of working with over 500 schools on building stronger professional development programmes through the 7 Domains of People-Powered School Improvement
Each module is also shaped by the influential practice of school leaders working in education today, as seen in our case studies.
Join us to explore how leaders can tap into the power of great CPD and create cultures of professional growth that inspire joy and agency.
A one-day collaborative conference bringing together anyone interested in making staff development in education count.