Leading Professional Learning

Welcome to Leading Professional Learning, a new – and growing – online resource to help school leaders in Wales bring fresh, strategic thinking to how they lead professional learning within their school and beyond. 

We have scoured the international policy and academic literatures to identify eight hallmarks of well-led professional learning – and the resource is built around those hallmarks.  

But don’t just take our word for it: the resource provides links to all the literature we have referenced (most are available to read free online) so, if you want to Go Deeper in your own reading in this area, the resource is designed to be the perfect springboard. 

Under each hallmark you will find engaging content: case studies, links to further reading, spotlight films featuring leading international experts, animations and, in future, recordings of talks and events exploring the hallmarks. We want you to Be Inspired.

Leading Professional Learning does not exist in isolation and has been designed to complement important initiatives at national, regional and local level. Throughout these pages, we are encouraging leaders to Make the Connection with Schools as Learning Organisations, the National Approach to Professional Learning, the Professional Standards for Leadership and Teaching, the National Professional Enquiry Project, professional learning for leaders offered by the Regional Education Consortia, the Professional Learning Journey, and others. We will continue identifying and improving these links as the resource develops. 

Finally, we want Leading Professional Learning to evolve and grow, with more and richer content added over time. So, if your school is Leading Professional Learning in ways that other leaders would benefit from knowing more about – tell us about it and your school could feature as a future case study or be included in our next spotlight film or event. It’s your opportunity to Join In.

Leading Professional Learning: Professor Ken Jones, Education Consultant

In the latest publication from our Insight Series, Professor Ken Jones explores the international academic and policy literatures on Leading Professional Learning. The paper is a companion to the National Academy for Educational Leadership’s Leading Professional Learning resource and will be a useful way for leaders to deepen their understanding of professional learning and how it interacts with school leadership.

Download paper