Professional development, coaching, and consultancy
While this reflection is grounded in school leadership—where I have worked and coached for many years—the dynamics described here echo more widely, across organisations, sectors and hierarchies. Wherever leadership is mythologised, we often reach for familiar archetypes: the lone hero, the bold reformer, the visionary outsider.
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Every so often, education is promised transformation. Not reform, not improvement — but revolution.
I’m just about young enough to remember the mid-2000s, when Web 2.0 arrived with all the promise it carried: blogs, wikis, social media, content creation. “The read-write web,” we were told, would flatten hierarchies, knock down classroom walls, and finally move teaching from sage-on-the-stage to guide-on-the-side. A much-needed shift, or so the narrative went.
Now, two decades later, it’s AI. And once again, we hear the familiar chords: disruption, democratisation, personalisation, and, of course, an end to teaching as we know it.
But if Web 2.0 taught us anything, it’s this:
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In April 2025, the Department for Education published an updated Areas of Research Interest paper — a significant document not just for researchers, but for school and system leaders. It offers a clear signal of the government’s longer-term ambitions, framed through the lens of the national Opportunity Mission: to “break down barriers to opportunity at every stage.”
This paper reflects a shift in emphasis: from short-term initiatives to long-term outcomes, from isolated interventions to system-level thinking, and from research as insight to research as actionable strategy. Schools will feel the effects — and school leaders should of course take note.
Below is a summary of the seven key themes, alongside my reflections on how leaders might respond with clarity, purpose, and care.
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The recent Think Fast, Talk Smart podcast miniseries offers a rich seam of insight for educators. Though ostensibly about spontaneous speaking in high-stakes professions—negotiation, broadcasting, refereeing—it invites us to reconsider the nature of talk in the classroom—not as a peripheral skill or passing distraction, but as a central pillar of how learning happens.
What emerges from the series is a truth both obvious and counterintuitive: spontaneous speaking is not the antithesis of preparation, but its culmination. The ability to respond thoughtfully in the moment—to speak before one is entirely certain, to listen deeply, to adjust mid-flight—is a skill that grows out of deep rehearsal, structured thinking, and intentional practice.
It is also, I would argue, at the heart of great teaching.
(more…)From Purpose to Practice is the latest in a growing set of free resources designed to support school leaders and educators in making thoughtful, purposeful decisions about how technology is used in teaching and learning.
Rather than offering a checklist or endorsing the latest tools, the guide sets out a framework for strategic reflection.
It begins by reasserting a central principle: technology should serve pedagogy—not the other way around.
From there, it explores what meaningful adoption looks like in practice, offering:
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